(Photo is of a backpacking adventure in 2019 in the Enchantments)
A couple weeks ago my publisher sent me a questionnaire that will become part of my press kit for Faultland. A question I labored over for quite some time was this:
How did writing such an emotionally-charged book impact you? Did you feel exhausted by it or did it inspire you either personally or professionally?
In order to answer this, I returned to my years studying under Tom Spanbauer, and his belief in the power of confronting raw, emotionally authentic material. What I realized was that for me, writing into fear is liberating. Giving voice to the monster is curative. And by staring down my worst anxieties and performing them in scene, I am able to begin to reach toward collective humanity, and therefore, hope.
Lately, this sentiment seems popular in writing circles. The other day, in fact, I dialed up one of my favorite podcasts, and stumbled upon a prescient episode that explores, among other things, the relationship between honesty and hope. In the opening minutes host Grant Faulkner quotes the writer Rebecca Solnit who says, “The tricky thing about hope is not to confuse it with optimism.”
I really sat with that for a bit. The difference between hope and optimism. What occurred to me is that perhaps optimism in writing is the manufactured version of hope. The “happily ever after” construct we employ to rid ourselves of the messiness of life.
Of course, because I’m a hopeless (see what I did there?) wonk, I had to find the original source, and, lo & behold, stumbled upon Solnit’s essay, where I found this mesmerizing idea: “Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists.”
Which brings me back to writing. And Spanbauer’s premise that writing into your particular vulnerability and its secrets is a way to connect to the human condition. It’s in that liminal space between a writer’s intent and what’s unknown that the magic lives. It is in that space of uncertainty that scenes unfold.
Question for today: Talk about a time you experienced what felt like spontaneous scene development. A time when uncertainty on the page bloomed into something beautiful and surprising. Tell us about your journey with hope.
I experience this nearly every day. Words, sentences, and scenes more often than not come out of nowhere. Stepping into not knowing is where the thrill is. But I would say hope is a lot like courage and faith: I don't feel hopeful or brave, it isn't really a conscious thing, but it does take some mustering, (love that word), to go into what I don't want to face. For me, as I'm embarking on the fourth re-write of a novel, the hope is in knowing I'm not required to do this by myself. Time, the muse, trusted editors, fellow writers, and the story itself that has faithfully stood with me for six years; all of the above plus my own crazy desire, support the work and give me hope that I/we will see this through, despite doubt, failings, and insecurities encountered along the way.
A few years ago, I wrote a scene which replicated, in part, a rather distressing episode in my life. I was driving on one of those busy and dirty boulevards that sprout endlessly in Montreal, and the sadness caused by my impending divorce was so overwhelming that I had to take an exit and stop the car. In the scene I wrote, I exaggerated the whole thing, and my character hung on to the railing, willing himself to jump off the highway bridge. The situation was an exaggeration, but the sentiment was there. What made it easy to write was the appearance of another character, a savior of some sort. That too, of course, was an exaggeration, or at least pure invention, because in real life no such person ever materialized. But this character, embodying hope, made the writing cathartic. On the other hand, I was terribly unsure as to how I could pull off a suicide attempt convincingly. You often fantasize about jumping, but doing it is quite another thing. Putting yourself in the shoes of a true suicidal person is both scary and terribly exciting for some reason. Probably because you don't have to do it. You just imagine what it's like.