Just going to post a brief update and drop a few ideas (continued from I’m Retiring).
My posts will likely be way down this month compared to last. September and October (and the last part of August) were big blogging months for me because of all the news — the financial crisis, two elections — starting with the Georgia-Russia conflict that sort of turned me into an accidental newshound.
It was a lot of fun to get right into the daily (and hourly!) narratives of the financial crisis and the elections while much of the mainstream media and blogosphere was oriented (and unified, in a sense) around the same events. But now those narratives are splintering — for example, the US election is now splitting into discussions of different aspects of transition — and I don’t have much desire or need to follow any in particular.
This kind of change is perfectly natural for me. The last three months have been an anomalous period in terms of what/how/why I was specifically writing, but in general these anomalous periods aren’t anomalous at all. In fact I have a pretty steady seasonal rhythm of development, which I’ve unintentionally followed for years.
I wish I could anticipate what I’ll do in the next three months but that just isn’t how I work. Last time I took a break like this I intended to turn more business-like. Instead, I virtually ignored business concerns altogether and became a policy blogger.
This time the symbol of my upcoming phase is The Wire, which has affected me in two important ways as an aspiring writer. (Not counting the new-this-moment realization that being a writer is an actual aspiration of mine.)
The first effect hit me yesterday (when I was partway through season 3). It made me realize the importance of ongoing engagement with real people and ”street-level” interactions. This came to me both from the story itself (residents at a meeting reminiscing about a time when they knew the local beat cops by name, before the “drug war”). It also came to me by thinking about the story-behind-the-story — where the material for The Wire came from. (I was specifically thinking of this conversation with Richard Price, who wrote some episodes… and today I read this on the great observer of urban life.)
Following a few years of virtual isolation, I need to be turning more streetside — which is likely a richer way to live in general as well as an essential source of good writing (whether journalistic, fictional, or, as I’ve come to believe, for the kind of non-narrative stuff I’ve always been motivated to write).
The other effect has to do with form. The deeper I get into The Wire, the more I appreciate it as a serious artistic accomplishment — perhaps an exemplar of an emerging art form. Much of what is written about The Wire relates it to the scope of Dickens and Homer. That might seem ridiculous to some — but what were people saying about Dickens and Homer back in the day?
“It’s no comparison to…”
It’s worth noting that epic novelists like Dickens and Dostoevsky first published much of their work in serial form — or “episodes,” we might say — in monthly magazines. I mentioned this point earlier, citing a remark make by Matthew Yglesias about how The Wire is the only television show that is truly coherent and consistent — like a very long movie. The ‘box set’ isn’t merely a collection, it’s the story, nothing more and nothing less. (Of course I probably shouldn’t say until I actually finish it. I might have to eat my words. This is just what I’m thinking now.)
So now I’m thinking more about conceiving a narrative work on on this bigger scale. ‘Conceiving’ might not be the best word, because the point of it is to rescue myself from the counterproductive habit of over-conceiving. With a more epic mindset I’d be compelled to hit the street looking for characters and dialog and settings to use — rich enough to organize and develop themselves, through a long process, leading to an interesting and unexpected ending.
It’s those elements that I lack – character, dialog, setting — or rather, it’s the ability to generate those elements that I lack. My hope is that the next episode of my life will help me learn how to make those, both for writing and for living.
