Life Lessons From Writing Lessons

Barbara: I am taking the most wonderful, creative and inspiring writing course right now with Michel Basilieres (writer of the magnificent Black Bird). One of the fundamental writing lessons he is teaching us, a lesson he reiterates over and over in case we forget it (because we do forget it over and over) which, in my humble opinion, also happens to be a fundamental life lesson is: no matter what you do, you are NEVER EVER “wasting your time”.

It’s a funny obstacle many writers have that if you see that something in your writing isn’t working, you have this tremendous sense of frustration and fatigue, ennui even, and usually high levels of resistance to the idea that you might need to start over again. Maybe you need to throw something away that you’ve slaved over. Or maybe you need to accept that something you’ve really attached yourself to, creatively and emotionally, just isn’t working the way you thought/hoped/imagined. The crux of this discovery, either your own for yourself or from an outside eye, is that it feels like a rejection of you and your work. You may feel stupid (how could I have missed/written that?). You may feel angry (fuck you, you don’t know what you’re talking about!). You may even feel you want to just pack it in and give up. And let me just be blunt about that: if you do actually pack it in and give up, then you didn’t care enough about that dream/idea/creation. Because, like in life, anything that really matters to you, anything that is deep and meaningful and spiritually important takes an extraordinary investment of time. Like, maybe even all the time you have…

Every writer has a point (or many points along the way) where they have to take stock and make adjustments. We all know the famous quote about writing being 10% writing and 90% re-writing. Writers often get writer’s block because they are consumed with this anxiety that if they don’t get it JUST RIGHT the first time, the work they’ve toiled over will go to scrap, so rather than do “wrong” work, they don’t do any work at all.

For all you writers out there, here’s the best news: every single word you write—whether it “survives” or does not—gives you something enormous: it might teach you about the craft, it might open up a story path you hadn’t considered and will still use, it might produce a sentence or a character or an idea that would never otherwise have been born. Nothing you create when you sit down to create is useless.

And, as I considered the truth of this lesson, the importance of it, I realized all of life is like this. We all have experiences and moments that we kind of chuck into the garbage after they’re done (well, that’s over, thank god), and then we find ourselves facing the same kind of experience or moment over and over and we sigh and wail and throw up our hands (no, not that again!). But every one of our dreary life experiences also carries the seeds of life lessons embedded within. And, I think, if we pay attention and reflect, we can certainly find the creative genius in those challenges, and that the residual effect is specifically valuable and true to us.

There is no waste of time in the mountains of balled up, cast-off pages landing in the trash, and there is no waste of time in the things we do that don’t end up so pretty and perfect. We are all… wait for it … you know it’s coming … works in progress.

Deb: I LOVE THIS POST! All the stuff I know but needed to be reminded of. Barb, you and I know firsthand how this is. We have written and rewritten our scripts over and over and then over again. We always had the same can-do spirt about it, I think, based on this philosophy. But as Barb knows I am trying to write this kid's book that has been in my head forever and I NEEDED this lovely and positive reminder. Thanks, Barb. Thanks, Barb’s teacher!

True Grit

Barbara: In light of all our recent talk of back-to-school and parenting, I’ve been thinking a lot about an article I read in the Globe and Mail a few weeks back. The article was about a book that Canadian journalist, Paul Tough, had written called How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Power of Character. Now I haven’t read the book—we’re not really doing book reviews here—but I still feel intrigued by the theory he puts forth (with which I familiarized myself through the article! … is that cheating?)

Anyway, looooooong story short, Tough (how’s that for a name for a guy destined to write about grit?) has determined that the single most important factor in success—more important than schooling, intelligence, income, genes—is GRIT. Now obviously, schooling, intelligence, income and genes will offer advantages and disadvantages, but the fascinating truth, the truth I think we all know in our hearts to be true but which we sometimes dismiss because we’re too depressed, angry, frustrated, and spent, is that every disadvantage we face (or feel we face) can have its ass KICKED in the face of determined, committed, persistent GRIT.

Tough’s book is geared to parents; I think to give them some ideas of shape and structure to then offer to their kids. And I think offering kids life lessons that embrace and celebrate perseverance is absolutely essential. But as I start this next kidless phase of my life, it has never seemed more important for me, grownup and supposedly all “done”, to remember.

It’s not just hollow condescension to tell yourself (or your beloved) to “never give up” (or to, as Nike owns, “Just do it”); it is, in fact, a measurable, firm and logical plan. It works. Because when all seems to be failing, when everything seems to have hit a wall, inevitably those of us who are open-minded and curious, will suddenly see that barely visible chink in the wall of “Not Possible” backlit by its seemingly otherworldly glow, and we will scratch at that hard place and we will chip at it (and, in the focus of our concerted effort, we will forget that we were just about to give up) until more and more of the glow pours out, until before we know it Not Possible is awash in so much light we no longer see it at all.

This has happened to me more times than I can count. The things I “have”, the accomplishments I most cherish and value, the calm, the peace, the happiness, the wisdom I’ve managed to hold close enough to examine, have all come after not minutes or days or weeks of effort, but after YEARS of it. Years and years and years. And, like I said above, the only time I notice the effort, the only time I resent it!, is when I stop and, well, notice it. If I’m in “the zone”, if I’m just “doing it”, if I’m not even dreaming of “giving up”, it is the most wonderful, exciting, transcendent feeling. But if I’m evaluating my effort, judging it, breathing down at its disinterested little face, it huuuuuuuuurts. Like muscles after a long workout. And this is the moment we all need to face at some points (at many, many points). This is when you need a little GRIT in your back pocket to pull out and rub all over your hands before you slap them together … and start again.

A University of Pennsylvania researcher developed a Grit Test to measure your grit (or GQ, maybe?). Click here if you want to try it. She says that most people are pretty honest when it comes to how they rate their own grit quotient. I scored high, but then I could’ve told you that without the test. It’s the one trait I can say absolutely has gotten me through every single challenge.

Many of you have shared stories here of your own grit over the years, or the grit of your children. I never get tired of them! How gritty are you?

Deb: This is fascinating and it was so interesting taking the test for me, and here is why. Some of my “focus” answers, when I answered them honestly, had nothing to do with grit and everything to do with, well ... focus. My focus is a one part grit and one part focus-impaired. The desire is there, but there are other obstacles that come into play. So, in conclusion, I would say that I have true grit in the face of some learning challenges! 

Ten Second Life

Deb: I think I have already made it clear that I love the Olympics and watch every second I can make time for. I admire, above all, the drive and commitment and passion of the Olympians. I love focus. I love when people know what they want and let nothing stand in their way in accomplishing their goals and their dreams.

A Canadian newspaper critic was going on in his usual snide fashion about the 100 meter race and how foolish we are to make a big deal over it, given that it only lasts ten seconds. Today as I was waiting with bated breath for the men’s hundred meter to start, my husband surprised me by saying the same thing the critic had said. He wasn’t disparaging the 100 meters like the critic did, but he was saying in a nutshell that “it’s almost like watching Nascar, except given that it is only 100 meters, it’s over in ten seconds. I mean what are they going to do after it is over?”

Wow. We could not be farther apart in this regard because I see it as something else completely.

Firstly, all due respect to my husband, I do not view their race, their training, and their moment in or out of the sun, as something they need to parlay into something else. It is what it is, in that moment in time and all the time spent leading up to it.

To me the 100 meters is a glorious parallel of what life is and the living of it. Working and playing and loving the path that leads us, ever closer, to our goal. And that ten seconds? (or less than ten seconds if you saw today’s final) IS life, I think. It is this precious life of ours that gets shorter and shorter. At this stage of my life, I get it. What did I do with my ten seconds? What did I accomplish? And more that that, what can I still do with the seconds that are left?  Shorter and shorter it gets as we near our end time here on earth. I see that ten seconds as the brass ring that must be grabbed every time we wake up to another day.

Ten seconds is a lifetime and a lifetime is ten seconds. It makes glorious sense to me.

Barbara: Of course you know, Deb, that I am just as much of an Olympics fanatic as you are, and I want to tell you: I LOVE this analogy. First of all, I also LOVE the 100 meter race. It is exciting and dynamic in ways no other race can be. To me that’s the nutshell of “why do it”. No other race can give witness to that burst of human physical prowess or answer the question “what is the top human speed?” The other races, by comparison, must factor in stamina and endurance. But on a totally metaphorical sense, I think the comparison between life and the 100 meters is sublime. It is over in a flash, and so many of us—if not all—will ask at some point, “Well, why did we do it/bother/make such a big deal over it?” We’re all running it, whether we realize it or not. So let's train for it, fight for it, revel in it. Eat it up. It really does go by so very quickly... Just remember, the glory is in the running, not the final medal at the end.