Great Writers

I think often on good writing and good writers. I've read, in my opinion, works by some of the finest writers of our time and before. They each smack of authenticity in their works and they take deep, frightening risks with language, characters, and themes. Cormac McCarthy, Raymond Carver, Ernest Hemingway, Larry McMurtry, Ivan Doig, E. Annie Proulx, and many, many others have written about the state, life, and future of people going about ordinary lives in extraordinary circumstances and events. It isn't always the grand story or complex plot that pits "everyman" against all odds, rather the organic and natural way life unfolds before them. Stephen King writes to aspiring writers in his book On Writing that to really become a writer you have to study those that have come before you. Read. Read. Read. The great quote from Issac Asimov: "If I have seen further than others it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." So humbling in nature, that to really see beyond our limited horizon of experience we have to first see what the greats have seen.

So I read. I read and read and read and I read widely. I try at any rate. I take in what great and small authors have set down in print and draw out stories, lessons, technique, and elements of craft to take to the next novel or use as I begin my next project. More often than not, after a great novel or exquisite short story I leave feeling inspired and motivated to create something of its equal, something grand and insightful and for moments all to brief I sit at the computer or at my notepad and begin with gusto and focus the next great opus of our time only to see it fall flat and dissipate in forgotten files and ink smeared notes. I have similar reactions to great photographs, paintings and songs. Art so full of life and meaning that i am moved to inspiration only to once again fall flat and loose the drive to create, then I feel like absolute shit. I am easily distracted, i am a procrastinator, i am decidedly lazy though not without drive and discipline...of sorts. It is an enigma that haunts and colors my life.

I recognize so clearly that we are not all intended to be great artists--in its very broadest sense--but most have a clear definition of the art that moves and inspires our inner hearts and deep recess' of our souls. There is a twang of truth to the art that can move my heart and soul, there has to be, i am so cynical and jaded with the world at large and i confess that i am always alert for, and eager to point out, the lies and surface beauty that surrounds me. It must be part of the reason i find myself where i do in this season of unemployment: frustrated, depressed, discouraged, slipping to hopelessness.

Personally I have always had a sunny disposition, my cynicism and distrust was balanced, albeit crudely, with sunny optimism. Generally, i have always believed that things would work out for the best and that people meant well, and that their intentions were more or less good. I have always believed the best of the world. But inactivity has always been my poisoned apple and the poison effects my self-confidence first and then my mind and presently i am paralyzed with fear and insecurity. It is with great will that i break free of the poison, into bursts of activity and production but it always ready to take me back and the slide is almost inevitable. A job I hate or no job at all. I am in a desperate search to find something in this life that authenticates who I am--the vocation vs. occupation debate.

I read the works of great writers, I listen to the music of great musicians, I enjoy the paintings, photographs, poems, and design of great artists. There is a world that moves me. It is honest, accessible, visible, and poignant and it informs the life I live. I don't know what I want from a career but i pray that the way I make my living is in my vocation, what i was intended for, and not the first occupation that comes along.