On writing

Writers, Storytellers and Readers

I have a memory from a sunny afternoon in my childhood as I sat in a gathering on the porch of my grandparents’ farmhouse in Virginia, and listened to relatives spin yarns ranging from tales of the Civil War and notorious ancestors to scandals involving the local music director and members of the church choir. The latter, whispered of course. On and on the stories came: hope and hard times, love and war, and wild and crazy people. It was as if there was another world in which these scenes and characters existed, and during those magical back porch gatherings, people I knew could summon them forth to speak and walk about.

When I learned to read and write and make sentences, it seemed like a natural thing for me to take out a sheet of lined note paper and a number two pencil and spin my own stories: knights in armor, cowboys, childhood sleuths modeled on The Hardy Boys. It was in the blood, as they say, and I kept at it fairly regularly without a thought as to why I was doing it or whom I was doing it for. Parents and friends, yes – indulging and patient - but in the long run, the only person who really listened was me.

I have begun to realize, at long last, that therein lies the key. A serious writer writes with an eye toward prospective readers – family, friends, other writers, unknown readers of serious books – but he writes first of all for the listener/reader who sits on the front row of his soul, that judge, admirer, critic, inspirer who frowns and smiles and even applauds, but always thinks it can be a little better. That listener/reader guides the impulse that uncorks, pours, and offers to others the bounties of the imagination.

Teamwork in the mystical vineyards of the wild unknown.

Stories and Trials: Writing, Lawyering and the Creative Mind

            At first blush, it seems odd that a lot of lawyers write fiction. The approach of the two lines of work is so different. Lawyers’ work is controlled and directed, their thinking deductive and linear. Their product is crafted, hammered out, whittled down. Writers throw open the door to experiment and imagination. They invite fantasy, emotion and intuition. A lot of the time, they have no idea where what they write comes from, and their product seems larger than they are.

            But both lines of work are centered on stories. Legal cases are stories, and the best trial lawyers understand that. They are storytellers – to juries, judges, clients, the public, other lawyers. The telling is bound by strict rules, and the available tools are carefully defined, but the skill involved, the impulse and inspiration, are to tell a story and tell it well. And presentation can make all the difference.

Because lawyering and writing both focus on stories, they are undertakings of infinite possibility. There is always something more to find: a lost detail, an idea, a word, phrase, or metaphor that furthers the cause, helps tell the story, helps convince and persuade. And even after cases end, books get published, and people move on, the stories linger. Ask a writer about rereading an earlier book she has written, ask a good lawyer to tell you about an old case, and watch the story and the creative process come back to life. The creative mind doesn’t rest, it just fades behind a curtain. Sometimes it is quiet; sometimes it is relentless; but it is always there.

Searching for Truth in Memory

            The older I get, the more I seem to dwell on memories, and that has led me to reflect about memory itself, or more specifically, what we do with memories. How reliable are they? What can they tell us? James Salter, one of our best writers, says that memories are stories we retell ourselves repeatedly and change with the telling to suit the purposes at hand. I think that rings true for a lot of memories. But others seem unchangeable, indelibly stamped.

            When I was in the second grade, I and two chums got sent to the principal’s office for violating his strict order against playing on the bank of a busy highway near the school. This was big trouble. Mr. Johnson, the principal, was a rangy, craggy-faced man with bushy eyebrows, big hands and long arms. His office was a dark, windowless place that loomed in my mind as the Minotaur’s lair. And worst of all, as every second-grader knew, he kept a special-built, electric paddle reserved for the worst offences - like playing on the road bank of the highway.

            He sat us side-by-side on small, kids-sized chairs, rested back on his desk and stared at us. Then he bent over slowly, looked us square in the face, and asked us one-by-one, “Were you playing on the bank?” Bobby, the class tough guy, looked him straight back and said, “Yes sir.” Joe, shy, arms still padded with baby fat, started to cry and mumbled, “Yes sir,” as well. I stared at the worn boards between Mr. Johnson’s size twelve, cap toe shoes. “No sir,” I said. Mr. Johnson lowered his face directly in front of mine. “Son, are you telling me the truth?” “I am,” I said. He straightened up with his fists on his hips. “I hope you are,” he said, “for the good of your immortal soul. Now go on back to your classroom.”

Fifteen minutes later, when Joe and Bobby returned to the classroom, Joe leaned in and whispered as he passed my desk, “You lied!”

That memory hurts. It is etched deep. It reveals a part of me I don’t want to see. Every now and then, I try Salter’s revision process on it: yes, I lied, but it was a justified, even gallant, stand against corporal punishment in public schools. Bullshit. What I really don’t like about that memory is that, unlike the seven-year-old kid sitting in my chair in Mr. Johnson’s office, it tells the truth. And for that reason, I trust it.

I also trust memories born of intense joy, like the moment on a shadowy dance floor in college when the girl I was in love with, and eventually married, told me she felt the same way. But in those good memories, it is not the details I remember so much, but the intense emotions of happiness, relief, and joy. The details, real or enhanced, are mere props for the emotion.

  But with so many other memories, most of them in fact, Salter’s rule seems to apply: we change them, merge them, and forget and rebuild them over the years. So what can we make of those, what can they tell us about who we are?

I try to explore this question in my novel, The Last First Kiss, where two people come together after decades apart, to revisit old memories and search for meaning in their lives. They introduce a third person (in the form of each other) into that internal conversation Salter talks about. Memories are challenged. The process of recall itself is challenged. The search ranges far and probes deep. And in the end, where does it leave them? Perhaps it is not the memories themselves that count so much, or their accuracy. Perhaps there is something else that relates more to the journey itself, undertaken in earnest, by two people.