An Awkward, Uncomfortable Dilemma – Writing Even When It’s Bad

Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf,
And the aged elm, though touched with fire;
And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm;
And the fence post carried a strand of wire.

For them there was really nothing sad.

– Robert Frost, from “The Need of Being Versed in Country Things”

When I was in college I often spent time with my professors during their office hours. I distinctly recall once I was with Professor Tobias, his corner office stacked with books from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. I asked him if he ever wrote poetry himself, and he said to me, “After reading Keats how can I?” The man was an incredible inspiration to me and a true lover of literature. Although I disagree with his reasons for not writing his own poetry, he does encapsulate a real problem we artists struggle with regularly – the scarcity of creativity and originality.

There are seasons to writing. Sometimes inspiration and creativity are pulsing through our veins, other times it is a challenge just to pick up the pen and write one sentence. Lately for myself the challenge I’ve been having is I feel like I’m writing more for the plot of my story, to just move the novel along, and to get things going instead of meandering around and writing beautiful lines and phrases about the characters or the landscape or memory or something. I feel like lately I’m just pushing the story along and to be honest that’s just not my biggest interest as a writer. Maybe that’s a fault of mine I admit it, but I don’t really view myself as a plot writer. I’m far less interested in what happens in a story and more interested in the feel of the characters, the pulse and poetry of the words and language, the vibe and ambiance the novel elicits. Don’t get me wrong I love a good story, and it’s very important to me that things makes sense and ex machinas are avoided at all costs, but when it comes to plots I am not very demanding at all. I love pretty much anything. I don’t need a lot of action or romance or plot twists or intrigue or something to keep me going and entertained as the case may be. And like I say maybe that’s something for me to work on with my own writing – I mean even Shakespeare knew the importance to entertainment! Perhaps I’m still too much of a romantic, too precious and self-aggrandizing with my work. To be honest, knowing me, there’s a very strong possibility that’s true! But even when I read novels, these are some of the aspects I’m usually more focused on and appreciate. When I think about the novels that I’ve read and loved, I don’t usually think about what happens to the characters or the turns of the plot. Instead I tend to remember more about who those characters were to me, the images and feelings they elicited in me, and the larger world and universe the story took place in. And of course how beautiful the language was. Lately I don’t know if I’m writing that kind of a story. It doesn’t seem like there’s much beautiful language, heck I don’t know if I’ve ever written beautiful language! I honestly sometimes wonder if beautiful language isn’t even all that great in the first place! Like some ineffable, unobtainable Platonic concept or a cloud far off in the upper atmosphere I just can’t reach, maybe stirring language is more ephemeral and elusive than I realized. Maybe it’s better achieved by not even pursuing it at all and just sticking to the story. As you can see the mind of at least this writer can be self-critical, doubtful, and hesitant. And from all the writers I speak with I find this to be the case for them as well. There seems to be something with the process of creation – that godlike urge to create and manifest art anew – that brings with it doubt, hesitation, and self-criticism. Have you noticed that? If you’ve done any writing I’m sure that you have!

In an interview which you can see more of here, Margaret Atwood is asked “What is the hardest part about writing fiction?” and in response she shares the following:

The hardest part about writing fiction is the part that you know you have to put in that is expository….So the parts in the novel are the parts when you know there’s stuff the reader has to know but it’s not very interesting stuff for you to write. Those are the parts I don’t like, and if you’re competent enough they won’t be able to tell which those parts they are. We hope. We’re always hoping [laughs]. We’re always hoping that the hard parts won’t be found out if you like.

I’ve always loved this quote by her, because it reveals the stabbing desperation that writers really struggle with in their works. We really don’t know if something is good or bad or lukewarm. We really just don’t know. We may surmise or have our own personal views, good or bad on things, but in the end no writer can predict the public response. So if we want to write great literature or a great story or even just one great line, what can we really do beyond giving it our all and hoping for the best? What we as writers have more than anything is really only a stubborn persistence, a placid hope, and an enduring obscurity. The future is not ours. Our works are really only ours on consignment. We may create them, but it is the world that owns them and disowns them as the case may be.

How can we as writers work with these struggles and not just keep on writing, but even keep on writing beautifully or at least at the caliber we really aspire to? What really allows us and supports us to carry on regardless? It’s a good question, and I don’t know if I can provide as good of an answer, but I can say that it has been very helpful for me to just keep going anyway. To just keep writing anyway. That’s what I’ve been doing. I put my best foot forward and keep scrawling across the blank page. And sometimes the only way I can keep going is by simply accepting that this may not be my best work. Perhaps the words of today, though I may not really appreciate them much, are exactly what I need to write in order to get that much closer to what I do really want to write. What I am writing today may only be enough to get me through this day. Before writing beautifully, the prime factor for me as a writer is to first of all just write. Only after that can I then aspire to write well. Maybe today or tomorrow or yesterday was a day when I was only able to get some words on the page. Okay! So be it then! At least I accomplished that! Later on I can always go back and make it good, or at least something nearing good. It reminds me of how when I used to rock climb, I was climbing with a semi-professional guy in his personal rock gym, and we working on a little route together on his wall. And he told me some sage advice, “Just imagine as you’re climbing that every move you’re making is setting you up perfectly for the next move you’re going to make.” I don’t think I was ever able to fully climb the route that day, but I do remember those wise words of his, and thinking to myself, “Man that is some really great advice, not just for climbing, but for my whole life.” And today I am reminded once again this is also great advice for me and my writing. The words I write today are setting me up perfectly for the words I wish to write tomorrow. Yes. Yes. I like that!

I chose the quote above by Robert Frost for this post because of one word that always strikes me whenever I read this poem. Awkward. That “awkward arm.” I remember when I first read that line, felt that word, and imagined that image – the awkward arm of an old water pump. I remember I was in a class on The Modernist Tradition, and the same Richard Tobias I mentioned above was my professor. I remember thinking to myself, “Yes that is an awkward arm isn’t it.” When I was thinking about writing this post that word awkward arose in my mind again. Awkward. That was how I have been feeling lately with my own writing. The words just feel awkward. When I realized the connection I was immediately transported back in time and space to that classroom at the University of Pittsburgh and to that image in my mind of an old country water pump. I then found that poem by Robert Frost again called “The Need of Being Versed in Country Things,” and I re-read the poem (you can also read the full poem here if you like). It is a beautiful poem and a sad poem too. And what’s even more interesting is that it seems to relate quite particularly with the larger idea of this post – the idea of beauty and sadness and things that just don’t hold together as we intend them to. We build houses to stay upright and to shelter us and to comfort us. We don’t intend for them to burn down. Likewise we write stories and toil over words and sentences and ideas to somehow voice the pain and love that terrorize our hearts. We write to feel, to suffer, to empathize. We need to connect, to speak for all that lives within us, to understand who we are ourselves. We don’t intend for our stories and our words to fall flat, taste stale, or just be bad. But you know sometimes that’s exactly what happens. Sometimes that water pump arm is nothing more than awkward, sometimes houses do crumble, and our words flounder, but in spite of it all, just like the birds in the poem unaware, we can still continue to sing anyways.