What Inspires: Community

We do most of the really hard work—to quote George Baily in one of my favorite Christmas movies, It’s A Wonderful Life—“most of the living and dying around here” alone.

Nothing wrong with Alone.  Alone is when I do most of my deep thinking. Alone is when I do my deep cleaning, straightening, organizing. Alone is when I write down most of those brilliant ideas.

Alone is when I falter, too.

That’s when Community makes the difference.  As  a brand-new mother in a brand-new town, I was completely lost and helpless until a neighbor, Sally, crossed the street and pulled me by the hand into hers.

With my children grown, I consider myself more of a writer than mother, so that’s the community I’m thinking of now.  When I was first beginning my writing career, I belonged to a writing Community of 2:  Ronnie Davidson and me, sitting side-by-side in her attic office from 8:30 to 11:00 am Monday through Friday, her at the computer keyboard clicking away, me with a legal pad on my lap, scribbling. However small, without my Writing Community, I may well have dropped the notion of becoming a professional writer.

Mid-way through my writing career, my Community grew to include critique groups, writing organizations, such as OWFI, SCBWI, Authors’ Guild, etc. My Writing Community grew so large that its tentacles spread into almost all other areas of my life.

Then just as George’s younger brother Harry, and Sam Wainwright and even brassy Violet tried to, I left my Community. I didn’t realize what I was leaving until I faltered again…and again and didn’t have my Community–  colleagues/friends/critique buds/teachers– to which I could turn.

• Community are those folks who talk you off the ledge when you’re feeling like chucking it all…

• Community keeps you honest and grounded when you’re on top, by remembering you when—and never letting you forget.

• Community keeps you going when you hit bottom, by reminding you why you’re trying to do something “so dog gone hard in the first place” and how far you’ve come.

• When you need advice, commiseration, support, love, Community is the place to go, because there’s sure to be someone there who has either “been there, done that” or knows someone who knows someone who might, or might not, have been.

Clarence the apprentice Angel took that icy plunge on Christmas Eve just so he’d have a chance to remind George of his Community and his role in it.

I didn’t need a Clarence to remind me; I have a Marilyn, my sister-in-law who’s battling breast cancer [for more click back on Helping Hearts blog posting]. Like George, Marilyn’s Community is huge, and rich and diverse. And just as everyone in Bedford Falls rushed over when they heard the call that “George Baily” needed help, Marilyn’s Community is rallying around her. They arrive with treats, with notes, with rides, with offers of help and support of all kinds. Soon after I arrived to support Marilyn post-surgery, she said to me, “I’m learning how to let people help. You have to keep that in mind, too. People want to help and it’s important to let them.”

We talk so much about giving–especially at this time of year. We don’t spend so much time considering receiving. We don’t want to be receivers (except on the ball field). We don’t want to be in the position of needing help. But that’s Community! In giving we receive; in receiving we give.

Community! A gift we  give and receive

 FYI: I Googled quotes to make sure I correctly remembered the line from “It’s A Wonderful Life.” In the process, I came across this article by Joe Carter, comparing Frank Capra and Ayn Rand. I found it worth the read. You might, too!  “The Fountain Head of Bedford Falls”

Want the full movie quote?

George is talking to Old Man Baily, justifying the existence of the Savings and Loan, when he says: “Well, this riffraff you’re talking about does most of the living and dying around here. Is it too much to ask for them to do it in two decent rooms and a bath?” – For more memorable lines from the movie visit Eudanomics: My Pursuit of Happiness blog 

Community: Starts With Two…

What inspires: Pushing Through

“Unlike cooking, for example, where largely edible, if raw ingredients are assembled, cut, heated, and otherwise manipulated into something both digestible and palatable, writing is closer to having to reverse-engineer a meal out of rotten food,” -author David Rakoff, from his essay “A Writer’s Day,” published in the spring 2011 Authors Guild Bulletin.

Rakoff shared how he procrastinates, justifies, stalls before settling in to write each day. How in most things, art, for example, one progresses, learns, becomes more adept and so the work gets easier. Conversely: “Writing—I can only really speak to writing here—always, always only starts out as shit; an infant of monstrous aspect; bawling, ugly, terrible and it stays terrible for a long, long time (sometime forever).”

Still, even with the “terrors and agitations,” Rakoff pushes through—never forgetting for a moment that his is not a life of “mining coal, waiting tables, or answering someone’s phone for a living”— beginning each writing day “suffused with this sense of privilege, shell-pink and pulsing with new hope.”

Rakoff's new book HALF EMPTY, published Sept 2011, by Anchor

I used to think author photographs on book jackets were stony-faced and black and white to make readers think the writers were seriously brilliant, thus implying their work was brilliant and deserved reading. Now, after a few decades spent writing (with varied success) I think those photos are printed in shades of gray because the authors in them are gray—morose—miserable even, because writing is hard.

Even humorist, columnist, satirist, Dave Barry, author of more than 30 books and Pulitzer Prize winner in journalism, a guy I imagined spent his days chuckling as he clicked away on his keyboard, finds it hard. The Summer 2010 Author’s Guild Bulletin published a snippet from The New Your Times Magazine interview in which Barry described his writing routine:

“Get Coffee. Stare at screen. Write a bunch of things that aren’t any good. Then comes that moment when I’ll say, ‘That’s still not any good.’”

Am there…do that! Which begs the burning question: If writing is so bloody hard, why do it?

In the same issue of the AG Bulletin, Lisa Grunwald, suspected author of Primary Colors, actual author of The Irresistible Henry House (named the “Best Book of 2010-so far”) answered the question:

“Some days, it’s torture,” she said. “But just that business of writing a good sentence—it’s authentically joyful.”

It’s a joy to devote this day to focusing on what is right in my life, to recognize and give thanks for all I have—including the ability to write, the mind to imagine, the time to dream, and the desire to strive for good sentences, one after another after another…

Happy Thanksgiving!