calamity's child

this is a thing of beauty, this letter [see below]. this genre i love the most – writers writing about writing – largely because the guidance people give about writing is really guidance about how to be in the world: instruction in really seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, feeling the world around us; ideas about how to organize our time so that we can give due diligence to our jobs, our crafts, our creative lives, our relationships, and to pleasure;  very reasoned ideas about how we can best communicate ourselves to other people – for developing clarity, intention, precision, and ultimately, meaning.

[also, do you know about this blog, letters of note? i've blogged about it before here. it is amazing! an archive of personal letters. one from yesterday was a letter from leonardo da vinci!]

one thing that strikes me about this letter especially is how close these guidelines are to ethical guidelines. “don’t use words too big for the subject. don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something *really* infinite.” it is so close in meaning to this, on the middah of truth/emet: “do not allow anything to pass your lips that you are not certain is completely true.” i like so much that advice about writing is so obviously advice about living. say what you mean, and mean what you say. speak clearly and plainly; allow other people to hear and discern what is truly in your heart and on your mind.

from C.S. Lewis On Writing @ Letters of Note

(Source: The wonderful, C. S. Lewis’ Letters to Children; Image: C. S. Lewis at work, via .)

The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford

26 June 1956

Dear Joan–Thanks for your letter of the 3rd. You describe your Wonderful Night v. well. That is, you describe the place and the people and the night and the feeling of it all, very well — but not the thing itself — the setting but not the jewel. And no wonder! Wordsworth often does just the same. His Prelude (you’re bound to read it about 10 years hence. Don’t try it now, or you’ll only spoil it for later reading) is full of moments in which everything except the thing itself is described. If you become a writer you’ll be trying to describe the thing all your life: and lucky if, out of dozens of books, one or two sentences, just for a moment, come near to getting it across.

About amn’t I, aren’t I and am I not, of course there are no right or wrong answers about language in the sense in which there are right and wrong answers in Arithmetic. “Good English” is whatever educated people talk; so that what is good in one place or time would not be so in another. Amn’t I was good 50 years ago in the North of Ireland where I was brought up, but bad in Southern England. Aren’t I would have been hideously bad in Ireland but very good in England. And of course I just don’t know which (if either) is good in modern Florida. Don’t take any notice of teachers and textbooks in such matters. Nor of logic. It is good to say “more than one passenger was hurt,” although more than one equals at least two and therefore logically the verb ought to be plural were not singular was!

What really matters is:–

1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.

2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implementpromises, but keep them.

3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”

4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feelabout the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”

5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

Thanks for the photos. You and Aslan both look v. well. I hope you’ll like your new home.

With love
yours
C.S. Lewis

I have been away from the blogging for so long, and can’t give you anything too substantive today, but I want to leave you with these two  blog posts that I am completely obsessed with. They are both lists, both by Notable Literary Figures (Henry Miller and Joan Didion, respectively). Both offer two different, but equally important and compelling sets of rules. I am inspired by their conviction, brevity, clarity. By the ways that they are both clearly motivated by passion, diligence, and a willingness to be moved by inspiration. That with regulation comes space for whim — that is what I am looking for in my life: enough diligence and regularity that I have all the time and space I need to go where my heart leads me.

—

Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments. He wrote these while he was publishing Tropic of Cancer (1930s) and they are published in Henry Miller on Writing. I found them on Letters of Note (although inexplicably the post shows up on my Google Reader, but not on the blog itself. The internet is an elusive thing).

COMMANDMENTS

1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to “Black Spring.”
3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5. When you can’t create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

—

Joan Didion’s Packing List, published in The White Album in 1979 (the year I was born!) and posted on Keep It Chic

To Pack and Wear:
2 skirts
2 jerseys or leotards
1 pullover sweater
2 pair shoes
stockings
bra
nightgown, robe slippers
cigarettes
bourbon
bag with: shampoo, toothbrush and paste, Basis soap, razor, deodorant, aspirin, prescriptions, Tampax, face cream, powder, baby oil

To Carry:
mohair throw
typewriter
2 legal pads and pens
files
house key

This is a list which was taped inside my closet door in Hollywood during those years when I was reporting more or less steadily. The list enabled me to pack, without thinking, for any piece I was likely to do. Notice the deliberate anonymity of costume: in a skirt, a leotard, and stockings, I could pass on either side of the culture. Notice the mohair throw for trunk-line flights (i.e. no blankets) and for the motel room in which the air conditioning could not be turned off. Notice the bourbon for the same motel room. Notice the typewriter for the airport, coming home: the idea was to turn in the Hertz car, check in, find an empty bench, an start typing the day’s notes.

i have lived here, in this room, for 8 days now. my cat, burt reynolds (yes, indeed, that is her name), came here two days ago, and she has been jointly hiding under my bed and hissing at her new cat-mate, l. l is a very friendly cat. truth be told, so is burtseleh. but burt is a calico, and she is shy and protective. so mostly, these past two days, she has been growling. then peeking out from my tiny sunporch of a room, meeting l briefly again, engaging in some sort of hissing-and-growling fit, then running back to my room as soon as possible.

i feel like burt right now, in this moment. i can’t really tell when i’m hissing or growling or what, but there is a constant back-and-forth of grounding down, then moving out, confronting something unexpected and perhaps unwanted, hissing and growling at it, hoping it will go away, and running back into my quiet place. unlike burt, who will have to just adapt to her new reality with l, i hope that i don’t have to just open myself fully to the things that i’m encountering. because really, i don’t want them.

i was told last week that if having good trans politics was my bar for whether or not people were ok, i am setting myself up, since it will never happen. it made me so angry, and so sad. what? am i supposed to just suck myself up to the bullshit people put out there? no. and maybe there are parts that i do need to do better. like, maybe have more space for people to have errors and come back. but i’m not even looking for people to be perfect. i’m looking for people to try, to respect me, to not exploit trans experiences and trans bodies.

my home now, the one i live in, it is quiet. i live in the backest corner of the house, and the house is full of feminist queer gender variant people, and a lot of working class experience. it is nice to feel basic and seen and to have a moment of pause in here, outside of the world we all live in. i need to have some place to rest within a world that causes a lot of hissing and spitting.

but maybe, through it all, my heart will grow, too.