Today was the Chicago Marathon. Great weather for it. Yawn. Great weather all around -- it feels like a summer day, although quieter and milder. Good stuff. I had the boys out at a playground, where they were busy climbing trees. Very cute.
Nearly 40,000 words on the current book. I'm on track to finish the first draft by month's end, which'll be cool. Then a few weeks of revision, and then the slog of trying to find a home for it, which is always rough. Writing is like talking -- everybody thinks they can do it, but few people actually can. Sort of like this...
Dogs are nice.
Very clear and obvious sentiment, right? Anybody could say that. That's where most people are at, when they say "Oh, I can write."
Dogs are nice. Well, maybe not all dogs.
Some people are maybe at that level, allowing for a little more complexity to the mix.
Dogs are nice. Well, maybe not all dogs. Like Moose, the dog that lived in my neighborhood where I grew up. He was a Yellow Lab, a big dog with baleful brown eyes and a bad habit of chasing kids down the street, bellow-barking at them as he went.
Still more can maybe get that far. Maybe not even that well, but they can at least string a few notions together.
Dogs are nice. Well, maybe not all dogs. Like Moose, the dog that lived in my neighborhood where I grew up. He was a Yellow Lab, a big dog with baleful brown eyes and a bad habit of chasing kids down the street, bellow-barking at them as he went. He ruled the block, was the baron of the boulevard, this braying hell hound. The problem was that he lived at the corner of my bus stop, where I would have to catch the school bus. And every morning, I'd have Moose chasing me down the street, scaring the hell out of me. Then, one day, Moose caught me on a bad day, something had pissed me off at school, and Moose came running at me, barking like he always did, and I saw him and I roared at him in rage, arms held out. Moose froze in his tracks -- the look on his face was priceless, like this blend of surprise and horror, a body-wide spasm of terror as he realized that his bluff had been called. For a split-second, we faced off, and then I began to chase Moose down the street, not entirely sure if the dog was going to go at me or whether he was going to run away, and, on that day, not caring (and I don't quite remember why I was so mad). I was gratified to see Moose take off, running away from me -- for the first time in my childhood, great big Moose the Mutt was on the run. He took off, periodically turning to see if I was still chasing him. And I still was. I was completely going after that goddamned dog. I pursued him all the way to his yard, before leaving him alone, breathless, pleased as could be. Fucking dog. He left me alone after that. In fact, Moose wanted to be my friend after that, with the ineffable dog logic going on -- the same dog that had hounded me day after day, once he realized that I would absolutely go after him if he fucked with me again, THEN he wants to be my buddy. I was the only kid on the block who got on Moose's good side. We were pals.
And so on. And on, and on. The above paragraph is only 376 words, and it's a simple memoir-style narrative, nothing even fancy. A novel is at least 80,000 words.
Most people don't write not only because they can't write (let alone write well, or convey ideas evocatively), but they don't have the stomach for it -- the raw thanklessness of it, the endless call of the words, to say nothing of the nature of characterization, plot, description, storytelling, exposition, narration, theme, metaphor, revision, rewriting, etc. -- most people have better things to do with their lives than write -- like watching paint dry, like getting root canals, driving off cliffs -- any number of worthwhile things.
It's comforting from an ego perspective to think "Oh, I could write a novel if I wanted to." Any time somebody says that, I say "Go for it." It's so much harder than you know. And only people who really, really love it will put themselves through it. The same goes for all creative endeavors -- even though creative things make our lives worth living, make them meaningful and rich and fun -- most creatives are not well-valued or even well-compensated. But all human progress flows through them, whether it's realized or not. Human progress flows from the visionary, and the creatives express their visions through their works, benefiting humanity at large.
It's like the anonymous caveman who made the sculpture of the pretty girl,
the Venus of Brassempouy. One of the earliest renditions of a human face...
Now, I can almost hear Anonymous Caveman's buds going "Gronk? Why you sit there stare at Ooona? Why you make THING with your scraping stick? We busy throwing rocks in gorge. You come! You throw, too!" And Gronk shrugs, hides it from them, or else flaunts it. But Gronk made it, and it survived (they estimate it was made ~25,000 years ago).
Ooona must have been a paleolithic hottie, or at the very least, had bitchin' hair, since Gronk lavished attention on those plaits and/or braids she was sporting (or else the hood she was wearing -- it impressed him). All of Gronk's aesthetic choices are curious to me, how he marked her eyes and nose very clearly, but gave her no apparent mouth, and took great care with her hair, which must've really impressed him. Some cavebabe inspired Gronk, and Gronk did her justice in his creation. Maybe he thought it would give him magic powers over Ooona, or maybe he wanted to flatter her with the piece.
The very human, very wonderful nature of that moment, captured in a bit of mammoth tusk, communicates the delightful power of art, and how the seeming pointlessness of it is precisely its magic -- both of them -- creator and subject -- are long, long gone, but that creation endures and survives them. And, yes, I think it was a guy who made it, like many of those early Venus sculptures.
Not everything that's created is worthwhile, but that drive to create something beautiful, however it is done (and however it is defined) is a vital (if thankless) human process that is necessary for our betterment as a species. If art dies, humanity's soul dies with it.
Anyway, end of the month, I should be done. And then my usual cure when I'm done with a piece -- more writing. Hahah!
