To open up windows is the function of religion, says Rumi, the wonderful Persian poet. And I would add of writing as well. But how? What kind of writing opens up windows? So much of what we write simply repeats what is in the windowless rooms of our reader’s mind. So much of what we write does not open up a window to something new or something valuable that has been forgotten. Writing that opens up windows gives a new perspective to a reality that in many ways has been shaped by others in predictable ways. A reality that has been shaped since childhood by ancient prejudices and fears, by commercial expectations of success, by the media. So when you write, ask yourself if you are opening windows or whether you are simply reinforcing in the reader what is already there. Writing that opens windows is more than a metaphor – it is a practice, a technique, a decision that is made before you start to write and constantly as you progress in your work. There are innumerable places when your story can go in one direction or another, when your character can be this way or that, when you can choose to say or not say something. Writing that opens windows then becomes an ever-present, bold search for the unpredictable, a struggle to shift the reader’s perception toward some new way of seeing and feeling and understanding. Writing that opens windows arises ultimately from the writer’s recognition that art is capable of feeding the hunger for meaning that exists in the reader’s soul, or at the very least, awaken it. Art helps us live. It gives meaning and solace and hope to our lives. Writing that opens windows allows the reader to look out and be a part of a larger world. It lets the reader know that she is not alone with her yearning for truth and beauty. But writing that opens windows also lets light in. When writing opens a window it becomes a vehicle for grace. It allows grace to enter a person’s heart. Grace can have a divine origin if you are religious, like Rumi, or it can simply be the gratitude for living that life bestows to anyone open to it. Finally, writing that opens windows can only happen if the writer opens windows in his or her heart. That’s the ethic, the responsibility, the integrity of this type of writing. Your writing will open windows in the reader’s life to the extent that you open windows in yours.
October 22, 2015
June 22, 2014
Some Anguished Thoughts on Self-Promotion
How and when did it happen that the art of writing did not end when the novel was finished but continued on to the promotion of the work and its author? And if you believe that self-promotion is now a necessary part of the process of creation, does it have an effect on the writing? Does the quality of the writing diminish if when you start to write you see the process you are embarking on ending not in the completion of a work you love but in the work being loved? What I would like to do for a few minutes in this journal entry is explore that uncomfortable feeling that comes from the act of self- promotion. I am calling “self-promotion” all activities done by the author after the work is finished to sell the book and also to increase the author’s reputation and name recognition. I am lumping together a whole bunch of activities, I know. I’m calling self-promotion anything from attending a conference to talk about diversity, let’s say, because my book has Latino characters to notifying Facebook friends of a favorable review. I’m not saying this is good or bad, necessary or not, accepted and standard behavior or not. I want to talk about why it feels “strange” somehow – to me. There’s a part of me that honestly feels that my books are worth reading, that they have value, and promoting the book is an act of sharing not very different from wanting others to know about the great book I just read. And yet this knowledge does not take away that funny feeling, that funny smell of “ego” that comes with self-promotion. I only speak for myself here, but I think it is good for me to recognize the existence of this feeling and ask if it is trying to tell me something.
One of the things I’ve noticed in myself is that the motivation to write is different from the motivation to be read. The first is not unlike that anticipatory joy I had when, as a child, I could be alone and play with my plastic action figures. An hour or two lay ahead of me where I could imagine and pretend, unwatched and undisturbed, to my heart’s content. The desire to create is as simple and uncomplicated as child’s play. The wish to be read is more complicated. This latter wish can include the wish to be loved and accepted, the incredibly powerful need to be special in our own eyes and in others. And it can also be based on generosity, on the willingness to return goodness received and to share hard-earned craftsmanship and learning and wisdom.The problem (if I can use a word that is in itself problematic) is that the “impurity” (another very problematic word, I know) of the wish to be read affects (one can say “contaminates” to continue with the use of loaded words) the rather pure desire to create. The more I yield to, the more I actualize, the more I pay attention to wanting to be read, the less joy there seems to be in the act of writing. It is as if I were no longer alone as I played with my action figures but was in a room with adults who, although occupied with their own conversation, could hear and watch me play. My play is no longer uninhibited, sincere. It is tempered by the potential listeners nearby. And so it is with writing when the fan or the award or the future Facebook post makes its presence felt as I write.
I’ve come to understand a little better the nature of that uncomfortable feeling that comes with self-promotion. I don’t have a name for it, exactly. But I know that it is a loss of sorts. I can’t get away from feeling that every time I do it I am chipping away at something that needs to be solid, loosening boundaries of something that should be firm, damaging a fragile whole that needs to be protected for the sake of the next act of creation.
I’m not sure I have any great solutions. The fact that I am writing to be read makes self-promotion inevitable. I look for ways to protect the child at play as I talk about the author and his books. I try to keep in mind the self-less motives of wanting to be read: to touch, to awaken, to teach, to delight. The act of writing will always encompass the desire to be read. Even when writing in the journal no one will ever read, we are writing to someone, for someone. For me, it is not possible to give the deepest part of me, which is the best gift I can give any readers I may have, without in some way listening to and attending to the little voice of discomfort that comes with self-promotion.
July 4, 2010
Integrity
I’ve been thinking about what it means for a young adult novel to have integrity. I approach the subject from the point of view of the author. How can I write a novel for young people with integrity and why is it important that I do so? I don’t know why it is so hard to write about integrity. It is almost as if integrity and silence go together. The minute you start speaking about integrity you are in danger of losing it. But maybe the risk is worth taking.
The reason why it is so difficult to write about integrity is because integrity has a lot to do with intent and motive. Why am I writing this? The young adult novel will have integrity if it is written in response to an inner calling, a spiritual necessity. When the impulse to create is pure, when what it seeks is the expression of beauty and goodness, the result is a work that has integrity.
So integrity is something that happens in the mind and heart of the author. But the motive of the author cannot help but manifest itself in the work. There it waits to be recognized by the reader. Integrity is an invisible presence recognized by an invisible awareness. Integrity gives rise to trust between writer and reader. “Yes, I give you my heart. I now know you have my wellbeing in mind,” says the reader wordlessly when integrity is apprehended.
To write with integrity is difficult. To do so the writer must invoke a sort of amnesia for all those external considerations that detract from the work itself. How hard these days to forget about sales and awards and praise or its opposite. But I don’t think integrity means that the writer must forget about the reader — the person for whom she is writing. Rather, to write with integrity means to respect the intelligence, the feelings, the autonomy of the reader. It means that I as an author will remain true to an artistic vision that I intend to share. That the artistic vision is to be shared imposes certain limits to the creation. And it is here in the imposition of limits that I as an author will respect my reader. It is here that I will keep her wellbeing in mind. This dance, this tension, between responsibility to the work and responsibility to the reader is where integrity may be found, where it lives like a spark of life.
