The Unchosen Choice

         I honestly don’t know why I want to be a writer.  Okay, I guess I know why I do.  But I can never shake the feeling of desperately wishing that it wasn’t what I feel compelled to do.  Should I list my reasons why being a writer is a waste of time, a stupid thing?  I’m not going to.  They’ve caused me to quit writing before, but I’ve always gone back; apparently I have no say in what I want to do.  So I should remind myself of the reasons I do want to be a writer.  Firstly, undeniably, I just love books.  I love reading.  No mystery that I would want to contribute to my favorite art form.  Secondly, I love writing.  Not the act of writing, I’m not talking about myself; I’m talking about every other writer who ever wrote a book that I read.  I love the idea of it, the intangibility of language, words.  I love that a writer can take these abstract building blocks and create an uncommon (or common) work which can build worlds in the mind of the reader.  This is enough of a philosophy for me to live my life under.  But I still maintain I wasn’t given a choice.

Too Cool for School

         So I’m 34, I’ve written one novel and some stories and am working on more of both.  The thing is, I feel like I’m just now figuring out how to be a good writer.  This is surely normal; writing your second novel is probably a typical time of growing, learning, evolving as an author.  I’d say my situation is on track except for one major thing which I now suspect may have slowed me down: I didn’t go to school.

         I graduated high school (though it took me five years) and then I opted not to pursue further education.  I thought at the time that this was a practical choice because the only things I was interested in studying were literature and art, and I had the cynical intelligence to see that these probably wouldn’t lead to jobs that would lead to me paying back my school loans.  Consequently I’ve never been burdened with debt incurred by an education.  Nice.  But at age 34 I’ve worked a series of dead end jobs and slightly shameful service positions.  With a degree, even one in writing, I’d have had the confidence to pursue a better job.

         If I’d gone to school, studied literature, I would have met likeminded people (not so easy at the dead end jobs) and made contacts.  Under the guidance of teachers and peers, forced to adhere to schedule and syllabus, I now believe my writing would have progressed much farther much faster, and I wouldn’t have spent all those years questioning my sanity and wallowing in insecurity.

         

Grayed

         I have always been interested in color and our perception of it - or our perception of the wavelengths of light that create color.  One of my favorite parts in Thomas Hine’s The Total Package was toward the end of the book when color theory and psychology were discussed.  I love this sort of thing.  I adore the esoteric nature of it, the total intangibility.  And in package design and advertising the color psychology (all psychology and symbolism) is so minutely examined, so deeply mined; such great depth in the name of capitalism.

         One of my favorite bits (and I have heard this same fascinating factoid before, in a color class I took) is this: In most Western societies, bright, pure colors are loved by children and by the poor.  Wealth and education bring with them a taste for subtler grayer shades, as if greater discernment must be accompanied by sensory deprivation.  So interesting!

         

In the details 3

         Gossip Kills was indeed inspired by vintage “golden age” mysteries, though there’s really nothing in it to make this obvious (the setting is modern).  I was definitely influenced by the tighter tone and the briefness of these genre classics (including the lesser known mystery-writing sisters Gwenyth and Constance Little, who wrote mostly in the 40s).  I’ll always be inspired by literature from before my day and I don’t see my list of favorite writers changing anytime soon.  But I will make an effort to read some more current stuff.  Maybe every other fiction book I read should be from this millennium.

         I am currently on Sophie Hannah’s The Dead Lie Down, which my friend Meagan recommended.  It’s from 2009 and it’s really good and original.

         I should read more modern fiction because I’m a writer and I should be supporting other writers.  I don’t know why I’ve been shutting myself off, surrounding myself with dead authors.  Fear?  Insecurity?  Jerkiness?

In the details 2

If my writing seems to lack in detail to some people, I do say in my own defense that this is directly related to my reading habits and inspiration. I am drawn to – stuck on, you might say – mid-20^th century fiction.  I like older things and occasionally I like newer things, but my favorite literature was usually written somewhere between the 30s and the 60s.  I don’t know why this is, but it’s more than evident in a list of my favorite writers: Patricia Highsmith, Daphne Du Maurier, Philip K. Dick, Evelyn Waugh, Dashiell Hammett, Barbara Pym, Shirley Jackson, Agatha Christie.

There’s only one writer on my “favorites” list whose not firmly anchored in this mid-20^th century period, and that’s Elmore Leonard.  Well, he actually started in this time (the 50s), he just went on to greater glories and a prolific career that is still going (born in 1928, P K Dick actually came into this world after Elmore Leonard, who was born in 1925.  It would have been nice if Dick could have lived long enough to see his fiction beloved by the movies like Leonard did; I’m sure it’s inspirational to be getting new fans in your eighties, and I hope Leonard can push his career into his hundreds).

But as for the details, or lack thereof, I think the literature of this mid-20^th century period has a slightly different feel than its current cousins.  Things were tighter and terser.  Does this connect to the modernism of the mid and post war era?  The extreme example is found in noir mysteries (such as those by Hammett and Chandler), which never waste a word and try to sum up complex feelings and situations with a fast metaphor.  But even the non-noir books often keep it light and airy on the details.  To me, the emphasis is on the quality of the writing: packing all you need into as few sentences as possible.  Now the cycles have turned, as styles cycles do.  The new mode of fiction writing is no better or worse, just maybe slightly different; perhaps it’s a bit more verbose, a shade heavier on the details.  

The Bird’s Nest

         It may now be quaint and distinctly dated, but Shirley Jackson’s The Bird’s Nest is still a very interesting, well-written and occasionally eerie novel.  Published in 1954, it is about multiple personality disorder (though the term is never used; nor is dissociative identity disorder or schizophrenia).  Many plot elements in Jackson’s The Bird’s Nest, according to Wikipedia, “later found their way into the films The Three Faces of Eve and Sybill.”  The books these movies were based on came out in 1957 and 1973 respectively, so there is good reason to credit Jackson with originating what may now be considered fictional clichés.  The Three Faces of Eve and Sybill certainly achieved a stronger pop culture resonance than The Bird’s Nest did, at least looking at it from this side of the millennium; the Jackson novel was the basis for the 1957 film Lizzie, but I’ve never even heard of that.

          The book must have been much more exciting, the twists more thrilling, when it came out in 1954.  The more recent repetition of multiple personality riffs in pop culture has subdued much of the shock.  But even with the datedness I was struck by The Bird’s Nest.  Shirley Jackson’s voice and the details she imparts are so original.  I loved the contrasting perspectives she used to tell the story (including the different identities of Elizabeth R).  I adored the fascinating and unexpected character of Aunt Morgen.  And the use of nursery rhymes – some I’d heard, some I hadn’t – in the text provided much of the creepiness.  Especially the verse central to the book’s title and plot: Elizabeth, Beth, Betsy and Bess, they all went together to find a bird’s nest . . .