The Point of Writing
By Barbara O'Neal | July 23, 2024 |
On my studio wall, scrawled in my own handwriting on a long Post-It is, “Art uses us to reproduce itself. Even bad art takes courage.” I’ve looked all morning to see who said this bit of wisdom, but I haven’t found a source. It might have been in a class or a meeting and someone was brilliant so I wrote it down.
Attribution aside, think about those words. Art is using us—me and you—to reproduce itself, to multiply in the world, to spread itself into new cracks and crevices of despair or delusion or exhaustion. It needs us, our hands and heart and heads, to focus on bringing our little piece of Art into the world. It’s an idea I come back to again and again. Madeline L’Engle says it another way, that a book or a piece of writing comes to the artist and says “enflesh” me. What I like about the addition of the bad art bit is that it makes less of the whole…magnificence we imagine into making Capital A Art.
Because really, once we start taking it all too seriously, we lose the thread. The process isn’t about making great art. It’s about making art, full stop. Writing and writing and writing. Writing on good days and bad, showing up for the art spirit to use us as it will. Showing up when you’re in a successful phase and when you aren’t. When you are published and before that happens. Whether critics love you or ignore you.
Early this year, I started a Substack. My nerves were fraying by all the madness in the world, and I would find myself wandering anxiously, leaping from one world stage disaster to the next, frustrated and impotent. I felt myself despairing, weeping about lives lost and things over which I had no control. The firebrand within wanted to go out and rail about it, march…something.
But the wisdom-keeper who is slowly emerging from my belly said that was not the right answer. To calm my nerves, I need to notice and write about things in the world that were good, even if it all falls apart in chaos and despair. As Mary Oliver exhorts us, I needed to notice the wild geese, flying over, even now.
So, to give myself peace, I write about cats and watermelon and how ridiculously amazing that you can feel that single piece of hair on your arm. I’ve written most of them on days when I felt most overwhelmed by the news, a measured counter to the darkness. It helps. Tremendously.
Unfortunately, because Substack is social media even if it feels a bit elevated, I started reading other writers. Some of whom write impassioned or clever analysis of the world. A worry began to creep into my thinking about what I was doing there. I began to wonder if I was letting down The Cause(s) by not using my voice and my platform to address the ills in the world. So many to address, after all. I started fretting that to write about beauty and wonder and calm was a cop-out. What will those little essays do to feed the hungry or house the poor or end the brutal wars I so fret about—whatever ill has caught my attention that day? As a writer, like all of you, I run fairly high on the empathy scale and there is always suffering in the world, always an imbalance that needs addressing.
I expressed this worry to my son, who said, but what if you’re a person in one of those war zones and you need a break for five minutes?
Oh, yes. I remember.
I was lucky enough to understand my calling very early—my job in this life is to write. And as I grew up, I also came to understand that I’m to write about beauty, love, hope. Obviously, my novels deal with some pretty dark events, but I bend toward optimism, so the books do, too. I’ve always imagined that my books offer a respite to the front line worker, a nurse during the pandemic, an attorney working with immigrants, a weary drug counselor…people who really must have some space to turn things off or they’ll go mad.
My job is to offer that respite. To say, “look, things are a mess, but also, look at this flower. Look how it feels to heal a damaged relationship. Look how great it is that people recover from all kinds of things. Look at the sky and the ocean and cat paws.”
That’s what my Substack is, too. A place of quiet and beauty in a world that is filled with loud noise and violence.
It’s hard to stay with that sometimes. Maybe some of you get that—maybe you aren’t writing Literature to Cure the World’s Ills, either, but feel called to some other thing. Art is using you to get itself into the world, and by following our dharma, our calling, our drive to do this work, we are part of whatever gets woven into healing, for ourselves, our readers, maybe the world, over time.
It is possible it’s kind of sloppy work, or it doesn’t hold together, or the themes are all over the place. That’s not only okay, it’s really part of all of it. It takes courage to do that work, too, and it adds to the art in the world, which adds to the possible healing.
What are you working on right now? How are you keeping yourself calm and sane? Or maybe you aren’t. That’s okay, too. How are you grappling with that anger/sorrow/fear?
My new book, Memories of the Lost, is out next Tuesday. I hope you’ll take a look.
Barbara O’Neal is the author of more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling novels, including the runaway bestseller, When We Believed in Mermaids, which has been published in more than 20 countries and spent many months on the Amazon Charts, as well as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller lists. Barbara lives on the beach in rugged Oregon with her husband, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent and their zoo of cats and dogs. You can find more information on her newsletter and where to find her on social media at barbaraoneal.com.
I agree with your son. You are offering of moments of respite with your writing, but so much more. If one person stops to look up at the night sky because you put the notion in their head that they can choose silence and peace, even for a breath, you give them agency that can build and build. This is a powerful tool, and I see it spreading. Once a person knows that they can choose beauty over ugliness, they will do it and teach others to do it, too. A quiet revolution that overcomes all the noise. This is my belief, anyway. Your Substack makes me smile.
Thanks, Susan. I love in in community with you there!
We all need a centered and centering presence, to be reminded of “once upon a time” and even to be reminded of ourselves. I always appreciate your constancy; your lighthouse voice shines on even in dark times. You are, in this idea, the keeper of the light. How can that be anything but a material calling? I’m grateful.
I have felt true peace in nature, especially recently. I use Merlin Bird ID to listen for birds, use binoculars to find them (snap a picture if I can), then use eBird to count them up for the record. It doesn’t “matter.” And yet, sometimes, it’s everything, and I’m filled with gratitude.
Write on, B.
I love your nature photos! They’re so quiet and elegant, and they feed my soul. Thank you for your eye. (I also love the Merlin app, and iNaturalist, to help me identify birds and other things I’m unfamiliar with.)
Therese, I use the Merlin app too, though I’m so lousy at identifying birds that I don’t count them. This summer has brought a remarkable amount of birds to our water garden (masses of finches of all kinds, as well as juncos, towhees and a brilliant hooded oriole), and it is such a direct, visceral pleasure to watch their manic movements and behaviors. The imagination takes wing…
What am I working on? Well, this is what one of my characters said last week:
“…we all need Art, it lets us communicate the truths we can’t speak. It lets us walk inside the Beauty, when our world turns ugly.”
Good luck on your new release.
Off to find your Substack!
Synchronicity! We do need that beauty.
Thanks for this. As I write about boats and their folks, I often wonder what I’m doing to “improve” the world… and I really appreciate the thought that Art is using me as a vehicle to bring a moment of peace to someone else. Even when I’m doing it badly!
Thanks for the Substack link; subscribed. I may not be a front line worker, but I still very much reading about watermelon and other summer joys.
I love the glimpses you give me into a world I don’t know. It’s so particularly yours, and I’m glad to read it.
Hey Barbara — Lovely essay brimming perfectly timed reminders, as is so often the case when your words appear in my life. Know that it works like that, I’m guessing for many, many more human souls than this one.
I’m a longtime fan of the alt-rock band Guster, from Boston. I downloaded their latest album with fairly low expectations, but turns out it’s loaded with sneaky wisdom that’s been fitting right into my current (often fraught) state of mind. One song in particular keeps snagging my attention from my random-play rotation, titled Maybe We’re Alright.
“Miles and miles go by from this window seat
The lies we tell ourselves just to fall asleep
It’s hard to know exactly when it changed
WIth all the puzzle pieces out of place
Everything that’s good will come again
They had their time but now it’s over
Bah ba-ba-ba-bah
Maybe we’re alright ba-ba-ba-bah
We’re just one day older
Surprise, surprise…”
For me it speaks to how futile my fraught state can be. It’s a reminder to find the good, enjoy the memories, and just… be. Even the line about having had ‘their’ time is comforting. It’s true, so much good and love has passed, but no matter how rocky the ride can be, we continue to float by beautiful shores.
Here’s to doing the work, and the comfort it brings, to us–first and foremost. Anything that it offers to others is the whipped cream, with maybe the occasional cherry on top of that. Thanks for always being there!
Thank you for this beautiful response, Vaughn, and for sharing those lyrics. And for the reminder that centering ourselves in peace and beauty can be one of the most powerful things we can do for the world.
Lovely, Barbara. My post a few weeks back discussed how I came back to fiction after a year of exile in the throes of exactly that concern you express, the sense I needed to do something, say something. I’m continuing to do those things — postcards, anyone? — but have also, like you, recognized the need to center myself in something deeper, wiser.
One thing I’ve done: I’ve returned to Tai Chi, or its affiliate practice, Qigong (Tai Chi instruction resumes in the fall). Interesting side note: every session our instructor begins by reading a poem by Mary Oliver.
As for my current work: I’m writing about a dystopian world that I’m constantly exploring for signs of love, and hope, and promise. A torch in the darkness, if you will. It allows me to drain the well of fear inside me at the same time I search for signs of the continuation of what makes our curious species capable of living up to Faulkner’s belief that we will not merely endure but prevail.
Thanks for this. Great way to begin my writing day.
I’m also a practitioner of tai chi and qi gong, and really love it. I was so surprised to find a teacher in my little coastal town! And yes, I have to remind myself that the practice of centering in beauty and taking meaningful action can exist side by side-and the centering allow the action to be more focused.
And for anyone curious about Barbara’s Substack work, she discusses her return to tai chi in one of her posts.
Thanks, Barbara. I write. I write every day. Where would I be if I didn’t write…gardening with an idea beating in my head. Or here on WU, reading with others how we are incapable (which is a good thing) of stepping away from the power of the word, the desire of the sentence. Thanks for reminding me, that what I have to say might not be scooped up by those in power…but it means much to me. And maybe that is all that matters.
It matters so very much. And so does your garden.
Barb, I love that you add beauty to this world. It is my focus too. I cannot save the world so I focus on what I can do with what I have right where I’m at. Even the flare of a matchstick is enough to dispel the dark. This afternoon, my recorder group is going over to an assisted living facility during happy hour to give a concert. Fun for all. Writing wise, I’m revising my historical wip and falling in love all over again with my story people. It’s a hard book for me to write but with every iteration I go deeper… and my characters thank me for it :) I, in turn, am thankful for this one beautiful and creative life. Congratulations on your new book! I’ve always enjoyed your stories and essays. Thank you for this lovely post.
I love the sound of your recorder group! There’s a novel in that tidbit right there.
Giving us a break? I think you are selling yourself short. A strong story is not just a diversion, a set of Bridge, A hot soak in the tub. We readers may be enjoying ourselves, entertained, but we are also dreaming in a world of drama, yearning and hope.
The values underlying stories are there whether you intend them or not, it’s impossible to write a story without them, and those values are what the world needs. Watch the geese, taste the orange, pet your dog, set the table, sure, simple things are clarifying and peaceful. But stories…they are the high vision of freedom, the taste of what is good, the faithful companion, the bread that sustains us.
We cannot live without stories. We are not human without them. In them we discover our truths, not always the same but remarkably similar. That is true in light comedy and in heavy wartime epics. Don’t kid yourself. You are not just giving us a break, Barbara, you are holding us together. You are not avoiding what the world needs, you are what the world needs.
Hope to see you soon and read you sooner.
Oh, Don thanks for making me feel so brave.
Barbara, the small things are big things, as you so eloquently express. Last week I started working with a Ukrainian war refugee (she’s in Poland) through a volunteer program called ENGin:
https://www.enginprogram.org
I’ll be talking with her for an hour a week, on all kinds of topics (some of which will be weird, since I am weird), helping her improve her English, which in talking with her last week, is decent already. A small gesture in a rough world, but as you express, a gesture with weight nonetheless. Your posts always move me—thanks.
What a great idea! I love the directness. Thanks for the link.
Barbara, I’m sure you’ve heard some version of these lines, from Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem:”
“Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack, a crack, in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.”
(Antecedents in Hemingway, Emerson, philosopher Benjamin Blood, 13th c. poet Rumi, and I don’t know who else)
When I read your line “Art is using us—me and you—to reproduce itself, to multiply in the world,” I thought, aha, WE are the cracks. Artists are the cracks that let the light through. And our own “crackedness,” our openness to vulnerability, to human flaws and failings, (this isn’t perfect but that’s okay) is integral to how we let the light in. We can see that two contradictory things can be true at once: there is darkness, and there is light.
I write (as yet unpublished) middle grade and young adult novels. There’s an ethos in the kidlit world: your books don’t have to have happy endings, but it’s good to leave young readers with a sense of hope — for the future, if not for the main character’s present.
(more not-perfectness) I have depression; have had it for 30-odd years. It got worse in October 2016 and I’m struggling now. (I’ll let the reader find the connection.) This morning I had to drive to an appointment, to a place I’d never been, and my GPS app took me to a street blocked by road repair. My hero showed up in an orange vest. He not only moved the cones out of my way — he stopped traffic to let me make my turn. I was so grateful that he did that, and that I was in a state of mind to dwell in gratitude and not in frustration at being a few minutes late. This seems related but I’m not sure how.
Now I’m looking for your substack.
Imperfectly,
Carolyn
Carolyn, thank you for that beautiful connection — we are the cracks that let the light through. And Barbara, thank you for getting the conversation started! I love all of this.
Carolyn, your reply moved me to tears. We are the cracks! Of course! Hope to see you over there.
Love this! The doom and gloom of the world affected me as well. And so, when the pandemic hit, I combined my lifelong passion for wildlife conservation and protecting Mother Earth for future generations and veered into writing eco-thrillers. Readers say in reviews I’ve changed the way they look at the world. Let the healing begin!
A perfect example of turning darkness to light. Thank you.