In our interview, author Kate Moses raised the topic of magical thinking about the ways your writing can impact the events of the world or your life. We’ve been talking about this in the Book Writing World, discovering that we all have our superstitions about the power of story, of words, to influence outcomes in life: if you kill off the parakeet in your book, what will become of your own little Popo? If your protagonist is older than you are, will the book be published only once you’ve passed her age? On and on . . .
This is the kind of worry that one often keeps to oneself, and it is a surprise to discover a lot of writers partake in this kind of magical thinking. On the other hand, words and stories have shaped our lives in very real ways as readers. Who hasn’t felt her sense of self shift, or even his mood alter because of the events in a book? Whose life isn’t made up of fragments of the stories we’ve imbibed as much as by those we’ve lived? It is because we are readers whose lives are shaped by books that we become writers. Little wonder, then, that we imagine that what we write might change our worlds, too.
The key, as Kate learned thanks to a friend’s generosity (see all in my upcoming interview), is not to let these superstitions stop you from getting the truth (fictional or not) down on the page. If writing is a form of playing with fire, we don’t want to douse the flames in order to avoid getting burned. Instead, we must learn to walk across red coals without fear. Or heck, with fear, sure: just keep on walking!
In Good Mother Lizard I danced around my feelings of guilt about my mother’s death for several years, and as I gradually painted a picture of her, and my alter-ego, Phoebe, I lost the fear. To the point that one day, in yoga class, lying on my mat, I heard my mother’s voice saying, “I forgive you.” Now isn’t that something?
We’re in NJ now, father-sitting and trying to catch some NYC action. Saw a jazz show at Birdland on Weds. night with SPIKE LEE sitting two tables down from us, in baseball cap and jacket, writing (left-handed) through the show, as if he’s working on the screenplay of his next movie and Birdland is his Peet’s!
So, when you least expect it…I haven’t touch the ms in several days, but my first night away from home, adjusting to the time difference, I flashed on a plot solution, my final plot difficulty pretty much resolved. Has to do with Sebastian’s father not being threatened by Elliott, but deciding, on his own, not to take the place at Columbia he’d been offereds. And Sebastian comes to school there, years later, to make amends for his father’s disappointment and to try to learn what happened. I guess it was percolating, or marinating, all along, yes?
Hope you are all having a good writing week. I am off to Rockin Joe’s in Cranford, NJ, for some “quality time with novel.”
Oh, yes, like a good fan I passed a note to Spike Lee on my way to the ladies room. Tee hee. To Mr. Spike Lee…I hope you live a long and productive life, etc.
In Good Mother Lizard I danced around my feelings of guilt about my mother’s death for several years, and as I gradually painted a picture of her, and my alter-ego, Phoebe, I lost the fear. To the point that one day, in yoga class, lying on my mat, I heard my mother’s voice saying, “I forgive you.” Now isn’t that something?
We’re in NJ now, father-sitting and trying to catch some NYC action. Saw a jazz show at Birdland on Weds. night with SPIKE LEE sitting two tables down from us, in baseball cap and jacket, writing (left-handed) through the show, as if he’s working on the screenplay of his next movie and Birdland is his Peet’s!
So, when you least expect it…I haven’t touch the ms in several days, but my first night away from home, adjusting to the time difference, I flashed on a plot solution, my final plot difficulty pretty much resolved. Has to do with Sebastian’s father not being threatened by Elliott, but deciding, on his own, not to take the place at Columbia he’d been offereds. And Sebastian comes to school there, years later, to make amends for his father’s disappointment and to try to learn what happened. I guess it was percolating, or marinating, all along, yes?
Hope you are all having a good writing week. I am off to Rockin Joe’s in Cranford, NJ, for some “quality time with novel.”
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