It’s been awhile since I blogged. Quite a while. I couldn’t seem to get out of a funk and I couldn’t identify what the problem was, but I had an epiphany last night and I’m happy to be back on the page again.
Some of you may recall I had been working hard to finish a novel that I’ve been writing for the past three years. Well, I hit my goal for the first draft in January and have been editing and rewriting since. The past month has been a final polish. In the meantime, I’ve sent out queries to agents and so far, one has asked for the first three chapters. So, while I’m making the rest of my novel as perfect as I am able, I’ve been “on hold” in a way.
More to the point, in the front of my mind has been concerns with being a good writer, an “important” writer, which is the goal for most of us who aspire to write for others. While we can call ourselves successful by simply selling material, it is so much more satisfying, at least for me, to be able to point to acknowledgements and awards.
I think I’m over that…
Because I read and truly enjoyed a retrospective of clips from the works of John Updike, who recently passed away, I ran out and got a paperback edition containing two of the Rabbit series, Rabbit, Run and Rabbit, Redux, published in 1960 and 1971 respectively. Two other books in the series won the Pulitzer Prize. Updike is world renowned and much loved in some circles.
I hated both books. Updike is a wonderful writer. His descriptions, details and characterization are spot on. Yet, both books depressed me terribly. I found I didn’t like any of the characters, except the main character’s young son. I forced myself to read them because I felt it was “good for me.”
Okay, so I’ve revamped my goals as a writer. I want to write things that grab the reader and make him care deeply about the outcome of the characters lives, because that now means success to me. If the reader becomes engaged and reconsiders, even for just a moment, another point of view, that’s a victory. Pain experienced on behalf of the characters is fine, as long as it’s not relentless with no end in sight and has no redeeming value.
Updike’s whole point was to explore the meaningless values of American life in those times – I get that and point well-taken. Yet, the unending quality, the sense of being beaten about the head and shoulders with ugliness, is just not what I want to create or what I want to read. So, I’ve revised my idea of what being an important writer is and now I think I can move on.
This very concept of re-evaluating would probably make Updike happy. It is, after all, what should happen in life. We must all look at the world and wonder how we each fit in and what constraints are acceptable, what values we’ll each embrace.
Hooray for Updike. He moved me out of my funk.
