At the urging of my father, I just read a piece by the late Gonzo Journalist Hunter S. Thompson written in 1994 on the funeral of Richard Nixon. (You can find it HERE.) I think I had seen and read the piece before, but had a fairly strong reaction to it this time.

I have read some Thompson, most notably Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which was a drug filled, paranoiac odyssey. He was a brilliant writer and a warped human being. As for Nixon, I remember clearly being horrified at the grand state funeral. In the article, Thompson described Nixon as a truly evil man and says history will remember him “… mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship.”

I doubt that history will much remember him as Thompson describes him. He will probably be considered a flawed, perhaps even tragic – in the classical sense – hero, and has already been compared to some of the tragic heroes of the Greeks and Shakespeare. He died being thought of as the elder statesman who “Brought China to the table”, after all. He will no more be thought of by history as an evil man as Johnson will be and I think there are parallels.

As my father suggested, it was a very well written piece. It was also filled with the personality of the writer, which many think of as simply bad journalism. Even though this is more of an editorial or opinion piece, most of his writing had the same thought process in evidence. It is part of why Thompson was called “Gonzo”.  I used to distrust journalism with a personal bias. I naively thought that the solemn duty of the journalist was to stay out of the written work, to just present the facts. Now I distrust any that doesn’t have and admit to it. The bit I missed from “just present the facts” is “as he sees them.”

We can’t write without ourselves being in the piece, it is a physical impossibility, and it is imperative to acknowledge that. It is why any journalism that calls itself “fair and balanced” can’t be. There is always a slant. The slant isn’t necessarily a political one (even in today’s hyper-political climate), but the thoughts, opinions and experience of the writer will always influence the statement of fact in a piece.

We are filtering beings, we humans, we learn of necessity to filter out so we can cope with the amount of input we get in our lives. We learn to do this early and on a very deep, absolutely subconscious level. Sometimes we are aware of the filtering, usually not. But as we grow, make decisions, form opinions, learn about our environment, both close in and widely ranging, these thing contribute to the filtering we do until there is nothing that we can think or even see that hasn’t passed through that filter in some way. It can not be objective because, on a very deep level, we can not.

There is nothing wrong or scary about this. We just need to realize it so that, when we read what others have written or even what we ourselves write, we know that the facts laid out have been sifted through. Filtering, by definition, leaves things behind and when we know this, we can also know that no piece of writing, no statement of fact, no fiction or journalistic effort can be truly objective.

Once we know that, we can form our own opinions based on our own filters.

We’ve heard it all our lives: “Set goals, but set reasonable goals.”  The thinking is, if you set illogical goals or outrageous goals and you don’t meet them, you’ll be disappointed and will stop moving forward.

Perhaps if you have been stuck for a very long time and need simply to knock yourself off of dead center, reasonable goals can be powerful. Accomplishing anything in that state will be good for you. In any other circumstance, however, I say that advice is Poppycock!

Set outrageous goals. Set goals that stretch your imagination almost to the breaking point. Set goals that fill you with fear and excitement. Dread and excitement.

When I was younger and perusing my acting career, I took this old advice to heart and set very reasonable, realistic goals. Instead of saying, “I will be on a television show by the end of the summer” I set goals like, “I will send out 10 pictures and resumes this week.”  I accomplished those goals with little or not effort. I patted myself on the back, knowing that the industry would swoop down and hire me. How could they not! I’d reached my goals!

Do you think people like Michael J. Fox or Carroll O’Connor set puny little goals like that? Do you think they would have starred on very popular, society changing television shows if they had? I rather doubt it. I stopped trying and blamed it on the industry. Shame on me.

As a writer, don’t be satisfied with “I will write 10 pages this week.”  Gone With the Wind, Dune and even Love Story didn’t get written with goals like that. Hamlet certainly didn’t. I suspect that those authors had goals something like, “I will finish a novel by Christmas.”  Don’t write the novel to become a New York Times Best Selling author, but by God, have the goal to be a New York Times Best Selling Author. Anything short of that isn’t worthy of you.  Aspire to Hamlet.

“But what if I don’t make my goals, Geoff? Won’t I be devastated?”

Perhaps. But if you had a goal of a finished novel by Christmas and only got 3/4 done, that would be a lot more accomplished than if you had a goal of 10 pages a week and finished the first chapter or two. Or worse, given it all up because it was a futile exercise. Shoot for the fucking stars. If you miss the stars, you at least get to see a lot of very cool stuff along the way.

Marianne Williamson said, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”

Don’t be reasonable. Nothing great was ever accomplished by being reasonable. Don’t set average goals. Nothing great was ever accomplished by being average. Set a goal to be great. Set a goal to stand out. Then set goals that scare the pants off of you. Set goals that engage your imagination. Set goals that will piss off your friends and family.

Then do everything in your power to reach them.

I love being creative. That’s not much of a surprise for anyone who knows me, but I do.  When I really start creating, when I really start listening to those voices who are giving me the ideas to write down, I start feeling a mixture of a deep satisfaction, slightly embarrassing pride, a vague but exciting antsy anticipation in my stomach, right next to that ball of warmth.  And I can’t wait to share what I’m creating.

There are different kinds and levels of creativity.  I have spent the last several days creating a new training course with a book, worksheets and video instruction, all the while thinking, “As soon as I’m done, here, I can go be creative.” But a funny thing happened. Today I suddenly noticed that mixed up feeling.  Where did that come from?  Oh, yeah. Creating that course.  I needed to pull from my experience, delve into my knowledge.  I had to imagine what the student would need, put myself there.  Instinctively (translated: from deep habit) I used my senses to do so.

Athena from Zues' Forhead (Image via Wikipedia)

I posed circumstance and questions that I trusted my subconscious would provide the answers to and lived through the struggles of my imagined students.  Then I waited a little while as it percolated (and, as is also my habit, a little while as I procrastinated) then jumped in and followed the story that had been born, almost fully formed like Athena who leapt fully formed from Zeus’ forehead.  (He must have been imagining her for a very long time! Well, maybe it was Metis who did the imagining. Look it up.)  It all sounds sort of like what I go through when I’m writing a story.  It almost sounds like creativity. No wonder I’m feeling so smug!

In any case, once the product is done and out, I can get back to the novel, but I’m already being creative, so my soul seems content.

I had a life-changing exchange with a teacher, once. We were talking about pursuing our passions, our art. About spending our lives doing something we loved. I stood up in class and asked a question that had been burning in my heart for years: “What if I’m just not talented?”

He asked me, “What if you’re not?”

I thought about that for a moment. At first I got mad. How could he even suggest that? (I was young and logic didn’t enter in to it.) Then, as I considered more, I realized that it didn’t matter at all. And it hasn’t mattered ever since.

I’ve seen people who were truly talented who did nothing with their talent. I’ve seen people who had very little talent, but a lot of drive that sailed in their chosen profession. Over the few months after that conversation, I slowly removed that question from my mind. I did it by saying to myself that I had absolutely no talent, and that I was going to pursue art anyway. It eased a very heavy burden. A burden I’d been carrying a very long time.

I have worked hard over the years. I’ve developed my eye, my ear, my sensibilities. I’ve listened to words and read words and put words together. I’ve experimented and discovered what worked, what was effective, what wasn’t as effective. My love of words was more than enough to keep me moving forward and by moving forward, my love of words and their power and beauty grew. I have been told, by some who seem to know what they’re talking about, that I’m a good writer. If that is true, it’s not because I’m talented, or, if I am talented, because I’m more so than anyone else might be. Talent has little or nothing to do with the ability to combine words in such a way that they evoke a response.

I can use words well because I dream and I follow where my dreams lead.

The rest is just a lot of words.
~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of the how-to guide On Writing a Short Story.

(@conniegreen #blog30 a17)

Advertisement

I am an optimist. Many people say that what an optimist does is always “finding the silver lining in every cloud”, to find something good in every situation, no matter how dire. This has also been called Pollyanna, after the novel, at least one movie and character of the same name. The young girl in this novel always found something to be glad about in every situation, and her name has come to be used to describe people, usually in slightly derogatory terms, who are blindly optimistic.

And that’s the crux of the matter: Blindly optimistic.

I think being blind about anything becomes denying or resisting what is, and resisting what is, as the philosopher said, is the quickest way to unhappiness. Rather than finding the silver lining in everything, I prefer to think of it as finding the opportunity. To do this, we must first acknowledge and tell the truth about what is. Then we can go about finding and exploiting the opportunity. (And there always is one. No matter how hard it is to find.)

This is called solving problems. Solving problems is what makes life interesting. It makes life worthwhile. With no problems to solve, we would be bored out of our heads and not make much of a mark on the planet.

The people we most admire are the people who found big problems and set out to solve them, to greater or lesser degrees of success. Dr. King saw the problem of prejudice and segregation in the South and set out to solve it. Gandhi saw the problems of violence and imperialism in India and set out to solve them. Richard Branson saw the problem of poverty and hunger in Africa and has set out to solve them. The problem must be acknowledged before a solution can be sought.

If all we look for is the silver lining, we’ll miss the opportunity.

To bring this all back to the creative process, to the process of writing: As writers, our work is often a reaction to a problem we have witnessed or experienced personally. As writers, our characters must have problems to solve or no one will care. It has been said that drama is conflict. This is also true of comedy, by the way. When a character is presented with a problem, a dilemma, the journey that sends them on is what excites us to write and what excites our readers to read. Even Pollyanna had problems to solve. She saw other people’s problems and help solve them. And if she had never had her crisis of faith, her own self doubt (her own Gethsemane, to put too much meaning into a children’s story) the story would never have become the classic that it did.
~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of the how-to guide On Writing a Short Story.

(@conniegreen #blog30 a5)

Advertisement

I’ve talked a lot in recent posts, about myths that artists carry around that, unacknowledged, can thwart their creativity.  I’d like to change tack a little and talk about myth itself.  Myths are important to the development and cohesion of a society, and often art is where the myths are codified and perpetuated.

The early Greek plays were often almost religious ceremonies, where the mythos of the people was presented in an exciting way.  Most, if not all, art during the early days of Christianity was for the purpose of expressing Christian stories, philosophy, iconography and ideology.  This was true through the “age of enlightenment”, which started in the 1500′s with the alchemists and went into the late 1700′s.  Even during that time, “enlightenment” or “reason”, which were the buzz words of the age, if you’d allow me to use a dreadful anachronism, were couched in terms that agreed with, or at least didn’t greatly break from, religious thought.

Joseph Campbell talked long and interestingly about the “Hero’s Journey” and how it relates to modern Western society, and he said it much better than I could hope to (that word does creep in, doesn’t it!) but here I’ll make an attempt to add to that discussion.

The hero’s journey in Western myth, as described and defined by many people who have studied it, (briefly and condensed) starts with the hero having an opportunity that makes a change in his life, creates an entirely new situation.  There is then a change of plans, or a second turning point.  He reaches a point where he can no longer go back (the point of no return), then a major setback, after which he gives his final effort, leading to the climax, then resolution.  This “formula” is an interesting thing to take into your writing.

I don’t in any way advocate forcing your story to meet these story points.  The reason for presenting them is that, we in the West are already attuned to this journey subconsciously, because our stories and myths, the ones we hold inside, the ones we learned to interact with others with, the ones we subconsciously live our life through,  have followed a version of this timeline.  It has become ingrained in our thought process.  If this is so, it would serve the artist to tap in to this structure in order to talk directly to the readers’ innards.

A great example of where this was used very, very consciously was in the movie Star Wars.  George Lucas studied Joseph Campbell and very purposefully and directly used his ideas of the hero’s journey in the script of his movie.  Whether or not you personally like Star Wars, you must admit that it entered into the national consciousness very, very quickly and has continued to live there for many years.  (Even given the horrible second trilogy that threatened to dethrone the original three!  Just my opinion.)

I am not one to espouse a formula in your writing or creation of art.  I love experimentation and risk in art.  I do, however, see the power of studying what others have done that has worked for them, adjusting that to your own voice and using it with abandon!

~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of the how-to guide On Writing a Short Story.