The Inner Life of Story

Dear Karen -

Your letter gave me much to chew on (no puppy-pun intended). How do we take care of the puppies and children and families we have, while also taking care of writing?

In my work as a teacher I often find myself with a student who has a young child or two. The issue of how to write while also being a mother always comes up, and honestly, I feel myself flagging in the face of someone needing real guidance, real advice about how to simultaneously navigate the demands of writing and the demands of keeping small humans alive and safe and well-bred.

I’ve never had children. In fact I have deliberately not had children. It was easy to see as a child that motherhood was not exactly working in my own mother’s favor. Even before I knew I wanted to write, even before I knew how intense the demands of writing can be, I had made this life choice. I was on birth control before I had sex. I got my tubes tied when I was in my twenties. I’m probably the worst writing teacher in the world to deal with the issues of motherhood and writing. I rank right in there with some men I know who cannot get pregnant and therefore see it as a non-problem.

But it is a problem. And it’s a problem that affects all women who write, because the problem is not just who’s going to feed little Johnny, and change his diaper, and play with him so he develops into a functional adult. The problem is also do we value women as artists? Do we value traditional women’s work? Do we believe one can be both mother and artist? I obviously didn’t believe it.

But even though I made the choice of not having children, I believe that all artists must live real, physical lives in order to write well. We cannot simply live in our heads. Good fiction, good essays, good storytelling is based in the physical world. If a story is set in a cemetery, then the writer must build a cemetery for the reader. It’s not enough, even though we all know what a cemetery is, to say cemetery. We all know what a house is too, but it is not enough to say house. Every house is different. Every cemetery is different. The writer’s job is to bring these places alive for the reader.

While I don’t know what to say to a young mother who is struggling with time, and psychic space, and energy while trying to write a novel, I do know that the physical world, even the frustration of caring for someone or something else besides writing is a very valuable thing. This is what I tell people. Relax. Do what you have to do to take care of now. The writing will not go away.

The trouble is, I know that it can go away. I know that one can choose to not pay attention to writing, to characters, to story, and these things can go away. I think of writing and stories as having a choice. I think of stories circling the earth, looking for someone to tell them to the world. I see them as having a pool of writers to choose from. In a few cases, I have been chosen. In some cases, I’ve tried to reject the story. It scared me. I wanted something easier, less challenging, less potentially embarrassing should I fail. But what I found was that the story dug in. It insisted on being told. My only choice was to either tell it, or quit writing all together. There was no in between for me. Had I quit writing all together the story would have eventually gone away. If I decided years later, to write it, I might have found myself knocking on an empty door.

I also think though, that stories are kind and forgiving things. There have been times in my life during which I could not write, and I’ve simply spoken to the story. “I can’t write now,” I said. I have to pack boxes to move. Or I have to help my mother. Or I have to take care of a sick person. Or I am the sick person. I set an intention to think about the story, not to obsess about it, not to gnaw on it like a dog at a bone, but to live with it in my subconscious, in my being, the same as if I were immersed in writing it. When I return to actually writing, the story is there. It is always there, the same way that puppy will always be waiting for you at the door.

Stories and dogs are very loyal creatures.

I admire you for taking on a puppy. The most I have ever been able to take on is a husband and a cat, and currently I do not have a cat.

Much love to you and yours my friend. Nancy