Reading and Writing and To Hell With Arithmetic - Save it for Word Counts!
Well, of course, writing is not War but it is indeed oftentimes ‘war’.
The words are not going to write themselves. The words must be engaged by you and it takes effort, your effort. You are not Oscar Wilde and can easily toss off aphorisms at leisure. In order to create, you have to have a mind that burns and crackles. And in order to have that kind of mind, you have to grow it, work it, create it. And in order to get there, not only do you have to drink in the world all around you, you have to, you must, you are required to read and read and read some more. Now, there, I’ve said it.
Recently, there was a fine article in the February 3, 2021 Wall Street Journal entitled, ‘The Therapeutic Value of Reading’ by Elizabeth Bernstein. I’ll not beg, borrow or steal rapaciously from it other than to say she goes much farther than the simplistic, ’Reading is good for you’ trope.
Now onto what it takes to write well. I have always admired the quote by the late, great sportswriter Red Smith. When asked how it was that he could churn out three, sometimes four fine columns a week, he glibly replied, “Oh it’s easy. You just sit down at the typewriter, roll a sheet of paper in and cut open a vein…”And too, I think of two other, brilliant literary polemicists and polymaths, Christopher Hitchens and Charles Krauthammer. They are worthy of thought and study. I miss them but at least their words and thinkings and observations are preserved as written word (and audio books too-another form of ‘good reading’). I love the below quote from the February 6, 2021 New York Times Obituary of the great actor, Christopher Plummer:
“By the early 1960s, Mr. Plummer had become allied with the bad boys of the British acting world-Richard Burton, Albert Finney, Peter O’Toole-motivated, he once said by the cantankerous rage against propriety exhibited in the work of John Osborne. In his memoir (IN SPITE OF MYSELF, which I note is as good and true as an actor can do! Also, don’t neglect BRING ON THE EMPTY HORSES by the late David Niven, another exemplary memoir by a very suave and funny actor), a dishy, rollicking account a life lived sensually and energetically, he was not shy in detailing his amorous adventures, or his drinking with fellow actors. In a 1967 interview with the CBC, Plummer acknowledged himself to be a drunk - “though not when I’m working - producers take note,” he said-and considered the question of why actors in general drink.”
The more you give to an audience which is a tremendous amount that you give during a night if you care about your work, the more you spill out of yourself with either loathing or loving them and getting loathing and loving back,” he said. "It’s a tremendous letdown when the evening is over. You’ve given an awful lot of your own personality with just the reward of applause at the end, which is a marvelous reward but it isn’t quite enough to fill the rest of the night.”
And, so it is with writers too. And musicians. And painters and sculptors. And any soul who tries to create. Forgive me for lumping ‘all as one’ but I find my observation to surely be more true than not. I recall when I played sports, physical, sweaty, exhausting games. When the contest was over, you might be spent if you had (and you had better) put your all into it. But there was an emptiness, a gray void after it was all over. And we all want to fill that void in.
Understandable. Lastly, I depart with a beloved reference to my wonderful Uncle Jimmy Glenn. Late in his long life, when frail, he had mostly stepped away from his successful business and leisure interests. I dropped by the house to have a visit with ‘UNC’. We chatted and watched part of an old Hopalong Cassidy movie and had Coca-Colas - he loved Westerns. And after I while, I rose to take my leave and wished him lots of love and told him I’d be back to see him soon. As I started down the hall to the door, he called to me.
“Sonnie."
“Yessir?”
“Remember, use it all up. Don’t leave any on the table.”
“Yessir, I will.”
And I have tried to be true to that advice. And I hope you will be true. Bring effort and intensity to your reading and your writing. You will be rewarded.