If you suddenly found yourself twenty years in the past, thirty even, how would your writing change?
My house is fairly quiet, Bob and Bud sleeping, only some computer music for company, 50 Words For Snow, Kate Bush's new album, which I also own on vinyl. But where the stereo sits is along Bud's bedroom wall, and while it's not a noisy record, it is just 6.21 in the morning. Yes, on Sunday, I'm awake at 6.21, why it's dark, quiet, making me ponder such questions. If I was transported to 1991 or 1981, would I still be able to write?
Darkness winds odd questions into my head, novels too. I came up with The War On Emily Dickinson in the middle of the night, a few others too. When Bob wakes, we'll go to breakfast. I'll write this morning, as my 49ers don't play until tomorrow. I'll wrap some Christmas presents, as they are accumulating. I have a load of wash that didn't get done yesterday, things I did twenty and thirty years ago. But I wasn't writing then, I was in high school in 1981, caring for small toddlers and thinking about having baby number 3 in 1991. Jay came over yesterday to do laundry; she's nineteen and living out of the house, but still our youngest; she napped on the sofa as I got her towels from the dryer, putting in her other load. She and her housemates are getting a washer and dryer this week, but a few bits needed a wash. Plus she cleaned my bathroom for me, sweet girl!
But in the dark, all those normal moments slip away. With just one light in the kitchen and the glow of a monitor, it's a different world, it's nearly the end of 2011 but easily 1991 or 1981, a few decades in the past. And if I found myself there, at this age and novels accumulated, would I still be able to write as prolifically as I do now? How much of my creative outburst relies on a desktop, seventeen thousands songs right at a click, an iTouch to read over those novels, and read other novels. How much of my writerly life is tied into the present day and all these accouterments? A few passings makes me wonder; Christopher Hitchens and Vaclav Havel, and Russell Hoban in the last few days, Christopher Logue at the beginning of the month. Those men used typewriters, had no Wikipedia, did it the hard way. I have it easy, in many respects, Smashwords to distribute my ebooks, Lulu for print novels, the web for research and outreach. Strip all those elements, plop me in front of an electric or even manual typewriter, and just what would I do?
I try to keep things simple, but I am bound to this time, these advances, this life. I highly doubt I'll find myself set twenty or thirty years in the past, for which I am grateful. I won't ask how writers did it in the old days, because the rules are changed due to computers and the web, but a writer still needs to write. How dependent am I on modern conveniences; pretty dependent. Blogging and Smashwords are just one segment. All editing is done on my PC, not to mention formatting novels. At times I feel tied to my computer, work-times. Did writers in the past feel that way toward their typewriters? Or perhaps glued to their mailboxes or wherever the post arrived; how would I cope in that sort of environment?
In the dark questions swirl; I am so thankful to be where I am time-wise when it comes to writing, but sometimes it feels too invasive, too much information. All I have to do then is get up from my chair, find another tasking. But if I did find myself back in time, all the tales within my brain would probably still churn. I'd need to locate some White-Out and paper, find a typewriter, then see what happened next.
2 comments:
I am an avid reader. I began reading at five and haven't stopped since! What I read is not important because there will always be someone to snob my choices; not intellectual enough, not enough non-fiction, too shallow or too erotic. But, because there are readers, there are writers.
I was always baffled as to how dialogue developed in stories. It was perhaps the one thing that prevented me from writing until the day I read a paperback novel that was bordering on pathetic! I could do better than that! It was a simple as that.
I haven't stopped since. I don't claim any literary genius but I know how it is done now. Once a story begins, once the characters have names, it is only a matter of dictation. Sometimes at such a speed that I fear I'm not able to type fast enough. Dialogue? It writes itself.
Of course the modern, technical tools at our disposition make it easier than scribbling on paper leaving ink blobs on a sheet but I am convinced that a true writer will have to express himself whatever the means. I knew someone 50 years ago who wrote on the inside of cereal packets for lack or paper. From what I have read of your work, Anna, it could easily have been you resorting to cereal boxes (minus the 50 years).
Today's tools are fabulous but I'm afraid that there may be a downside to them, nonetheless. I fear that the art of handwriting has been sacrificed. Who will be able to identify the author by his handwriting a hundred years from now?
I love the idea of a quieter, slower life, but couldn't do without the Internet or my laptop now. Shame we can't have both.
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