To Thine Own Self Be True

Nora Ephron’s voice reminds me of mine. It’s a lot stronger, more confident, more full of panache, but the inflections and repetitions are like mine. I was thinking this while reading Heartburn in my Nora Ephron reader instead of writing this morning. It’s a funny book. I was listening to the sounds in my head. It read like a movie script. It read like her essays. Her voice came through even in that novel, which I think was her only novel, published in 1983. She wrote most everything she became really famous for after that novel, for which she became famous, and which she published at 42, if Wikipedia is correct. I was lying in bed in my fuzzy bathrobe with my feet under the quilt thinking my writing sounds kind of like Nora’s. Then, before I could stop myself, I was also thinking about the article I glimpsed in the  Sunday paper but was too traumatized by to actually read. It was an article, probably in the Book Review, about an author who was a huge bestselling writer in the 1950s, a huge - yuuuuge - success in other words, but who is now forgotten. I’m sure it was about how often that kind of thing happens. The being forgotten part, I mean. It’s about what I aspire to, isn’t it? I mean, it would be foolish to aspire to more than being forgotten. I mean, no one thinks they’re going to be Jane Austen. Or Jane Jacobs. No Janes. The most people think about when they think about writing success is The New York Times Bestseller List. No one thinks beyond the list. Everyone wants to be on it. But how many people on it today will be remembered tomorrow? 

Just glimpsing that article and skimming the first paragraph was enough to trigger a total confidence meltdown and an upsurge in my sense of futility. This coincided with me coming across a job opening at a good non-profit company that does Important Work. They are looking for a manager of the communications department, which reminded me that perhaps I would have been and maybe still would be much better off with some kind of office job involving writing, no matter how boring, because I would be able to look people in the eye and say I was something and did something. And prove it. I could wave a pay stub at them. Or maybe an employee identification card of some kind. Plus I would see other human adults every day. And I would have to get dressed. Lately I am interested in both dressing nicely and also remaining attached to my fluffy bathrobe. When I say attached, I mean inside it. Like, wearing it. 

Why was I lying in my fluffy bathrobe on my already made bed instead of working on my book? Well might you ask, Readers. After all, I have had a discussion on a telephone involving an agent and an editor at a reputable publishing house that has resulted in an invitation to submit more work. So why am I not scrabbling and scrambling to pull together more work? 

Two reasons. One, I have an overly expansive view of time. I’m “taking a couple of days”, suggested by my agent, to think over the conversation with the publisher before fishing around in my book drafts for more material to revise. A couple of days from the conversation would have brought me to Saturday. Today is Wednesday following. See - expansive. But I don’t think my agent meant to include the weekend. I went away for the weekend to visit family in Washington. So how could the weekend count. So, really, it’s only been four days….

Two, I am procrastinating. 

Look how cute my dog is.

The shade of Steven Pressfield holding a copy of The War of Art in one hand and Do The Work in another is looming. I suppose this means there is a third reason why I’m bathrobe reading. It’s called resistance. This is Steven Pressfield’s big thing. His hook. His battering ram. Artists must battle the forces of resistance before creating art, and resistance takes many forms. Resistance is the obvious, the procrastination, for example, which bleeds into that overly expansive view of time that stretches a couple of days into several, then weeks, months, and years. Resistance, I’m sure Steven Pressfield would say, is also the sense of futility and the fear underlying the futility. So in a sense, there is only one reason I’m not working on the book. Resistance. It’s kind of the alpha and the omega of excuses. 

Maybe this is a good moment to mention the episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt in which Titus gets back out there and goes on auditions for bit parts. Titus comes across an older actor, kind of his nemesis. Nemesis is the wrong word. This actor is the thing Titus fears turning into if he actually gets out there and tries. An actor whose most prominent roles have been as corpses on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. An actor who has been attending the same auditions for the same bit parts as Titus - for fifty years. Titus is depressed by this. As am I. 

This actor has attained kind of the level of success I have as a writer, in other words. Only this actor is pretty happy with his career and his life. He’s satisfied. 

And then he dies. And Titus goes to his funeral. And all the other bit actors on Law and Order are there, and Ice T, the rapper/actor gives a eulogy. Ice T says this guy, this older actor, had a full and happy life. Ice T says this actor was a success because “he was to his own self true.” Which brings me back to Nora Ephron and her voice. Which is really about me and my voice. Which is really about you and your voice. Voice here represents not just expressing yourself in writing, but expressing that thing that is most you. To do that - well, it’s a deceptively simple thing to do. It's also the thing that will fill you with purpose, and therefore, it is the thing you must do.

But to get back to me. In writing, the voice is the thing that brings readers. Nora Ephron found her voice and she expressed it in novels, essays, and on film. It’s a consistent voice - because it’s hers. And who the heck knows if anyone will remember any of it in fifty or a hundred years? The point is not to think about that. (She said, reminding herself.) The point is that if you need to express your voice, you gotta to thine own self be true. Forget about who said it (Polonius to Hamlet) and therefore whether it is actually good advice. Sadly, or happily, that is me. I’ve found my voice these last few years, through my blog. I have the need to be true to it. It’s similar to Nora’s (maybe), but also different, since it’s mine. Sadly, Nora isn’t here anymore to write in her funny, wise voice. I’m here, though. I’m available to write in mine. It’s a bit grandiose and presumptuous to think this - and yet, splayed on the bed holding the very thick compendium of her writings, which includes her screenplay for When Harry Met Sally, I did think that perhaps I can pick up her baton. Since she’s not here anymore, I mean. There’s room for my voice. I intend to use it to carry my book. There’s room for my voice. 

Fall Back, then Leap In

Thought for November: I’m challenging myself. That’s my new plan. Not that I don’t challenge myself. I mean, writing a book is a challenge. Only I haven’t been writing that book consistently enough to feel like I’m really in it, really doing it. 

This comes on the heels of last week’s post about realizing that when I feel stuck – waiting to be pronounced upon was my exact description of the situation – the system collapses, partly because I don’t challenge myself as much as I could. I’ve been thinking about The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield. I’ve written about it here. I’ve been thinking that my system breakdowns are possibly due to resistance. Resistance being the enemy of art, according to Pressfield. To break down resistance, therefore, I am challenging myself.

Challenge the First: Running. Since the weather’s turning yucky, I’m taking my exercise back to the Y and I’m working out harder. Choosing a tougher workout with Kimmy. Why? Because I’m capable of running faster and I want to challenge myself to actually do it. Also - and this may be a slightly stronger motivator – a lot of research shows that intense, shorter workouts may be more effective at staving off middle age spread than longer, more leisurely ones. So I’m mixing it up. Adding a couple shorter, faster runs to my routine. I know I’m supposed to accept my body changing as I grow older. I know I’m supposed to be grateful for the opportunity to grow older. It’s just that vanity and my secret vision of myself as a 5’6” leggy ectomorph won’t let go of me. In short, I’m just not ready for my Spanx to roll down my belly when I tuck into dinner. On those rare occasions when I might want to struggle into them because I’m going “out.”  So there.

Challenge the Second: NaNoWriMo. It’s November, which means another National Novel Writing Month has come around, and I’ve decided to make use of it. No, I’m not going to write a novel. In fact, the very idea of writing a novel in a month is laughable. My novels have taken 9, 4, and 5 (that last unfinished) YEARS to write. However, since I underestimate my abilities regularly, I decided to try to crank out the verbiage this year in November, while the 260, 000 plus souls who have registered for NaNoWriMo crank out theirs. I’m going to go for 50, 000 words, too, but unofficially. I’m going to write a draft of my nonfiction book. In November. The Anne Lamott (also the Hope Perlman) way: by writing a shitty first draft, no looking back until it’s over. The month and the draft. 

I'm trying to change this:

 into one of these:

What will these challenges do for me? Well, the exercise challenge has obvious benefits. All those health benefits. I’ve always been sold on those. Indeed, I’m one of those people who doesn’t feel right if I pass a day with no exercise at all.

A hidden benefit of upping the challenge here is that I will be exercising my willpower, too. I’ll be challenging myself to run faster for longer. This will take extra willpower beyond the willpower to get out and get moving. And exercising willpower strengthens it, and strengthened willpower in one area frees up willpower in other areas, too.

Another benefit of my challenges will be (let’s hope) that I establish a new habit. Since well-known research has proved that establishing a new habit takes about twenty-one days, if I increase my word output to approximately 1600 words a day for thirty days, I may well have a great routine in place to carry me through those system breakdowns when they threaten in future. Momentum. So that the next time the system breaks down, it's less of a total collapse than a slowdown.

A final benefit of challenging myself may be that I get into the habit of doing just that. I break myself of whatever fear of failure or of success, of whatever remnant of shame or who-knows-what (maybe my sister the psychoanalyst knows what) keeps me keeping my expectations low. I know, I know, if your expectations are low, you won't be disappointed. But, frankly, that's actually just a load of hooey. You can live in a state of continual semi-disappointment that way, which may be worse than living with the aftereffects of full on disappointments. 

Now I’ve told you about my challenges, Readers, so I will have to abandon my blog and crawl into a hidey-hole if I fail to stick to them. C'mon, somebody else join the challenge, too!

The Persistence of Resistance

The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield is on a lot of Top 10 Writing Book lists (for example, this one:Brainpickings Best Books on Writing/)Its subtitle is Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles.  The title is a riff on Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, which is a famous book I’ve never read. A lot of business folks do read it, though. It’s no doubt full of Eastern Wisdom about the nature of war, applicable to the battle for business supremacy as measured by dollars. Pressfield’s title is a catchy inversion, no? Creative folk also seek success, although perhaps on different terms, and we can use all the help we can get, especially in our business-centric society. In a nutshell, Pressfield’s idea is that resistance, or should I capitalize it, as Pressfield does, Resistance, is the Enemy when it comes to creating. According to him, creating art, or undertaking anything that moves us “from a lower sphere to a higher,” such as education, “an innovative enterprise,” or spiritual growth, forces us into pitched battle against Resistance. Resistance is what stands between “the life we live, and the unlived life within us.”