It’s almost two years now since I ventured back into fiction writing. In high school, I fancied myself a fiction writer. In college though, I was writing plays and poetry, but pretty much gave that up too for graduate school in social work, although I continued to write occasional poetry, generally to women, on bar napkins. As far as I know, none of those poems survive.
I briefly ventured back to fiction when, pushing fifty, I lost a job I loved, a job in which I was doing good and doing well, a job I thought I’d do until retirement. Having landed in a less demanding job, I suddenly had time to read and write fiction after years in which all my writing had been “professional.” I discovered Nadine Gordimer and Toni Morrison, I wrote a few stories, and sent them out. In those days, rejections still came as handwritten notes.
It was a brief interlude. I jumped into Zen, and soon Zen was pushing fiction aside. In Jishu’s skandha class, the journaling and writing assignments became my writing practice. Soon I would be joining Bernie on Street Retreats and at Auschwitz. Raising a mala for each plunge, I promised my donors a “story of the retreat.” That was my writing practice, that and my morning journaling, and an occasional professional article.
Twenty-five years later, I retired again, returned to fiction writing, and made a surprising discovery. I’d stopped writing fiction in my late teens – I have no idea how I knew this – because fiction writing demanded ruthless honesty. I had to be willing to tell my truth, and one thing I knew for sure then was that I didn’t have that courage. Coming back to fiction sixty years after high school, I was surprised to find that my fiction writing was my most honest writing. I was telling stories, sharing things that I wouldn’t or couldn’t tell even in my blog.
I knew Natalie Goldberg’s story, that Katagiri Roshi had once told her that writing was her Zen practice. I had said for years that social entrepreneurship was my Zen practice, even when I had trouble quite believing it, when I wasn’t doing the zendo things that most Zen teachers were doing.
Although in retirement, I am spending a bit more time in the zendo, even if it’s mostly a virtual zendo, it’s my writing and particularly fiction writing which has replaced social entrepreneurship as my primary practice, meaning it’s the aspect of my life other than my family which gets the most attention. Writing even comes before my daily walk.
I have found my writing guides outside of Zen. Stephen King was my first, post-retirement writing guru, and he taught me first-draft writing practice, the discipline of writing every day, 2000 words, getting the story down. With King’s help, I finished a draft of my first novel. When the first novel needed a major rewrite, I stumbled. I wasn’t enjoying the rewriting process.
This surprised me. In my years of “professional” writing -- journal articles, charter and grant applications, reports of all kinds -- I’d taken pride in honing my craft. I was so proud when the State charter authorizers praised one of my annual reports: It was not just the most thorough but also the shortest report they’d received that year. I’d spent hours cutting unnecessary words. Our charter applications were successful because we told our story. If we were clear on our story and stuck to it, if it was a good story, we’d get our charter. By the time I retired, we’d opened four schools.
Surprise of the surprises: the craft of fiction is different from the craft of non-fiction. Lubbock’s The Craft of Fiction and Forster’s Aspects of the Novel had been on my bookshelf since I first read them in college. I reread them when I came back to fiction and still missed the point. Coming to the craft of fiction, really for the first time, I had a lot to learn. Friends who read my stuff and encouraged me to keep writing, noticed that I wasn’t very good at “painting” my characters or scenes. How was I going to learn to do that? These “paintings” hadn’t had much of a part in my charter applications.
At the peak of discouragement, my friend and Dharma sister, Eve Marko, herself a writer, gave me a book on reading and writing. The author Francine Prose – I can’t believe that’s actually her name; how Dickensian -- has become my rewriting, second-draft guru. If King taught me to go fast – that seems to be the first-draft way – Prose is teaching me to go slow. I am rewriting, retelling that first novel having – following a prompt from Prose -- totally flipped the narrative structure. And much to my surprise, I am enjoying the practice again. I’m enjoying learning the craft.
Craftsmanship is hard. I’ve known that all my life. My father would have taught me fine cabinetry if I’d had the patience. I had barely the patience to learn basic carpentry. I chafed every minute of my “apprenticeship” but am proud now of my ability to drive a straight nail. Pushing 82, I’m a beginner at the craft of fiction. Will I “master” the craft sufficiently to get a novel or even a story published? Maybe not. Will learning to write fiction, like learning a new language or a new musical instrument, hold off the onset of Alzheimer’s? Perhaps.
It was hard for me to get over this hump. It’s easy for us Zen people to talk about Beginners Mind and to wax eloquent in our praise of Shunryu Suzuki. It is not so easy to practice beginner's mind at the age of 80. Learning the craft of fiction is a new and challenging practice. I haven’t been a fiction writer for 60 years. The truth is that I haven’t been much of a fiction reader. I backed into fiction writing as I turned to storytelling as my principle mode of teaching. I stumbled into fiction when I discovered that there were truths which could not be told directly. But I didn’t expect to confront a new craft.
Sometimes, it’s hard work, but I like hard work. It’s hard to be a beginner. When I find myself asking, “How will I ever learn to write like Nadine Gordimer or Toni Morrison?” It feels so hopeless. It’s hard to just say, “Probably won’t.” I wonder if I’ll keep writing.
Sometimes, the practice, the beginning, feels so wonderful. There’s no way to know what’s next. I’m rewriting slowly. I don’t know if this first novel will ever be “finished.” I don’t even know what “finished” means.
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