How John Gardner is like cilantro -- Part Two
So, I finished John Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist, and I’m still having issues. Still think Gardner is a lot like cilantro – either you love him or hate him. For me, I can respect that people love cilantro, but it’s never going to be one of my favorite herbs. So it goes for Gardner.
What I’m struggling with is that Gardner writes eloquently about the art and craft of writing. He captures the complexity of creative imagination – how it can be like capturing lightning in a bottle – while emphasizing that a great deal of hard work is necessary, too. But there’s a critical tone underneath it all. Even when he compliments the work of other writers, nothing ever quite measures up. There’s an ideal that cannot be reached.
I guess I’m feeling intimidated. Which is probably not Gardner’s intention.
Some passages (the use of gendered pronoun aside):
On the creative process: “In his [sic] imagination, he sees made-up people doing things -- see them clearly – and in the act of wondering what they will do next he sees what they will do next, and all this he writes down in the best, most accurate words he can find, understanding even as he writes that he may have to find better words later, and that a change in the words may mean a sharpening or deepening of the vision, the fictive dream or vision becoming more and more lucid, until reality, by comparison seems cold, tedious, and dead.”
On writing and revising: “Fiction does not spring into the world full grown, like Athena. It is the process of writing and rewriting that makes a fiction original and profound. One cannot judge in advance whether or not the idea of the story is worthwhile because until one has finished writing the story one does not know for sure what the idea is; and none cannot judge the style of the story on the basis of a first draft, because in a first draft the style of the finished story does not exist.”
On writer’s block: “If children can build sand castles without getting sandcastle block, and if ministers can pray over the sick without getting holiness block, the writer who enjoys his work and takes measured pride in it should never be troubled by writer’s block. But alas, nothing’s simple. The very qualities that make one a writer in the first place contribute to block: hypersensitivity, stubbornness, insatiability, and so on. Given the general oddity of writers, no wonder there are no sure cures.”
On writer’s block: “Writer’s block comes from the feeling that one is doing the wrong thing or doing the right thing badly.”
Every one of these passages speaks directly to me as a writer. I don’t always understand how I create story but I am endlessly fascinated that I can.
Gardner writes, “We need only to figure out exactly what it is that we’re trying to say – partly by saying it and then by looking it over to see if it says what we really mean – and to keep fiddling with the language until whatever objections we may consider raising seem to fall away.”
That pretty much sums up for me the amazing mystery of the writing process (though E.M. Forster said it more succinctly: “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”).
What I’m struggling with is that Gardner writes eloquently about the art and craft of writing. He captures the complexity of creative imagination – how it can be like capturing lightning in a bottle – while emphasizing that a great deal of hard work is necessary, too. But there’s a critical tone underneath it all. Even when he compliments the work of other writers, nothing ever quite measures up. There’s an ideal that cannot be reached.
I guess I’m feeling intimidated. Which is probably not Gardner’s intention.
Some passages (the use of gendered pronoun aside):
On the creative process: “In his [sic] imagination, he sees made-up people doing things -- see them clearly – and in the act of wondering what they will do next he sees what they will do next, and all this he writes down in the best, most accurate words he can find, understanding even as he writes that he may have to find better words later, and that a change in the words may mean a sharpening or deepening of the vision, the fictive dream or vision becoming more and more lucid, until reality, by comparison seems cold, tedious, and dead.”
On writing and revising: “Fiction does not spring into the world full grown, like Athena. It is the process of writing and rewriting that makes a fiction original and profound. One cannot judge in advance whether or not the idea of the story is worthwhile because until one has finished writing the story one does not know for sure what the idea is; and none cannot judge the style of the story on the basis of a first draft, because in a first draft the style of the finished story does not exist.”
On writer’s block: “If children can build sand castles without getting sandcastle block, and if ministers can pray over the sick without getting holiness block, the writer who enjoys his work and takes measured pride in it should never be troubled by writer’s block. But alas, nothing’s simple. The very qualities that make one a writer in the first place contribute to block: hypersensitivity, stubbornness, insatiability, and so on. Given the general oddity of writers, no wonder there are no sure cures.”
On writer’s block: “Writer’s block comes from the feeling that one is doing the wrong thing or doing the right thing badly.”
Every one of these passages speaks directly to me as a writer. I don’t always understand how I create story but I am endlessly fascinated that I can.
Gardner writes, “We need only to figure out exactly what it is that we’re trying to say – partly by saying it and then by looking it over to see if it says what we really mean – and to keep fiddling with the language until whatever objections we may consider raising seem to fall away.”
That pretty much sums up for me the amazing mystery of the writing process (though E.M. Forster said it more succinctly: “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”).
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