Creating In A Time of Destruction – WN 031

This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 31: Creating In A Time Of Destruction.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I’m your host, Sarah Werner. Today we’re going to talk about something that is maybe a little uncomfortable or difficult, and I’m thinking just now that I kind of say that before a lot of my podcast episodes. I think that a lot of times when we are driven to write or create, it’s often not in the best of circumstances, and today I want to think about why that is, and specifically the sort of dichotomy that is creation and destruction.

I believe one thing very, very firmly, and that is that human beings are fundamentally creative. You have something in you. I always say this, and it sounds gross, but you have something in you that creatively speaking needs to come out, and I think that the world is a better place for it. So with that in mind, knowing that we are beings that were created to create, there’s also a fair amount of destruction that goes on in the world. So we’re going to talk a little bit about how we can react to destruction with creation and what roles these two entities, ideas play in our lives.

But before I do that, I received a really lovely email from podcast listener, I hope I’m saying your name correctly, Renaja Walker, but Renaja just had the most beautiful words to say, and it was really sort of in the vein of letting go. Renaja writes, “I wanted to share with you a sort of writing realization, for lack of a better word, that occurred to me the other day. I’m working on a novel as I’m sure many of your listeners are, and whenever I hit a bump in my writing, I turn on your podcast and it helps me continue on. But recently, when I tried to write on my own in silence or by generated sounds of rain, I found myself getting lost. At first, I didn’t know why, but then I suddenly figured it out. I have a tendency to edit while I’m writing, to critique each word the moment I put it down.”

“I realized that I was trying to write my novel, the first draft as if it were the final draft, and that once I was finished with it, it would be publish-ready, good to go, no editing needed. It took me long to realize how ridiculous that notion was. Editing exists and it’s absolutely 100% okay to simply write, to get the story on paper and down on the page. Every word doesn’t have to be skillfully and wisely chosen in the exact moment I’m choosing it. It’s okay to let the words flow from your mind to your fingertips to the page and let your story grow. It needs time to grow, to exist. It doesn’t need to blossom right away in the very moment that you plant it. Just let it grow first and then we can polish it and help it bloom later.”

“I realized I don’t need to be a writer and an editor at the exact same time. I can be a writer first, and then when it’s done, I can be an editor to pick out and refine what the writer me missed. Then I can be the reader to ensure the editor me did her job right. Then the process will start over and recycle until I finally do have a publish-ready work. I can just be a writer and simply write.”

These are true words. I do exactly the same thing, and I think part of it comes from us emulating what we’ve seen. So we see a novel on the shelf at Barnes & Noble or on Amazon or at your local independent bookshop, and we see this beautiful finished project. What we don’t see is all of the drafts and revisions. We don’t see the trashcan full of crumpled up papers. We don’t see the red pen. All we see is this final product. Then I think we are driven to create what we see. That’s how we learn. You see something, you create something.

But so much of the process in the final product is hidden, that I think it’s really easy for us to fall into the trap of saying, “Heck, I can write a novel and I’ll write it in one go,” and we don’t give ourselves permission to fail, permission to edit, permission to be imperfect in the first draft, permission to scrawl what we need to scrawl on sheaf of paper after sheaf of paper, on the kitchen walls within a series of notebooks, or Scrivener files or Microsoft Word documents.

Renaja, your insight, you kind of insinuated that it was simple, but I think that a lot of the most complex and profound lessons that we need to learn seems simple. Be a writer first and simply write, then be an editor and edit, and then be a reader and read. Renaja, thank you so much for your email. Thank you so much for getting in touch with me and sharing your insight with me and with all of the Write Now listeners. I’m just so grateful that you decided to do that. If you would like to send me an email or get in touch with me in some fashion, you can do so using either my email, which is hello@sarahwerner.com. That’s S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R.com.

Or you can go to my website. Once you’re there navigate to the contact page, and there you’ll find a little form that you can fill out. It’ll ask for your name, your email, and a brief message or a long message. Once again, I don’t think I’ve ever tested the limit for how long an email can be, and your message makes its way to my inbox. You can also message me on any of the social media platforms that I’ve set up for the Write Now podcast. Be it Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Tumblr, whatever. I love hearing your thoughts and I love sharing your insights. I don’t know. I know I’ve said this before, but I don’t know what I did to deserve this amazing army of listeners. You are so amazing. You are so smart and insightful, and I’m just so grateful that you donate your free time to listening to the Write Now podcast. It means the world to me. So thank you.

So, like I said in the introduction to today’s episode, this topic is kind of difficult to talk about and not so much the creation side of it, but the destruction side, because destruction is hurtful and painful and it can have a truly devastating effect on our lives. I live in the United States of America, in North America, between Canada and Mexico. If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, you may have seen a lot of coverage on the amount of violence that occurs every single day. This isn’t even just the United States. This is everywhere. This is everywhere.

There’s a lot of different reactions to violence to destruction, and the Write Now Podcast is not a political show, and I like to be very careful about keeping personal politics out of an encouragement podcast. But I’m willing to bet that whether you live in the United States of America or you live anywhere else in the world, you’ve seen your share of violence. You’ve seen your share of destruction either firsthand by experiencing it in person or second hand on television or through a book, be it a current book, a history book. You may not think about it a whole lot, or it may consume you.

I have family and friends and coworkers and acquaintances who sort of run the gamut from ignoring it and pretending it doesn’t exist to obsessing over it and trying to brainstorm solutions and take action. We live in a time that is similar to so many other times, and that is a time in which you can hear people say, or perhaps you even say yourself, when did things get this bad? America’s going down the toilet, or Canada’s going down the toilet or Portugal is going down the toilet. Wherever you live, it’s so easy to think that things are simply getting worse and worse, that we’re becoming more violent, that we’re becoming a destructive force unto ourselves, and in a way, maybe we are. But I think in a way maybe we always have. There has always been cruelty and violence and war and destruction, and that doesn’t excuse its existence now. I want to make that very clear.

Just because it’s always been that way does not mean it should be that way, and it does not excuse the fact that it is that way today. Rather, what I want to talk about is how you respond to destruction and pain and cruelty. How do you respond to that as a writer? I think that one of the main responsibilities of a writer is to establish what is normal and to promote what is good and to challenge what is not good. I think it’s up to us. Looking back through history, 100% of what we know has been gleaned through archeological and anthropological findings, many of which are works of art or photographs or going back even further, drawings, statues, and largely, writing.

So much of what we know about how life used to be, in Jane Austen’s time, in Rousseau’s time, in Frederick Douglass’ time, in John Milton’s time, in Aristotle’s time and Plato’s time, so much of what we know about these past cultures and people, we learned from their writing. They let us know how life was and what the daily struggles were, just as we record those things now in our writing every day. This is true. This is absolutely true. Whether you are writing fantasy, mystery, poetry, whether you’re writing nonfiction, whether you’re writing fiction, we are creative beings, and when we create, I believe that true things come out. Truth comes out. I have a whole episode about truth in fiction. I think it’s episode 20, just so that I don’t rehash everything here that I said there.

But I think that just as we describe the normal, as we convey bits and pieces of our culture and our cultural attitudes and our beliefs and values and mores, even as we convey bits and pieces of that through our writing, whether it’s fictional or nonfiction, poetry or mystery or fantasy, I think that we are also actively working to establish it. I believe that writers and artists and dreamers and idea-havers of every kind are responsible for not only conveying our present, but shaping our future. Your words have power and that power not only comes in truth-telling and storytelling, but in future shaping. Do you know what? I think that the future needs shaping, and I think that the future needs shaping at the hands of kind and smart and amazing creators, just like you.

Writer Maxine Hong-Kingston has a really lovely quote that I like and that I’ve sort of had in my little collection of quotes for several years now. This quote says, “In a time of destruction, create something.” That quote was really, along with a couple other things, the impetus or the inspiration for today’s podcast episode. In a time of destruction, create something. You could take it one direction and say that, “Well, Sarah, you’ve just said that every time is a time of destruction and so we should always be creating.” You know what? That is absolutely true. I think that by creating, by writing, by drawing, by sculpting, whatever it is you do, you are living out the very thing that you were made to do. You are living out a grand purpose.

But I think that it goes further than that. I’ve talked before about the personal healing that writing can bring. I talked about that in episode three, writing as self-care. Journaling is healthy. It lets us externally process the myriad things that are going on in our very complex and complicated minds. You can find healing in writing, but I think that you can also heal others. So when we talk about shaping the future, and I know this sounds maybe idealistic mumbo-jumbo to you, if you are maybe a little bit more on the cynical side of things, and I’ve been on the cynical side of things. In fact, I am often on the cynical side of things. I believe that, yes, we create our own destruction, but we also create our own creation.

I think that it is not only a very rational and logical, but also a beautiful and fulfilling thing to create, to draw, to paint, to dance, to write in a time of destruction. Just as I try not to get very political on the show, I also try not to get religious. I think that most people appreciate that for the most part. There’s something really uncomfortable about listening to someone just go off about their political or religious beliefs, especially when you’re not expecting it, especially when you’re listening to a podcast about writing.

But I think somewhere in our shared mythology is the idea of prophets, and there is one particular prophet who always just really interests me and that is John the Baptist or John the Baptizer, who is this kind of crazy dude who lived on a diet of locust and wild honey, so essentially like bugs and sugar, and he wandered around the desert shouting poetry. If that is not an artist, if that is not a writer like the platonic ideal of an artist or writer or poet, then I don’t know what is. I think it’s just such an interesting illustration that is still pertinent to this day. I want to give credit where credit is due. I was inspired to sort of make this connection by my good friend, Jeff [Isley 00:15:33].

Jeff was talking about this prophet that was wandering around in the desert shouting poetry at the top of his lungs. I thought, talk about creating in a time of destruction. John the Baptist wandered through the wilderness, eating weird random stuff, shouting poetry. Poetry that to him and to many built up this beautiful platform of hope for the future. So what I want to ask you today, even if your life is not lived on the edge of violence, even if destruction and pain and cruelty and illness are not hovering just inches above your head, I think just as we were all created to create, I think each and every single one of us has a wilderness that we’re wandering through.

When I talk about wilderness, I’m not talking about that beautiful place to which I escape once a year and take my yearly hermitage or my writing retreat. That type of wilderness is very full and very alive with trees and birds and freshly baked cookies. The wilderness that I’m talking about is the wilderness of the soul, that flat, empty, numb place where we retreat or are sent in times of destruction, when things are so bad that we just go stumbling and wandering through wondering what happened, why are things so terrible.

Wilderness can show up as a feeling of loss, as an illness, as depression, as just a feeling of being lost, of not knowing your calling, of not understanding why something has happened, something that shouldn’t have happened, of loneliness and despair and anger. Or maybe you are wandering through a literal wilderness like John the Baptist, wandering through a desert, eating insects and sugar, screaming poetry at the top of your lungs because you know what, that’s all you can do. I think it’s a very deeply human thing and a beautiful thing to respond to destruction and violence and cruelty with creation and beauty. I think it’s a way in which we can fight back, and whether we’re fighting back to climb out of this wilderness, this well that we’re stuck in, or if we’re writing and creating to help others to see the light and find hope and climb out of this well of desolation and destruction.

I think both of those are valuable. I think that in a time of destruction, as my friend Jeff said, it is all the more important that we have dreamers and poets and writers and creators and prophets. The world needs you. The world needs your story. Whether you’re writing it and creating it for yourself or to share with others, I think that doing so is in fact, one of the only sane and to worthwhile and meaningful and fulfilling things we can do.

“That’s all well and good, Sarah,” you might be saying at this point, but I’m not writing to affect social change or whatever. I’m not writing to heal the nation. I’m writing a cozy mystery or I’m writing a epic fantasy. But you know what? I don’t care. You are creating something, you are creating something magical and awesome. I don’t even care if it’s a horror story where tons of people die. You are still creating something. You are defiantly creating and defiantly standing up against a violence, against a destroying sense that the world is a bad place. I think the world is an amazing place and I think it would be even more amazing with your story in it.

This week’s book of the week is The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. It’s one of those it books this year. What I mean by that is everybody I know is reading it and talking about it, or has at least heard of it, which is kind of unusual. It’s been praised as a mystery, similar to Gone Girl, where you have a very deeply psychological story with a naive narrator, or perhaps an untrustworthy narrator. I have to admit, I started reading it and I got about 15% of the way through, according to Good Reads, and I had trouble getting into it. I don’t know if it was the time or the place or my mindset, but it took me about 15, 20% of the way in before I was hooked.

But when I was hooked, I was hooked. This is a very skillfully woven and very skillfully told mystery that features multiple points of view from multiple narrators. One of these narrators is sort of the main narrator. Her name is Rachel, and she rides a train every day as a commuter. As she rides, I think as many of us do, she looks out at the landscape and she wonders who’s living in that house, who’s living in that house, what a perfect life they must lead to have such a beautiful the house, and what a mess my life is compared to that perfect person’s life within that perfect house.

There’s a lot of things going on within this book. There is of course a murder, which is awesome because I love me a good murder mystery. But there’s also some really subtle commentaries on how we view the world and how we view other people and how we interact with and treat other people and how we can form illusions or illusory notions of people and how we feel when those illusions are smashed and broken. Rachel, one of our main narrators is an alcoholic and therefore, sometimes unreliable. She has missing patches in her memory, and of course the police, when she goes to report something that she has seen, are not terribly inclined to believe her. But she is growing and changing and we see her develop and grow and change just as we see several other characters grow and change, or as their true natures are revealed to us.

This novel is a little bit like Gone Girl in those respects, but it is also really unlike Gone Girl in several ways. Mostly, at least for me, while there are despicable characters, despicability is not the focus of the character development. In fact, the story that’s presented to us is one of, without giving you any spoilers because I hate spoilers, it’s one of creation and renewal in a time of destruction. I don’t know how I keep reading books that somehow coincide with whatever I’m podcasting about this week. You know what? Honestly, I’m probably subtly inspired by what I’m reading or I take what I’ve read and apply, subconsciously, whatever I’m podcasting about to that book, but give it a read.

If you like mysteries, even if you don’t like mysteries, let this book take you on a ride through the minds of several people as they grow and change and explore this simultaneously beautiful and terrible world around them. I found it a pleasure to read and experience, and I hope that you do too.

The Write Now Podcast is simultaneously a very independent and lonesome work in that in one respect, it’s just me. I plan and record and host and edit and release and market this thing all by myself. But at same time, I love that I am surrounded by a community of listeners like you, and you’re not just listeners and that’s what I love. You’re fellow readers and fellow writers. You are fellow creators. Some of you are contributors like Renaja Walker who sent me such a lovely and insightful email. Some of you are promoters and supporters like Jimmy [Byes 00:24:09], Jr. who just wonderfully and faithfully shares all of my podcast episode recordings, both personally and through his platform, Phantom Sway.

I also have cheerleaders like my husband, Tim, who knows that this is a really fulfilling exercise for me, and once or twice a week clears out of the house so that I can have relative silence in which to work and record. There are also contributors and financial supporters such as my wonderful and amazing Patreon supporters. These awesome folks donate a certain amount of money per episode, whether it’s 50 cents per episode or a dollar per episode or $5 per episode, they all do this out of the goodness of their very, very wonderful hearts to make sure that I can cover hosting costs and the other costs associated with podcasting. These wonderful people include official cool cat, Sean Locke, official rad dude, Andrew Coons, and official bookworm, Rebecca Warner.

Thank you so much for all you do in helping keep this podcast financially viable and proudly independent. If you are interested in becoming a Patreon supporter, there is a link within the show notes for today’s episode. Otherwise, I think there’s also a link on my contact page on my website, sarahwerner.com. So if you are feeling so moved, please do feel free to contribute. It is greatly appreciated.

I encourage you this week to go forth and create in the face of destruction. Go forth and make magic happen on the page, and whether it is in spite or triumph or whatever spirit in which you write, duty or diligence, furious passion, whatever it is, I want you to write this week, once or twice or every day, whatever you can fit into your schedule. I want you to write defiantly and wonderfully and show the world what you can be. Until next time. This has been episode 31 of the Write Now Podcast, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I’m Sarah Werner and I believe in you.