The morning sky is the color of the smoke, the radio announcer is predicting another rise in gas prices and since I’m back from the Oregon coast, am trying to adjust to life in town when I really long to gaze out at the vastness of the Pacific. While I was there one storm after another ripped through complete with a huge rainbow, mist shrouding the mountains, brilliants swaths of sunlight, and birds so busy and happy at the feeders that they seem to embody spring in their tiny bodies.
Before I left town I attended a lecture by Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. After Mystic River was made into a movie I saw the main actors interviewed on a television show. I recall them mentioning that Clint Eastwood was the least disappointing icon they’d ever met. So it was with Gilbert who was as witty, wise, articulate, and intelligent as her writing. No, probably more so. Not to mention humble and self deprecating. Most of her talk was about art and the need for artists in our times.
After listening to her amid the throngs of devotees I understand why she has throngs of devotees. The book is based on the notion that a woman can heal herself of a deep emotional and spiritual crisis. While I was at the coast this weekend a friend told me she hated the book, that she found it selfish and self involved. Well, all memoir is self involved. But I found it fascinating that a woman is looking for faith in our pop culture times, that she is a genuinely gifted writer who has paid her dues and wields metaphors with great genius; that she showed a lot of restraint when describing her divorce; that she made me feel like I was along on her journey.
Here is a segment of an interview from the Barnes and Noble web site:
What tips or advice do you have for writers still looking to be discovered?
”I can't get behind the ambition to be "discovered" as much as I can get behind the ambition to write beautifully and honorably and steadfastly. Here's what I believe about creativity. I believe that creativity is a living force that thrums wildly through this world and expresses itself through us. I believe that talent (the force by which ephemeral creativity gets manifested into the physical world through our hands) is a mighty and holy gift. I believe that, if you have a talent (or even if you think you do, or maybe even if you just hope you do), that you should treat that talent with the highest reverence and love.
Don't flip out, in other words, and murder your gift through narcissism, insecurity, addiction, competitiveness, ambition or mediocrity. Frankly -- don't be a jerk. Just get busy, get serious, get down to it and write something, for heaven's sake. Try to get out of your own way. Creativity itself doesn't care at all about results -- the only thing it craves is the PROCESS. Learn to love the process and let whatever happens next happen, without fussing too much about it. Work like a monk, or a mule, or some other representative metaphor for diligence. Love the work. Destiny will do what it wants with you, regardless. Just love the work.”
Posts
