The problems of literature
It occurs to me that I enjoy solving the problems of literature. I really like those moments when I am trying to work something out and the pieces click. I guess the problems aren't that hard, and don't really work to much outside of themselves, but there is this reinforcing jolt that I get when I can make characters and plot and so on line up.
It reminds me of solving mathematical problems, though of course there is less rigor involved here, but a similar sort of satisfaction.
I guess there are a few different pleasures in writing novels, a few levels of problems that arise at different points and give different sorts of satisfaction. There is the one that I mentioned in the last post, hitting flow: lining up your mind and your fingers and the page (reminds me, though I might be far off here, of what I heard in Kendo about achieving a sort of oneness between your mind and your body and your sword) which is a very imminent and wild and messy pleasure and then this other, later pleasure of going back and taking these rough pieces and finding the ways they fit together and how they connect to form larger structures, and then how these structures for even grander structures and then how these structures move withing each other to form a cohesive, functioning object: the novel.
(As an aside it makes me wonder, when I read stuff, novel, that are sort of a mash, that don't have any larger structures, that are just a mess of words on the page, what sort of pleasure the author got out of writing it. Conceptual novels too, to a certain extent. These works that lack the obvious exercise of building structures is foreign to me.)
On a totally different problem of literature I wanted to relate the reactions I have gotten from others when I mention that I am working on a novel, full time. It is something that I tried not to do for a long time, and now that I am doing it, little by little, I think I might just go back to it. The reactions, even from people close to me, run between a few extremes of disinterest, disdain, disgust and pity. I think once or twice I have even lost some respect from some people. Seriously. I understand how most people would not be that interested in writing novels (that's fine, I'm not that interested in the finer points of pig farming and we can agree not to bore each other with these conversations) but there are people who seem actively against this, or seem sort of sorry for me for devoting so much time to sitting in a chair and writing about imaginary people.
I guess on the one hand I want to imagine that this is part of the 'heroic artist tempering process', that all the disdain will beef me up for the inevitable onslaught of rejections, critical maulings and poor sales. I'm surely making too much of this though. Regardless I'm excited to meet someone, one day, who, when I mention i devote a lot of time to writing, says something like 'oh cool, what topics are you interested in writing about' rather than 'is it science fiction?' and then a vague grimace when I say (restraining every violent fiber in my body) 'No it is not, actually'.
It's not really a problem, just strange, just unexpected. I want to think that there was a time where a young person could say, with self assurance, 'I'm devoting a great deal of my time to writing fiction right now, and have done this before, so I think I know what I am doing." and people would react, at least, with a knowing frown or an honest nod or a polite 'who do you read'? Maybe this is just a romantic notion, a detached, hopeless wish for an impossible past, but it seems like the situation now is even pretty sore.
It reminds me of solving mathematical problems, though of course there is less rigor involved here, but a similar sort of satisfaction.
I guess there are a few different pleasures in writing novels, a few levels of problems that arise at different points and give different sorts of satisfaction. There is the one that I mentioned in the last post, hitting flow: lining up your mind and your fingers and the page (reminds me, though I might be far off here, of what I heard in Kendo about achieving a sort of oneness between your mind and your body and your sword) which is a very imminent and wild and messy pleasure and then this other, later pleasure of going back and taking these rough pieces and finding the ways they fit together and how they connect to form larger structures, and then how these structures for even grander structures and then how these structures move withing each other to form a cohesive, functioning object: the novel.
(As an aside it makes me wonder, when I read stuff, novel, that are sort of a mash, that don't have any larger structures, that are just a mess of words on the page, what sort of pleasure the author got out of writing it. Conceptual novels too, to a certain extent. These works that lack the obvious exercise of building structures is foreign to me.)
On a totally different problem of literature I wanted to relate the reactions I have gotten from others when I mention that I am working on a novel, full time. It is something that I tried not to do for a long time, and now that I am doing it, little by little, I think I might just go back to it. The reactions, even from people close to me, run between a few extremes of disinterest, disdain, disgust and pity. I think once or twice I have even lost some respect from some people. Seriously. I understand how most people would not be that interested in writing novels (that's fine, I'm not that interested in the finer points of pig farming and we can agree not to bore each other with these conversations) but there are people who seem actively against this, or seem sort of sorry for me for devoting so much time to sitting in a chair and writing about imaginary people.
I guess on the one hand I want to imagine that this is part of the 'heroic artist tempering process', that all the disdain will beef me up for the inevitable onslaught of rejections, critical maulings and poor sales. I'm surely making too much of this though. Regardless I'm excited to meet someone, one day, who, when I mention i devote a lot of time to writing, says something like 'oh cool, what topics are you interested in writing about' rather than 'is it science fiction?' and then a vague grimace when I say (restraining every violent fiber in my body) 'No it is not, actually'.
It's not really a problem, just strange, just unexpected. I want to think that there was a time where a young person could say, with self assurance, 'I'm devoting a great deal of my time to writing fiction right now, and have done this before, so I think I know what I am doing." and people would react, at least, with a knowing frown or an honest nod or a polite 'who do you read'? Maybe this is just a romantic notion, a detached, hopeless wish for an impossible past, but it seems like the situation now is even pretty sore.
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