Beating the system

Aristotle (384-22 BCE) was among the first we're aware of to pin the butterfly of story to the dissection board, where it might be dissected, speculated upon, improvements for its survival offered.  Subsequent names such as Milton, Pope, and Dryden were offered to those of us who pursued the liberal arts paths through its gnarly bifurcations, causing some of us to arrive out of the academy only to return to it as a teacher.  Others among us went forth to become editors; yet others chose that most precipitous path of the writer, while you with no real deliberation and quite a bit of serendipity became that ultimate hyphenate, the writer-editor-teacher-critic.

As the beginning, defensive writer is wont to say, this--the previous paragraph--all has a point, which you didn't begin with, neither from stubbornness or ignorance of the in medias res approach which was known at least as far back as that classic of in medias res, The Iliad.  You began where you did because the theme is system and who better than Aristotle to have started us  thinking about systems, right?

Over the years in which storytelling has extended its metaphoric arms to embrace us, critics and writers have attempted to deconstruct the concept to the point where they could explain how they themselves do it and, ever ready to push the envelope, demonstrate how you, too, can do it.  Following some systems, you actually produced stories that were paid for and published.  One editor whom you greatly admired even went so far as to call you one of his regulars, which was nice while it lasted because he had raised the stature of his journal to a fine level.  It did not go far enough to suit you; in fact no sooner had he told you that you were one of his regulars when he promptly died.

Nevertheless, you had a system that produced stories for you and apparently for other editors as well, one of whom took your work on with dizzying regularity.  You to this day are on the fence about why he decided to fold up his literary tent.  Nevertheless, system worked in the sense that it worked for you.  You have seen your way through any number of students, most of whom you have impressed with the need to forget about the other systems out there, instead developing one of your own.  It will surely have any number of the qualities Aristotle noted, back there before the Common Era began.

Individuals appear on the scene, eager to learn the conventions and systems that will make them better storytellers.  They want to beat the system of the moment by mastering it to the point where it appears to anyone who reads their work that they know all the correct applications of technique.  Ever spend any time at a Hyatt Regency or Hilton Motel? you ask from time to time.  Both chains display works alleging themselves to be art.  The perspective is right on, the colors are--well, they are presented with some pretense at nuance.  The themes are in many ways less offensive than some vacation photos you've seen.  But they don't fucking work.  They don't take you anywhere.  They don't remind you of anything except that there is a soft drink dispenser and ice machine down the hallway.

There are stories of that sort, as well.

They don't take you anywhere, except to the book store or library, where you can find stories that do take you somewhere, written by men and women who are still explaining to themselves what it means to them.  You are thinking of using Louise Erdrich's The Plague of Doves as a writing text book. It might make some sense to use the book about writing you have written as a textbook as well because you say in so many words that the whole idea of story is not a system; it is evolved through all the disappointments and dead-end writing, all the near misses, all the acceptance letters, all the times when your ink cartridges ran dry or your computer swallowed something or your dog got sick on a manuscript or you threw something across the room because it was so wonderful that you couldn't stand being so close to it and because you were insanely jealous that someone other than you had written it.

If it exists somewhere else, it is not you.

Dr. Livingstone, I Presume

When you are in a story to the point where you are no longer aware of the way you came in and are now casting about for some kind of literary GPS for clues leading to any of the cardinal directions, you have arrived at an articulated dislocation most non-writers, non-musicians, or non-actors experience every day, although they fail to recognize the condition on any conscious level.

You do not intend to ignore the painter or sculptor or photographer or dancer from your list of Henry Morton Stanley, seeking--and finding-- the equivalent of David Livingstone in the depths of Africa as a metaphor for the discovery of a significant goal at the end of a discombobulating quest,nor for that matter do you intend slight to the quantum physicist who reaches to understand how it all began, the it being in practical terms us.  Even though your atheism is quirky with unlettered anomaly, you mean no slight either to those who leap across a chasm of reason and cultural morass with--for them--tangible consequences should their leap fall short.

The activities you know to a closer degree have revealed some of their secrets to you, or perhaps by dint of studying them, you have understood them to a greater extent than the others,  The ones you cherish are about timing, about portrayal of feeling over a span of elapsed time.  The absolute joy is being so engrossed in them that you for moments at a time seem to own them.  Of course you do not, not even your own stories, which are products of your own imagination.  The entire process is an interest-free loan from the universe, which is the bedrock cause of you being here in the first place.  The awareness that you are in deep, looking for an answer, a way out of the labyrinth, is exhilarating, you can almost feel the droplets of endorphin being squeezed from your psyche.  When you first were on to this discovery, you could neither describe it nor articulate even to yourself its source.  You cannot say with certainty that you know it for sure, but there is a greater sense that it is not merely for the personal pleasure it gives you, rather the feelings come from the desire to share the results.

Back in the days, the explorers would come back with their discoveries to present the proof of their journey to some royal society or other in England.  This was often a wealthy man's occupation, the rest having to work under unbelievable circumstances to make ends meet.  Today, the investigations are going on all about you; men and women of every age are setting forth to define the universe while in the process of having a dialogue with it.

One of your dearest hopes is that your journeys of discovery and investigation will never sound boring to anyone, least of all to you.

Distractions

A distraction is something that takes your focus away from its previous landing, then positions it elsewhere.  Distractions can be welcomed, particularly if they carry with them a promise that has become lost or abandoned during your previous focus.  Promise plays an important, dare you say distracting role in the process.  Distraction is the "Look over here," or "Look at me," or the "Watch this." of a bored, unfocused mind.

Distractions may also become disorienting, having you arrive somewhere you had not anticipated, as though you'd boarded the wrong plane or train.  Now you have to retrace your steps, wonder what it was you were doing.  It is like going back inside a theater you've just vacated, suddenly aware you are missing wallet or glasses or cell phone, not finding the offender, despairing of the consequences, then discovering the missing object waiting in your car, where you'd left it.

If a distraction is handled artfully in something you are reading, you do not get the speed bump sense of the jerky driver at work; events appear to blend naturally, following the purpose of one or more characters which is, after all, the intent of the author.

You do not wish to distract persons who are having anything at all to do with something you have written.  Having been on more than a few bumpy rides, you cannot abide the thought of subjecting anyone to the jerky sense of discontinuity crossing the border from concept A to the next destination on the itinerary.

Magicians are the ones to watch when it comes to managing or manipulating distractions.  Each gesture of a magician is a nuance, leading you away from something in order to protect the dramatic essence of the final, emotional effect which is, after all, the gulping emotion of wonderment.  It is all illusion, we say of the magician.  How grand it would be to be able to say of your own work, it is all illusion, carefully orchestrated to produce this gulp of amazement.

I think I can see how you did that, you have said on occasion to some writer you admire.

It was the purest luck, the writer often says.  I was being led by, perhaps intuition, perhaps by--

Magic, you say in unison.

Humor vs. Gravity

 This is in fact a funny planet, a humorous planet on which the basis of true humor is revealed to the human species the way the physical laws of gravity are revealed to everything, including humans.  The mere alignment of humor and gravity speaks to the basis of humor.  Gravity governs the attraction between particles as well as humans.  Humor reveals sad truths, gravity reveals attraction.  Bodies may be drawn to one another, falling objects or, for that matter, even falling wolverines are drawn to other bodies as they fall.  Persons are drawn to one another, referring to the draw as chemistry.  Depending on the way you feel about such things, being drawn to another individual may make you wish to consider you had been intimates in another life, that you are perhaps soul mates or other such phenomena, when in effect you are drawn to internalized gravity, images of some cultural or idealistic attraction which, in your romanticism, you attempt to inflate.

The sad truth, which is to say the humor, of this planet is that you are going to lose out to forces you at one time may have thought you controlled but which in reality have controlled you as much as gravity controlled you.  Even if you were at one time smart or good looking or particularly well-coordinated, it is not a good idea to think that these elements can help you with anything beyond momentary gravity; the planet is littered with monuments of individuals who have thought to better themselves by dint of good looks or smartness or such coordination as, say, Kareem Abdul Jabar or Ted Williams possessed at one time in their life span.

The steps to the next plateaus of experience come from finding a portal to a landscape in which the individual is further individualized as some form of instrument, a writer, an actor, a dancer, a poet, a biologist, dare you include editors and teachers?  You dare.  Abraham Maslow called such individuals self-actualizing and as you think about it, you believe he nearly had it; perhaps he actually did have it for him.  For you it is all about the work, which is not to be done in a vacuum because that removes you from those two immutable areas of behavior, gravity and humor.  Sad truths and attractions should not exclude you otherwise you would not be subject to the behavior others on this planet experience.  You should see yourself as a sad truth attempting to do superb work in a clatter of conflicting attractions and distractions.  Your own sense of what constitutes superb work is also subject to the sadness of revealed truth, which more often than not doesn't hand out awards for popularity or brightness or real success.  Each time you attempt a work with the determination to get maximum satisfaction from the work itself and not any prizes for originality or brilliance or even relevance, you are less likely to find yourself in the theoretical free fall in which you placed the equally theoretical wolverine a few paragraphs back.  Nor is it lost on you that some temporal success is in its way a vote of contemporary confidence which you are, from time to time, amenable. Thus gravity is able to have some effect on you after all, even though you recognize the funny nature of this planet and the laws of physical and psychological behavior that seem to hold controlling interests.

Although they were at one time great friends, one even the teacher/mentor of the other, you think Thoreau and Emerson were both fit subjects to have schools of proctology named after them.  They represent to you gravity and gravitas in action and a kind of self-delusion solipsism.

The planet as it is, funny as it is, suits you, even though sad truths abound in such degree that you cannot remain self-piteous or lonely for long because of the ongoing gravity of persons and things to which you are attracted, drawn.

Are we there yet?

At its deepest roots, impatience is a hunger or eagerness, a roil of emotion you suffer while waiting for a particular event to begin--or end.

Impatience calls into play the transition from "Are we there yet?" to "How much more of this do we have to suffer?"  Impatience, which you drew upon in large measure from your father, reminds you of him at the ceremony in which his youngest granddaughter was being married to the affable Japanese national, Noriasu Tani, where representatives of the Jewish faith and the Buddhist faith spoke in collegial harmony to the point where your father could be heard to stage whisper, "How do you say enough in Japanese?"  This subtext of course is "When do we eat?"  Thus impatience morphs into an appetite; something to do or not do, something to eat.

This particular emotional state has a particular application for you each time you pick up a book or journal.  Early in your reading life, you were impatient for story to begin, suffering long introductory passages with the same impatience you suffered what you had come to recognize as obligatory romance scenes in the motion pictures you fancied.  You itched for something to happen to someone or for someone to set a plan or venture into motion.  Along with your reading tastes, this impatience evolved to the point where you became impatient when the story ended before you wished.

As so many of your traits, abilities, and interests evolved in ways you begin to think are measurable, your inner reservoir of impatience asserted its own maturity.  Now, it paces about with the nervous energy of wondering when you are going to get to the day's writing, made impatient by the quotidian necessities you sometimes have to confront first.  There are also residual moments of impatience when you become impatient with the output of a particular day.  You call that writing, your impatient self says to your more languorous self.

How much, your impatient self demands, do we have to put up with before you are firmly established within a paragraph or a page or two or three?  Are we there yet?

Working without an Umbrella

Surprise is the elephant in the living room of story.  We work to get the details, motives, and character traits so plausible that they are practically pestering us for spare change or information that will lead to securing the services of a literary agent.  We spend hours working over story arc, particularly those of us who are not natural plotters or planners.  Honing.  Sharpening.  There is event, intent; there is consequence followed by remorse or exultation, each of these elements squeezed out as through a narrow birth canal, pushed from a flash of imagination to the point where these events and intents and asides are all arrivals in present time of the unthinkable.

We no longer think about surprise; instead we think about surpassing the moment so that we achieve a scene in which the results become not only memorable but emblematic of right now in the twenty-first century.

At the expense of our own emotional ease and well-being, we edge in for a closer, more honest look at what they, our characters, want and what they are willing to do to themselves and to others in order to achieve their ends.  Of course we provide them with ends.  Dude who is a lock for the job of Thane of Cawdor is already looking beyond, wants to be something more.  A black chauffeur has to take a job driving a persnickety old gal.  Keep that goal shimmering in front of them, something they dare not hope for but dare not forget.

Any number of individuals are willing to settle, going so far as to start right now, reaching for practicality, packing their one or perhaps two dreams into a sturdy container, then setting it aside while they go about, building up a security system for themselves and their families, even trying to connect that security system to the American version of the holy grail, The Great American Dream.  Nothing wrong with that, and a lot about it that is essentially right, but such a system does not produce viable characters up front.  Maybe someone who's been paying into that sort of system for too many years, then begins to think other, as in some sort of dream.  Bingo.  Enter story.  All of a sudden, someone wants something because he or she has seen a time line.

Front-line characters are not willing to settle; they are lying if they say they do.  The surprise is this thing they have been nourishing all along, feeding it the way a young person caches away a puppy or kitten which is now being fed from scraps sneaked from the dinner table.

How to exploit surprise?  Start by asking yourself what is it about you that has surprised you in the past?  What has been your most recent surprise?  Is there any relationship between past and present surprises?  Are you still paying off in conservative coin for the surprises you discovered in past renditions of yourself?  Are you still buying into the tired old chestnuts about preparing for a rainy day, or are you now wishing you'd put more time into preparing for a rainy day.

There was a time when your father had a job selling insurance policies.  One of his props was a booklet he was instructed to show prospective clients, a booklet featuring a full-page photo of an umbrella.  One of the last pictures in the booklet was of a funeral, graveside, coffin still above ground. You turned the page from that to a family being protected by an umbrella.  Long after the fact of his having given up that particular line of work, your father told you how much he hated using that booklet and its highly managed photos, showing the benefits of that umbrella of protection against the rainy day of the inevitability we all face.  In all likelihood your love for him became more and more articulate as he harked back to that time in his life and how he wished to distance himself from it.

Some professional gymnasts, aerialists, like to use the term "working without a net."  You could say the same thing about working without an umbrella.  You came by it by indirection and observation, your resume or, gussied up for teaching, your curriculum vitae, attests to the places you worked with and without the umbrella, the times when, accordingly, there were or were not any surprises in store.

The surprise is within us as readers and as writers; we ignore it at our peril, looking for the story points on some document of proposal or sales pitch, in effect taking cheap formulaic solutions as opposed to those that rock the reader's consciousness and the writer's uneasy dreams.  Mind you, this is not surprise merely to do something unconventional but rather to let some lingering, perhaps even festering emotion have its say.  Remember Julian English in John O'Hara's Appointment in Samara?  Throwing that drink was waiting to happen and probably came after O'Hara had had a few drinks, himself, freeing up the energy to one of the more forceful conclusions possible.

I'll have some more of what I'm having

Someone you like, perhaps even to the point of admiration, approaches you.  "Surely,"  the person exudes, for this is no longer the neutrality of that wonderful, useful verb "said."  This goes beyond said to exudes; the individual sends forth enthusiasm and presence as though those qualities were pheromones, instigating further contact and exchange.

And yet.

The moment is not sexual, is not meant to be that kind of attraction.  The focus at hand is shared experience and the added sharing of response to the experience, which appears to undercut the argument for its non-sexual nature, doesn't it?  For your part, however, you want sexual encounters to be confined to the enthusiasms of one-on-one.  This "Surely," can be conducted in public or at least in the midst of a group of disinterested others; this "surely,"can be between you and a man or a woman with equal ease and enthusiasm; it can be an exchange that sets or removes boundaries as either of you sees fit.

"Surely you have read (or seen or experienced) a work that is filled in at the moment."  Whether or not you have seen or read or otherwise experienced, there is an exchange that makes you wish to re-experience the object in question now that you have this other person's enthusiasm.  (Still sounds sexual, doesn't it, what with the enthusiasm and commentary being metaphor for bodily fluids and other grand spinal and cranial sensations?)  This may explain why although you do not act on such things as you once might have, you are drawn to men and women who are enthusiastic in their responses more than you are to individuals who are, for instance, acerbic or denigrating or overly critical to the point of having missed transmitting their impression of the intent they saw in the work.  (All right, so it is a kind of sexuality, which is no surprising given your own enthusiastic reaction to sexuality.)

What to embrace and what to avoid--two ways of looking at the world about you, including your own visions and the visions of others as they relate to things, places, and individuals who are no longer living but who have left some grain of impression upon we who live now--and react.

There was a time when you were daunted by libraries, particularly the first ones you had repeat experiences with.  Those early experiences were humbling because of your impression that in order to have any say in what happened to you in life, you needed to have read ALL those books.  Indeed, at that time, you were so indiscriminate that you believed you had to read books (and listen to people and see performances and look at works of art) that you didn't like because who were you not to like them or the truth that inhered in each.  Shortly after you discovered the magic and miracle of girls and then women, you understood better that some books and performances and works of art held no particular truth you could recognize much less would want to recognize.  The miracle of the specific became uppermost, growing on you much as your height grew upon you, catapulting you from the dreariness of 5'7 to 5'9 then, unh, just made it to six, then, in a mighty surge, to six three.

So long as you continue doing so, it is sufficient to read the books you will read, not read the books you have no interest in (until someone you find interesting or admirable causes you to have an interest), not like the persons you don't like, not out of meanness of spirit or feud or even bigotry but rather because you have no real reason to like them.

It is dazzling to like the books you like, to relish the music you relish, to enjoy the plays and films you can open the psyche to; these things and such accouterments as flowers and food and poetry and the stark colors of the southwest and the sensuous feel of Navajo fry bread in your tummy, although no friend to a cholesterol index, cause you enthusiasm, which is quite sexual which, after all, defines the kind of being you are, and is no elephant in the living room or anywhere else in the confines of 652 Hot Springs Road.