touch too hortatory, but then, it was delivered as a speech at the University of Michigan Hopwood Awards in 1984. Originally called “The Hazards and Sources of Writing,” I have broken it into several sections. Stories about Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Rauschenberg, and Willem de Kooning appear in other portions of this book, and the last few pages (Sources) have been moved over to “The Occult,” where I try to talk about the mysterious origin of some novelistic choices.
This portion, however, is complete in itself, and does deal with the difficulties of writing a novel when the winds of one’s creative spirit threaten oncoming squalls or, worse, long periods of no wind—becalmed by writer’s block.
I am going to speak of the working state of the novelist once he has passed his apprenticeship—and to avoid saying
his or her
onevery occasion, let me repeat that I will often use the possessive pronoun
his
to indicate all of humankind. The apprenticeship of a writer is, of course, subject to all the later hazards of the profession, those perils of writer’s block and failing energy, alcoholism, drugs, and desertion. For many a writer deserts writing to go into a collateral profession in advertising or academia, trade journals, publishing—the list is long. What is not routine is to become a young writer with a firmly established name. Luck as well as talent can take one across the first border. Some do surpass the trials of acquiring technique and commence to make a living at our bizarre profession. It is then, however, that less-charted perils begin. I would like to speak at length of the hazards of writing, the cruelties it extorts out of mind and flesh. I know something of these hazards and I ought to. My first story was published, after all, more than forty years ago and the first novel I wrote that saw print is going to be thirty-six years old in a month. Obviously, for a long time I have been accustomed to thinking of myself as a writer, even as others see me that way. So I hear one lament over and over from strangers: “Oh, I too would have liked to be an author.” You can almost hear them musing aloud about the freedom of the life. How felicitous to have no boss and to face no morning rush to work, to know all the intoxications of celebrity—how they long to satisfy the voice within that keeps saying, “What a pity no one will know how unusual my life has been! There are all those secrets I cannot tell!” Years ago, I wrote, “Experience, when it cannot be communicated to another, must wither within and be worse than lost.” I often ponder the remark. Once in a while your hand will write out a sentence that seems true and yet you do not know where it came from. Ten or twenty words seem able to live in balance with your experience. It may be one’s nicest reward as a writer. You feel you have come near the truth. When that happens, you can look at the page years later and meditate again on the meaning, for it goes deep. So how can I not understand why people want to write? All the same, I am also a professional and so there is another part of me that is ready to laugh when strangers tell me of their aspirations. I am not free of the scorn of a veteran prizefighter who hears someone say, “I’d like to flatten that bully.” The speaker does not know how many years of discipline and dull punishment must be given over to the ability to throw a good punch at will. I say to myself, “They can write an interestingletter so they assume they are ready to tell the story of their lives. They do not understand how much it will take to pick up even the rudiments of narrative.” If I believe that the person who has spoken to me in that fashion is serious, I warn them as gently as I can. I say, “Well, it’s probably as hard to learn to write as to play the piano.” Then if their only reason for wanting to be a writer is to pull in some quick success, they feel deflated and that’s okay with me. One shouldn’t
This portion, however, is complete in itself, and does deal with the difficulties of writing a novel when the winds of one’s creative spirit threaten oncoming squalls or, worse, long periods of no wind—becalmed by writer’s block.
I am going to speak of the working state of the novelist once he has passed his apprenticeship—and to avoid saying
his or her
onevery occasion, let me repeat that I will often use the possessive pronoun
his
to indicate all of humankind. The apprenticeship of a writer is, of course, subject to all the later hazards of the profession, those perils of writer’s block and failing energy, alcoholism, drugs, and desertion. For many a writer deserts writing to go into a collateral profession in advertising or academia, trade journals, publishing—the list is long. What is not routine is to become a young writer with a firmly established name. Luck as well as talent can take one across the first border. Some do surpass the trials of acquiring technique and commence to make a living at our bizarre profession. It is then, however, that less-charted perils begin. I would like to speak at length of the hazards of writing, the cruelties it extorts out of mind and flesh. I know something of these hazards and I ought to. My first story was published, after all, more than forty years ago and the first novel I wrote that saw print is going to be thirty-six years old in a month. Obviously, for a long time I have been accustomed to thinking of myself as a writer, even as others see me that way. So I hear one lament over and over from strangers: “Oh, I too would have liked to be an author.” You can almost hear them musing aloud about the freedom of the life. How felicitous to have no boss and to face no morning rush to work, to know all the intoxications of celebrity—how they long to satisfy the voice within that keeps saying, “What a pity no one will know how unusual my life has been! There are all those secrets I cannot tell!” Years ago, I wrote, “Experience, when it cannot be communicated to another, must wither within and be worse than lost.” I often ponder the remark. Once in a while your hand will write out a sentence that seems true and yet you do not know where it came from. Ten or twenty words seem able to live in balance with your experience. It may be one’s nicest reward as a writer. You feel you have come near the truth. When that happens, you can look at the page years later and meditate again on the meaning, for it goes deep. So how can I not understand why people want to write? All the same, I am also a professional and so there is another part of me that is ready to laugh when strangers tell me of their aspirations. I am not free of the scorn of a veteran prizefighter who hears someone say, “I’d like to flatten that bully.” The speaker does not know how many years of discipline and dull punishment must be given over to the ability to throw a good punch at will. I say to myself, “They can write an interestingletter so they assume they are ready to tell the story of their lives. They do not understand how much it will take to pick up even the rudiments of narrative.” If I believe that the person who has spoken to me in that fashion is serious, I warn them as gently as I can. I say, “Well, it’s probably as hard to learn to write as to play the piano.” Then if their only reason for wanting to be a writer is to pull in some quick success, they feel deflated and that’s okay with me. One shouldn’t
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