Ahead: It’s the Only Way to Look

For reasons too numerous and too extraneous to catalog here, I recently joined an online community of artists, illustrators, and other creative types. The phrase, creative types, appears here in italics because it holds a very special place in my life: At an insurance company for which I once worked in a marketing capacity, my boss's boss told one of my internal clients (another favorite phrase) — a gentleman who disagreed with my counsel on a matter of communication and went over my head to report his pique — that he should ignore me because I was Irish and a creative type.

I interpreted both of those characterizations to be true and complimentary. I told my boss so. I also told her that if her boss thought it appropriate to make my professional guidance a prompting for comments about my ethnic derivation and my intellectual predilections, the three of us would have a lovely time discussing the matter with Corporate HR. Needless to say, they took a pass on that opportunity. And my boss's boss was kind enough to apologize for his lapse in tact. But I knew two things, right then, in the mid-'80s: (1) I'm not suited, in temperament or in inclination, to work in environments in which telling the truth is frowned upon. (2) As a result of realization #1, and though I didn't know it then, I was onto something that would contribute meaningfully to my professional future. But I digress shamelessly.

In that online community, I happened to read an exchange between two illustrators. Both of them remarked about sculpting. One is a sculptor ignoring a sculpting project to dabble in illustration. The other is an illustrator who used to sculpt. My first thought was that, as a writer, I don't practice a visual art like sculpting or illustration. Then it occurred to me that writing is very much a visual art.

What Do You See?

First, most obviously, and with the exception of braille, writing requires visual consumption through reading. Second, writing is about creating mental pictures and even music. I walk around and read everything I write aloud. If I can't hear the music in it — if I can't feel the rhythm of it — I revise it until I can. Third, writing is very much like sculpting. Rather than working in a physical medium, I work in a linguistic one. Rather than shaping rock, wood, clay, or metal, I shape words. I begin with an entire language, remove the parts that don't look like my story, then bend and shape what's left until it's taken the form I envisioned.

In his introduction to the collection, Classic Crews, the late, utterly inimitable Harry Crews wrote this:

I remained convinced in my belief that all anybody needed to develop as a writer was access to a good library and the willingness to play fast and loose with his life because, make no mistake about it, by the time a person even moderately masters any art form, it is almost always too late to do anything else.

He was right. And in addition to good libraries, we're now surrounded by electronic media that give us all the access to all the words we'll ever need — or will be able to imagine. All writers do is organize them. Good writers are just better organizers than not-so-good writers.

Take Care of Yourself

I can fully understand, appreciate, and even respect not wanting to write. I can't begin to fathom being afraid to write. I'm afraid not to write. I don't have the vaguest notion in the world what I'm thinking until I write it. In my professional life, I couldn't imagine trying to analyze anything; trying to simplify complexity; trying to clearly articulate plans, concepts, strategic directions, or distinct and differentiated brand positions without writing them out first. How can you see the statue until it's sculpted?

In my personal life, I very often write just to see how I am on any given day. Sometimes it's hard to know until I take the time to sit at my desk, collect myself, clear my head, fill it with new ideas, make some notes, write a blog post — almost anything just to get in touch with myself, establish my bearings, and ease into whatever else comes next. Besides, I tend to be leery about whatever it is that comes next unless I'm creating it.

The great Satchel Paige famously said, "Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you." He, too, was right. Look ahead. Imagine what might be. Imagine what you might be. Dare yourself to write about whatever you imagine. Don't worry about the quality of the writing. It's not for publication. It's for inspiration. A college professor once told me, "You can't learn to write. You can only learn to re-write." Like Harry Crews and Satchel Paige, he was right, as well.

So, jot down your imaginings. Show them some light and some love. It might be the first time you've ever seen them. Rearrange them. Play with them. Look ahead. And have fun. It's your life. You have just one lifetime in which to create it. But you have every day in which to re-create it.

The worst that can happen is that someone will call you a creative type.

A man was on a cross-country flight with his young son. The man had work on which he was trying to concentrate. But the son, with little to engage his attention, frequently distracted the man. In one of the airline magazines, the man found a map of the world. Knowing his son loved puzzles, he tore out the map and ripped it into small pieces, which he put on the boy's tray table.

"There," said the man. "We made a puzzle. Now you can put the pieces together."

Seeing his son's eyes light up, the man assumed he'd bought himsef an hour or so of concentration. But five minutes later, the boy tapped his father's arm.

"All set, Dad."

"How did you put the world back together so quickly?" the man asked in disbelief.

 

"It was easy," the boy said. "There was a picture of a man on the other side. When I put the man back together, the world took care of itself."