Book Talk: Not Because It's Cute

 

The Sweaty-Toothed Madman: Reading Is Becoming; Writing Is Telling Who We Are

Editor's Note: In the interest of full disclosure, in my day job, I am a reading teacher and a literature teacher for special education students. I live this stuff every damn day of my life. And I love it.

There are hundreds of movies about writers and writing. I should know. I've reviewed many of them here for the blog. And I'm currently compiling those reviews into a book. But back to the point. Sadly, there aren't as many movies about reading. Writing is something people aspire to. Writers are something people seek to become for fame, fortune, or (for some of us) immortality of a certain kind. 

But readers, well, where are the movies that demonstrate the importance and the immortality of the flip side of writing -- READING? There aren't as many. Perhaps that's because reading is seen as something else -- a pastime, an enjoyment, an additive to life, not a calling, not an aspiration. 

Perhaps the best of the lot is Dead Poets Society. One of the things I really love about Dead Poets Society is how it stresses how much reading is tied to becoming who we are as people. Ideas are learned and adapted or learned and discarded. That's the power of reading. That's why I think a liberal arts education is so important, even for business and STEM folks.

As John Keating (played with legendary panache by Robin Williams) says in the film:

“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, 'O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?' Answer. That you are here -- that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”

It's not uncommon for Robin Williams to choose roles that make viewers stop and think. He's done it in his serious flicks like Good Morning, Vietnam (another favorite of mine), The Fisher King,  and What Dreams May Come and in his comedies like Mrs. Doubtfire and The Birdcage. His performances have a way of changing the viewer in the same way he explains poetry can as John Keating. 

"What will your verse be?" I can't think of a more inspiring question. 

There is a world, and you get to leave a mark on it. But how do you do that? How do you learn who you are? Sure, a lot of that knowledge comes from the people we grow up with. Family, friends, and community shape many of our views and many of our opinions along the lines of religion, politics, culture, etc. But our growth as human beings doesn't stop there. 

Have you ever heard someone complain that a child went off to college and came back a different person? The word often unfairly thrown around is "brainwashed," but let's be honest. It's not that at all. It's exposure. Suddenly that child is exposed to differing, various, equally valid points of view, and that child has the opportunity to think for himself/herself/themself and decide on their own whether the new knowledge or or the former knowledge, whether the need to think and process for oneself or the familial/community pressure to conform is the greater cause -- or how those two opposing forces are to be blended into something new. 

This takes us directly into our first responsibility when reading as lifelong learners.

"We must constantly look at things from a different way."

"Today a reader, tomorrow a leader," says Margaret Fuller, because she understood the power of opening our minds to the experiences of others that can be discovered in the written word. So many people don't have the opportunity to visit all the peoples and places in the world. Books are their tickets to these peoples and these places. It is through reading that the world becomes part of us and us part of it. 

C.S. Lewis tells us, "We read to know we are not alone," and it's true. That's precisely why Stephen King goes even further to call books "a uniquely portable magic." 

Readers consistently and continually  (even continuously for those grammar and vocabulary nerds among us) learning and growing and changing. Readers are far more likely to look back on the people they were ten years ago and shudder, thinking "Was I really like that?" And the greater variety of voices readers expose themselves to, the greater the breath of that growth -- again, not because they accept willy-nilly every new idea and every new point of view they come across, but because such exposure allows them to truly pick and choose where their truths and ideas lie for (in many cases) the first time. The more ideas readers expose themselves to, the better they become at weighing and prioritizing the varying points of view rather than becoming less able to confront them. 

"When I look back," says Maya Angelou, "I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young." It is precisely by reading that writers become... well, just become. They don't exist before the "writer" begins as "reader." They are a non-entity before they discover the power of written words, or as Margaret Atwoods puts it: "A word after a word after a word is power." 

That power is the magic, the nuclear energy, the joie de vivre creates the infantile stirrings to tell stories, to matter, to exist (damn it!), and to make it know that we exist (damn it!). Margaret Atwood calls it power. Stephen King calls it magic. C.S. Lewis calls it sehnsucht. 

“Sehnsucht” is a German word that roughly translates as longing… but Lewis does a brilliant job of fleshing this rather bland translation... Lewis described Sehnsucht as an inconsolable longing in the human heart “for which we know not what.”  It is a haunting sense of longing which Lewis said touched him throughout his life.  It has elements of nostalgia and joy, but also an intense awareness of missing something. (Elizabeth Camden , "C.S. Lewis and Sehnsucht," https://elizabethcamden.com/2011/05/16/c-s-lewis-and-sehnsucht)

In many cases, Lewis uses the word for the long for belief and faith, but I think it's equally evident that he saw it as that longing for story within each of us and for engaging in the pursuit of the imaginative, and for him (by and large) that is a discovery that comes through the stories that are shared from others, particularly for him, fairy stories and mythical legends. Those shaped his understanding of life, not just fiction. And they enabled him to tell us who he is through works that continue to live on, both fiction like The Chronicles of Narnia and nonfiction like A Grief Observed.

What authors and what books you choose to read can and will and should help to shape the way you see the world -- and that is exactly the kind of truth that should be exposed in your writing as well. 

"We're not talking artists, George. We're talking free thinkers."

One of the great wrong beliefs about writing (or really any artistic endeavor) is that the person making art must obtain mastery. The goal of creating any kind of art isn't to become the most proficient or to achieve the capital "A" in Artiste. It is to create. It's that simple. Well, almost that simple. It does go one step further -- it is to create what is uniquely yours and can't be created by anyone else. 

That may sound broader and more daunting, but it's still just as simple. 

Reading helps you think. Thinking builds the imagination. Imagination fuels inspiration. Inspiration fills the mind to become its true self. 

The goal isn't to just rehash everything you read, but to take it in, to mull it over, to keep what feels like you, and then to dump the rest of it out and into the garbage. Or, as Keating tells his students:

"Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, 'Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.' Don't be resigned to that. Break out!"

If Step One is to read, then Step Two is to take what you read and form opinions about it. Do you believe it or disbelieve it? Do you use it to build on who you already are? Or do you disregard it? Do you break it apart and mix the pieces into who you are?

Content that is consumed without being reviewed, without being experienced, without being analyzed is meaningless. Or, as Charlie (Nuwanda) tells the other members of the Society: "Are we just playing around out here? If all we do is come together and read a bunch of poems to each other, what the hell are we doing?"

Does what you read help you become? If it doesn't help you do that, then what the hell are you doing? And it's not just reading. It's experience. If what you are experiencing -- both read and lived -- isn't constantly creating and recreating you -- it's just the life equivalent of empty calories. 

Putting words into your brain should lead to something. Putting words into your brain should lead to becoming someone. 

According to Ursula K. Le Guin: 

"As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul."

Once that work of mutual creation has begun, we have both the authority and responsibility to share that new creation we have become, or as Uncle Walt says, ""I sound my barbaric YAWP over the world’s roofs."

"Words and ideals can change the world." (a.k.a. sounding your barbaric yawp)

What does your writing, what do your stories say about the world you inhabit? What do your characters say about human nature? What do the kind of plot your create say about a sense of fairness, liberty, existential dread, love, passion, etc. in the world? 

Even if you don't say it intentionally, these are the things that your writing will say about you regardless of your silence. Why? Because that silence isn't really silence at all. Your work has been subtly (or not so subtly) speaking about you with every freakin' word you've written. 

I've written about theme several times before. Theme is where the writer can't help but enter the work -- not in any kind of Mary Sue or Marty Stu way -- but in the authentic ways no writer can avoid. Some might say even when they try to avoid doing it. Theme is never something to be ashamed of. Theme is to writers the "barbaric yawp" Walt Whitman wants to shout from the rooftops. Theme is to writers the recognition that your opinions and your points of view and your ideals matter and that it's okay for them to be inside your work. They shouldn't be merely tolerated but celebrated. 

"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled 'This could change your life," says Helen Exley. Are yours dangerous? Are they the kinds of stories that change people and alter the ways people think about each other? Do they "happen" to the people who read them in any experiential way? According to Haruki Murakami, that's the purpose of books and stories. "Have books ‘happened’ to you?" he asks. "Unless your answer to that question is ‘yes,’ I’m unsure how to talk to you."

Even those of us who "just want to tell an interesting story and not change the world" are going to change someone. And that's okay. In fact, that's fantastic. Who wants to create art that goes into the brain and gets discarded without a second thought? Who wants to write throwaway content? What wants to waste a life creating something that didn't matter to anyone? 

It's not just a yawp. It's a barbaric yawp you're screaming. I am here. I mattered. I matter. As writers, you are taking a courageous stance. You are shouting to the universe that you are worth noticing. You are living out loud the kind of life that says "Look at me and what I created!"

"Damn it, Neil, the name is Nuwanda."

The final part of our discussion (okay, monolog) is that of not just discovering who we are and how reading plays into that discovery, of learning to put all that stuff we read together to recreate who we are, or to have the guts to start writing down on paper (or digital space) those new thoughts that stem from who we are newly recreated to be, but it is to proudly proclaim our new identity without embarrassment, to proudly show how it defines not only us as individuals but identifies our people, our tribe as well. 

I know it's a sort of insulting cliche that we all tend to want to be ourselves by copying others (often leveled unfairly against Goths by folks dressed in Country Club cosplay), but even when we do pursue individuality it is often to find where we fit in the world. In fact, it is only when we become truly ourselves can we realize where we actually belong.

I love the way the gonzo director John Waters says this: "It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else."

It's precisely when we find who we are, what we believe, how we spread that to others and how it helps us find "our people" that we find that safety zone from which to proclaim, as Charlie, "Damn it, Neil, the name is Nuwanda." 

We find strength in both our voices and the voices of the others we surround ourselves with. That means both human beings in our circles and the human beings in our books. As much as my people are my convention and writing buddies such as Bobby Nash, Ellie Raine, Elizabeth Donalds, Barry Reese, Sorella Smith, Nikki Nelson-Hicks, and so many others, I also consider my people to be Hemingway, O'Connor, Chandler, Hammett, Phillips, Mosely, McBain, Jackson, and the other writers whose work graces my shelves. Both the living and the dead, the near and the never-have-met are my people. They help shape me and help empower me to keep creating. 

And it is that strong, continuously strengthened voice that allows us to yawp and keep yawping, against an industry that is floundering, against a public that devalues reading more and more each year (it often seems), against family members that tell us to be sensible, against the folks who would insist our name is Charlie.

Note: Quotes used in the article come from either the movie script or from this article: https://celadonbooks.com/inspiring-quotes-about-books-and-reading/

O' Captain, My Captain: Taming the Writers' Group Monsters

It never fails. Iron sharpens iron. It's so dependable an axiom that it's also a cliché. 

If you want to get better as a writer, surround yourself with other writers who will challenge and inspire you. One of the best ways to do that is through being part of a writers' group. The trick is usually in finding one that is focused on what you need from it and one that is filled with writers you "click" with. 

The problem is that far too often, groups fizzle out because they're not really accomplishing anything truly helpful for the group's members. For every 5 groups created, it feels like at least 7 die on the vine. 

Okay, I know that's statistically impossible, but it sure as hell can feel that way when you're looking for a group that can help you become a better, more efficient and effective word-slinger. 

Focus, Focus, Focus

What do I mean by "focused on what you need"?

Well, at its most basic, a writers’ group is merely a group of writers (usually a small group) who read and share their work with each other. But some groups have a more organized plan for how to help each beyond just an audience to be read to. 

Sometimes, when you're lucky (or if you help direct a group so) a group can know each other so well they know what parts of the writing process and what techniques to target for the most effective and efficient use of a group's time. 

Is dialog a key issue? Perhaps it's plotting? Or maybe establishing more character depth? 

The best groups can zero in on such things and help each writer involved develop in areas such as these. 

Most typically though, all that is available through your local college or library is a group of writers of various levels who write and read. And that's okay. Particularly for beginning writers and those who need more experience in sharing their work with others. 

Because writing is such a solitary exercise, it's not uncommon for writers to be inexperienced with sharing their work, whether aloud or simply by passing around a printed copy. And that's where many writer's groups excel -- helping a shut-in of a wordsmith put his/her/their work in front of others for review and critique. 

But, if you have any say-so in a group, remember that pushing each other is the only way to grow in the craft. A group, if it wants to actually be useful to a serious writer, needs to push its members and to keep them writing. If it fails in these two tasks, well, it becomes more of a social group and less of an effective tool for members. 

Perhaps the most amazing writers’ group I was ever a part of grew out of a college creative writing class. During the class, it was a melee of opinions -- informed, uninformed, and everything between -- not particularly helpful. But after class each day (after the class itself had ended too) four of us continued to meet once a week for coffee before school and really pushed each other to work within our chosen styles to become better at putting our ideas into stories. It worked because we were able to cut through all the nonsense of the large class and get together those who really wanted to improve. 

However, the biggest obstacle to building such a group is most often the group's members themselves. 

The People in Your Neighborhood

That brings us to the people you meet in a typical writer's group. 

As much as this list is also a work of satire, it's also sadly built on actually people you and I both have encountered in real-life writers’ groups.

The "I Was Born for This" Writer: 
This writer feels pre-ordained to the act of wordsmithing. Not just that, but somehow equally pre-ordained to being a sort of chosen one in the craft, whether in popular fiction or something more avant-garde. This person is often "blessed" with pre-conceived ideas that simply can't be corrected until they get over themselves and realize they are not the Harry Potter of prose. 

The "I Love These Floor Tiles" Writer:
A.K.A., the shy one. This writer may be hiding the next true master of the form (or not) but you'll never know because they never speak up, hell, they rarely look up from the floor to make eye contact. And getting them to read... Well, you can forget that. 

The "Serious Literary" Writer: 
These writers believe themselves above the whole deal. After all, "no one else in this group is there for creating art, are they? They just want to change the almighty dollar." This person tends to quote James Joyce and reference scholastic literary terms lesser writers haven't yet encountered in their journeys. They "bleed emotions onto paper" and call it art, and if you're too dumb to understand their genius, that's all on you. 

The "Total Newb" Writer:
Energetic and "just so excited to be here," this writer is the person who really stands to get the most out of a group like this -- if only they would stop gushing all over the experience so they could get to the actual work of writing. They're far most likely to tell you their dreams than their plans, their long-term goals over their short-term ones, and still haven't learned the hard lessons that most early drafts actually do suck hard.

The "Button Pusher" Writer:
This person studies the rest of the group and knows just what buttons to push to irritate the others. This one knows that Margaret doesn't like stories with vulgar language, so he/she/they write in lots of it. This one knows that violence upsets Jim, so over the top violence is the theme of the next writing exercise. 

The "How Gross Is Too Gross" Writer:
Closely akin to the "Button Pusher," this writer revels in their genre of choice -- horror, and the more graphic the better. Women aren't molested -- they're raped. Victims are just killed -- they're disemboweled. Ghouls aren't just creepy -- they're dripping pus and blood on granny's good rug. You'll usually find them wherever there's a group filled with their foil writer -- the "Sweet Little Ol' Lady."

The "Copy Cat" Writer: 
These writers are either still trying to find their own voices or they're just not interested in do anything more than being a copy of their favorite style or author. Most of us may begin this way, but we quickly outgrow it. I myself started by copying C.S. Lewis and then moved on to Ernest Hemingway before discovering how to apply my inspirations to find my own voice. 

The "Hobbyist" Writer: 
These writers are looking for fun for the most part. And that's perfectly fine. Sometimes they catch the bug and sometimes they don't. But again, that's okay. The trick of it all is to make sure that the bulk of a group isn't filled with this type, or you may find it unhelpful. 

The "Memoir of the War" Writer: 
You’ve seen this one in every movie about a writers’ group. They're the one who believes their personal memoir of war, small town life, big city adventures, etc. will be the fodder for the next "Great American Novel." Closely akin to the "I Was Born for This" type, they have a lot of mystical myths about the way the life and process of both writing and publishing work to dispel before they can get out of their own heads and out of their own way. 

The "Just Here for the Snacks and Free Coffee" Member: 
I'm not even calling this one a writer. They never have anything the share and have little to say in critique or review other than some vague "I liked it" or "It's not bad" kind of muttering. It makes you really wonder just why they are even showing up. 

Okay, okay. I jest. And yes, I am making a little fun of the stereotypes. But let's be honest... If you've been in a writers’ group, you've met them before, at least in part. Don't lie. 

Practical Magic

Still, how does a group with these folks become a group that can actually help a writer focus on getting better and getting helpful critique?

Luckily (I knew there was a reason I wrote this article), there are some ideas I've found helpful from the various groups I've been a part of. 

1. Get to know the types and learn to balance them. Find the stereotypes behind your members and look for ways to help them or lessen their negative impact. For example, find a way to limit the Serious Literary writer from harshly overcommenting on the work of others. Ask better guided questions instead of vague ones to help direct the reviews to matters of technique, tone, etc. rather than "It was fun" or "I didn't like it."

2. Get to know the "You are here" X for each member. Learn where the writers in your group are on their path, not where they think they are. Some may be farther along than they believe, and others may not be as far along as they believe. If you don't have a new member questionnaire, perhaps one might be needed.

3. Notice that genre isn't a concern. Unless you are founded as a mystery writers or horror writers group, don't make a big deal about the genres in which the members choose to write. Be far more concerned with helping each grow in their own style, genre, etc. 

4. Get to know the strengths for each member. But be careful, they may not be what the writer in question believes. And they don't have to be spoken necessarily as long as they are taken into account when directing the discussions and critiques. 

5. Get to know the weaknesses for each member. Bear in mind, no one likes to hear about what they're not good at. Again, these don't have to be spoken as long as they are taken into account in directing the discussions and critiques.

6. Target your critiques based on the type, level, strengths, and weaknesses of each member. If discussions don't address the actual needs of a group, then the group runs to the risk of becoming a mutual admiration society or one writer's personal crusade against other types of styles. 

7. Start all over again. Sorry, my friends. Like Ouroboros, this snake keeps eating its tales and needs to be done over and over again throughout the life of a group.

8. Encourage and help members who don't fit to find a group more appropriate for their goals, types, level, strengths, and weaknesses. This can be the most difficult part. Sometimes the best help a group can gift to writers is to help them find a group that will be more useful to them. Sometimes the best help a group can gift to the members of the group is to request that a writer who doesn't mesh with the team (looks only for praise, considers vacation thrillers to be not real literature, ridicules new writers for not knowing the basics or literary terms by their Strunk & White names, etc.) politely find another group.

It's not easy. And it takes effort. But it's worth it if you want to really build a group where you sharpen each other's iron and surround yourself with other like-minded writers looking to improve and learn from each other. 

In Short...

Do you remember the famous scene in Dead Poet's Society when the students react to Robin Williams' dismissal with a spontaneous outburst of "O' Captain, my Captain" from Walt Whitman's poem? Sure. What writer among us doesn't? But what does that have to do with any of this? 

Well, it takes leadership to make a writers' group work. It takes direction. It takes balance and structure. It takes a lot more than just a group of people writing and reading. If you're in a group that you'd like to see become more effective in helping you improve as a writer, hopefully something in the half-thought ideas and satirical caricatures that can help your either find or create such a group. Or perhaps lead one.

Movie Reviews for Writers -- Dead Poets Society

Dead poets pass down literature. And literature is anarchy. Literature is counter culture, regardless of the culture. 

But not all fiction or poetry is literature (but it can be in the right setting and with the right catalyst). There is safety and there is fringe. Fringe is danger. Really letting art inside subverts a person's emotions and longings. 

That's the message of Dead Poets Society. When you embrace art, you can't see the world the same way anymore. You become part of a sort of underground filled with danger and wonder and new experiences and pushing existing limits. 

Some call it escape. Some call it fantasy. Some call it relaxation even. But good, true art changes the reader. Period. Just like fire creates heat. Art creates change. Sometimes subtle. Sometimes loud and abrasive. 

Art pushes the status quo. Art demands that the reader question rules and previously held mores and morals. 

Art creates martyrs and disciples. Art makes Keating "preach" how poetry pushes and envelopes and antagonizes, and in turn that same art shapes Charlie, Neil, Todd, and the other students into disciples who must study and "worship" in secret because art makes them weird and dangerous to the norm. 

In a way, the Society becomes a sort of First Century Church, holding vigil away from the eyes of the Roman Empire, and I believe that's a strong statement Dead Poets Society makes intentionally. Art defines its own sense of religious affection, having in its domain emotion and imagination and compelling action. 

Keating's message, his edict of this new religion is to "make your lives extraordinary." He reduces this, almost mantra-like, to carpe diem, seize the day. And just like Jesus warned that faith can tear families asunder and turn fathers against sons, Keating's message of being true to the truth about you does just that. 

That faith has consequences, however, resulting in both a real and a figurative martyrdom. But like any true faith, it somehow perseveres, leading to the powerful image at the close of the film. "Oh captain, my captain!"