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the art of non-conformity

creativity transcending writing

The Writer as hero

October 3, 2010

I’ve been reading Chris Guillebeau’s great post, ‘The Agenda Part II: The Individual as Hero’ about how it’s okay to pursue your big dreams, invest in yourself and understandable that you have difficulty explaining the reasons for your quests to others:

 

You don’t have to apologise for pursuing a big dream, because a distinguishing feature of such things is that not everyone relates to them.

Chris talks about the Olympics, marathon runners and other sports people among his heroes. I acknowledge these journey and achievements, but like Chris says, they are not the heroes I relate to. My heroes are writers – their stories are the ones I read, treasure and follow.

For me, there is something incredibly heroic about the writer’s life and journey. This is because it is my goal: to write and publish work of value that speaks to others: poetry, novels, creative non-fiction. This blog is part of that goal – getting me writing and connecting with writers – but the real goal is larger and more compelling, hard to explain, talk about and justify, but I know it’s what makes sense and connects the dots for me. I know it’s elusive and also very hard work, but it’s when I am writing that I feel truly alive and myself. So today, following Chris’s lead, I celebrate the writing heroes who inspire me.

My writer heroes fall into two categories:

  1. Published, famous writers whose books I read and biographies I study assiduously
  2. My blogging heroes who are all out there creating now and inspiring me

In this post, I’ll concentrate on the first category; next post, I’ll talk about my blogging heroes also writing books right now and documenting their journey.

My published and famous writing heroes’ lives intrigue me for their romanticism, their lyricism and their commitment to craft and writing practice. They embody what I aspire to. They are mostly women; today’s list of my key writing heroes is all women. Their stories of how they strived to balance work, family, creativity and their craft are often difficult journeys. There are themes of obsessive love, drugs, alcohol, mental illness, suicide, struggling to make ends meet, trying to write while making a living, reclusiveness and withdrawal. There are also themes of: success, achievement, the pursuit of perfection, hard work, constant crafting, connection with people, being in the literary milieu of an age,  publishing and public readings attracting many.

For these heroes, it was mostly a battle for their creativity to be expressed in the works that endure. I am grateful for their determination, their quest and the lyricism of their work that speaks to me over the years. It is because these heroes understood the ‘big dream’ and lived it that they mean so much to me. I celebrate these six heroes:

Daphne Du Maurier

I love Daphne Du Maurier’s sheer prolific work, diversity, narrative and story-telling skills and her dedication to her craft. Her unique vision created historical fiction, psychological thrillers such as ‘Rebecca’ and ‘The Birds’ and wonderfully innovative works such as ‘The House on the Strand’ which blends historical and psychological fiction together in a narrative about experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs way before it was fashionable. I am absolutely in awe of Daphne’s writing skills and writing life. My journey to Fowey in Cornwall where she lived was a pilgrimage and to be there taking the ferry across to Fowey and walking the narrow streets was thrilling. There are some excellent pictorial memoirs of Daphne Du Maurier’s Cornwall and the country that inspired her.

Suggestions to read: Rebecca, The Birds and other stories, The House on the Strand, Pictorial memoirs: Daphne Du Maurier Country – Martyn Shallcross; Daphne Du Maurier’s Cornwall – by Daphne Du Maurier.

 Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf’s novels are wonderful but I especially am inspired by her non-fiction, essays and diaries. ‘A Room of One’s Own’ is sitting here in front of me on my rolltop and is never far away. ‘Three Guineas’ is a favourite thought piece on war and also women; Virginia’s writing on women and writing excite and support me as the pioneering work they are. These works explore the barriers that women face in attempting to produce literature and help to understand the challenges in the dream of being a writer especially as a woman.

Suggestions to read: A Room of One’s Own, Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf: Women and Writing (The Women’s Press collection)

Sylvia Plath

I love Sylvia Plath’s poems for their genius, craft and power. Her poetry has had the most impact on me of any poet and I am thankful for her body of work and what she achieved in such difficult circumstances. I especially love the books that shows Sylvia’s mind at work as she edits and crafts her poems, the precision of it, the artist at work.

Suggestions to read: Sylvia Plath: Collected Poems, Sylvia Plath: a Critical Study – Tim Kendall (Faber & Faber) – for some wonderful copies of original drafting processes on poems

Emily Dickinson

I love Emily’s reclusiveness, her unique voice, her secretive commitment to her craft, her pearls created. The sheer volume of work created without an immediate audience is staggering showing a complete commitment to her individual vision and style. The story of her life is fascinating and worth a read for the contexts in which she was creating the work we now know and value.

Suggestions to read: The Life of Emily Dickinson, Vols 1 & 2, Richard B Sewall (Faber & Faber).

Elizabeth Smart

‘By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept’ is one of my favourite books for its sheer poetic power. A novella, ‘a cry of complete vulnerability’ as my copy says on the back. The story of Elizabeth Smart’s life is about balancing love, writing, creativity, children and a fight for self-expression. The narrative of her life is about ‘the experience of being a woman artist in the middle of the century.’ (Sullivan – below p xi) I wish she’d written more but I know it was difficult with how life played out and the choices she made, but I treasure ‘Grand Central Station’ as a classic novella in the style I would like to write in.

Suggestions to read: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, By Heart: the life of Elizabeth Smart – Rosemary Sullivan (Flamingo)

Edna St Vincent Millay

I love Edna St Vincent Millay’s romantic lyricism, her sonnets and her commitment to form. She was amazingly well-known in her time – the most famous poet of the Jazz Age and the image of  ‘the new woman’. She was incredibly committed to her art and lived an extraordinary life for her times, taking many lovers of both sexes. Her poetry was widely celebrated with her poetry readings often sell-outs with around 1600 people attending in some cases and her collection of sonnets, ‘Fatal Interview’ selling 35,000 copies in the early weeks of release in the middle of the Depression. The beautiful  photo of Edna St Vincent Millay when young surrounded by blossoms graces my desk here and inspires me.

Suggestions to read: Savage Beauty: the life of Edna St Vincent Millay – Nancy Milford (Random House)

These are my heroes, my heroines. I didn’t seek out for them to be all women but they are. I love them for:

  • their commitment to their craft and art
  • the narrative of their writing lives
  • their passion and love for writing
  • the works they have created
  • the lines that make my heart sing
  • the ideas that support me

Especially I love them for being my heroes, the female role models of the ‘big dream’ of writing because they understood it and lived it. 

Image, Vintage Underwood Number 5 typewriter by emilydickinsonridesabmx from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license with thanks

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creativity poetry transcending

Gems #9 Shining light on yourself

September 27, 2010

Some gems about shining a little light back on yourself…

Just at the same time as Chris Guillebeau is enjoying great popularity with the publication of his book, ‘The Art of Non-Conformity’ , he writes an excellent post shining the light back on his readers. That’s one of the reasons I love Chris and his work: expect the unexpected. I always get such a wonderful blast of fresh thinking and often the reverse of current trends; hence his specialty, ‘nonconformity’, I guess.

In his post, What’s your message? Why not share it? Chris starts by referring to the current trend in social media of talking about others more than yourself. Chris turns the spotlight squarely back:

..ultimately people will follow you because you are doing something interesting, not because you are good at passing on other people’s messages.

A point very well made with much relevance for blogging, tweeting and much of life really:

Be interesting. Be yourself. Do something worth talking about.

Chris then encourages readers to comment about their message. There is much to learn and enjoy in the responses as people focus back on their message and reflect it out again.

Danielle LaPorte’s post on ‘The initiated woman’  shone a light on a very deep place and I knew exactly what she was talking about. It starts with bleeding, vulnerability and giving of the quintessential:

she’s bled from poor decisions that sliced her esteem wide open; and from unguarded boundaries being obliterated; and she’s bled willingly because that’s what you do when people you love are anemic or have been hit by life — you give them your blood. Here, I have lots, it’s fresh and warm. I’ll make more.

And it moves from there to describe a place where the outcomes of experience become a wisdom and strength that can help others. Read it – it is the most beautiful piece of writing. It reminds me of the wonderfully understated words from the song ‘You’re a Heathen of Love’  by Marian Bradfield:

‘Cause experience in a woman never goes astray.

And because Chris says ‘tell us your message’ and ‘be yourself’ and because Danielle says:

She’s so tender she prefers to whisper about her true nature, or write a poem. Abstract. Protected.

…here’s a poem from me. It was written and crafted during my time in Sage Cohen’s highly recommended ‘Poetry for the People’ classes and was featured along with the work of my fellow students on Sage’s ‘Writing the Life Poetic’  blog.

Narrative

She starts up high, facing north

towards slow mist,

watching the sea wash

into the rain’s drift below.

She is called to the beach

as if to a baptism, bride-like,

white as the air, stepping

down the rough rock stairs.

She narrates her life,

writes as she walks,

as if the sand and shells are

the bones of her story.

And the pieces connect her:

an imperfect white oval shell,

a fig leaf from a canopy,

the sketched black lines

of a creature’s moving home.

Cool and tight limbed,

she ends in another place,

as if washed by waves,

her contours, clear and shell-lined

as the Borromean grottoes

of Isolabella,

her white shining lights

coming home.

 

Image, Inishowen Mirror by Janek Kloss from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license with thanks

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blogging creativity writing

Gems #3

June 27, 2010

Some gems shining a little light this week:

I absolutely loved Chris Guillebeau’s recent post, ‘Free Advice’. Talk about challenging things you generally accept without thinking and turning them on their head! This post does this in a fabulously thought-provoking way. I have been reflecting on the thoughts therein for the past week and have certainly found myself challenging some common concepts that are often blindly accepted. Like ‘the customer is always right…’ Are they? Equally fascinating was the stream of comments that emerged from readers with waves of fresh thinking. Like ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it too.’ As one wise reader, Patrenia, comments, ‘Why have the cake if I can’t eat it?’ Indeed. Some great fresh perspectives on all manner of things – customer service, checking emails in the morning, twitter, projects and team – in this post and its flow on comments.

I thoroughly enjoyed Joanna Penn’s podcast interview with Scott Sigler on ‘How to be a NY Times Best-selling Author’. It was another ‘blow your mind’ moment in terms of shifting my thinking about publication, especially self-publishing and podcasting as ways to get written work out there. The world of publishing has changed radically in recent times with technology and it is fascinating to hear the stories of writers such as Scott and their success across different platforms. Joanna Penn’s podcasts at The Creative Penn are full of such dynamic and inspiring stories of innovation in all genres of publishing and social media. Scott Sigler’s newest novel, Ancestor, has its own book trailer developed by him which is amazing and perfectly geared for other visually based media such as YouTube.

Loved this post from literary agent, Rachelle Gardner, on ‘Resources for Writing Memoir’ (via Twitter, Joanna Penn). Not only does it have great  tips and resources for writing memoir, it also has an excellent list of memoirs to read, some of which were familiar and loved and others that were new and endorsed by many – so a great list to delve into. I also love Tristine Rainer’s, ‘Your Life as Story’ about writing memoir and highly recommend it if this is an interest.

Image by Opals-on-Black.com,  from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license.

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love, loss & longing transcending

Why transcending?

May 14, 2010

So why ‘Transcending’? What does it mean and why is it my focus? How does this word pull so much together for me?

You could ask my yoga teacher from a long time ago how he knew it was my theme, my life focus. Somehow he knew, giving me my spiritual name, ‘Turiyamani’ or ‘transcendental jewel’.

I didn’t think much about it for many years but it was in the background all the time, I guess. A spiritual path, a sense of knowing I didn’t quite connect to.

But then, difficulty and tragedy, one thing after another, testing resilience, a time through which you change radically and nothing is the same again, a turning point that makes you question not only what’s important but everything you do.

Your world arcs into a different sphere entirely. You can remember the day, the hour, people’s faces, how time stood still, how green the leaves were, how all you could do was drink tea and stare into the air. How people said to you, ‘Your life will never be the same again’ and you fought that thought desperately, trying to keep things the same.

You would trade the world to go back to the state before then, but you cannot. It is immutable and your path.

And then later I came across Chris Guillebeau and his site, The Art of Non-Conformity: Unconventional strategies for life, work and travel

Chris writes about many things: travelling towards his goal of visiting every country in the world, entrepreneurship, personal development. The ‘convergence between highly personal goals and service to others’ is a key theme. He has constantly wonderful thought pieces, challenges to the way you think, work and live. In ‘A Brief Guide to World Domination – How to live a remarkable life in a conventional world’, Chris talks about personal goals, ordinary people pursuing big ideas and also through this, making a difference in the lives of others.

He asks you to consider ‘the two most important questions in the universe’. Here they are and here are my answers:

#1 What do you really want to get out of life?

My answer: transcendence, light out of dark, words lifted high, sweet words out of loss and longing, a way of rising above

#2 What can you offer the world that no-one else can?

My answer: words of loss and longing, receptacles for managing them, a model for resilience and transcendence, structures for managing feelings, lyrical words

Those answers have led me here after a long time of reflecting on them. I am sure I am not the only one who feels these emotions but I am the only one who can connect them in this unique way, offer them shaped and formed just so. So here I am, transcending and working through what this means. I hope that it means something to others at it unfolds.

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