Monthly Archives: March 2021

“(Success for a writer depends on) the extent to which the writer has learned to make causality. Making causality doesn’t seem sexy or particularly literary. It’s a workmanlike thing, to make A cause B, the stuff of vaudeville, of Hollywood. But it’s the hardest thing to learn.

It doesn’t come naturally, not to most of us. But that’s really all a story is: a series of things that happen in sequence, in which we can discern a pattern of causality. For most of us, the problem is not in making things happen (“A dog barked,” “The house exploded,” “Darren kicked the tire of his car” are all easy enough to type) but in making one thing seem to cause the next.

This is important, because causation is what creates the appearance of meaning. “The queen died, and then the king died” (E. M. Forster’s famous formulation) describes two unrelated events occurring in sequence. It doesn’t mean anything. “The queen died, and the king died of grief?” puts those events into relation; we understand that one caused the other. The sequence, now infused with causality, means: “That king really loved his queen.”

Causality is to the writer what melody is to the songwriter: a superpower that the audience feels as the crux of the matter; the thing the audience actually shows up for; the hardest thing to do; that which distinguishes the competent practitioner from the extraordinary one.

A well-written bit of prose is like a beautifully hand-painted kite, lying there on the grass. It’s nice. We admire it. Causality is the wind that then comes along and lifts it up. The kite is then a beautiful thing made even more beautiful by the fact that it’s doing what it was made to do.”

– George Saunders, from “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.”

“Early in a story, I’ll have a few discrete blocks (blobs? swaths?) of loose, sloppy text. As I revise, those blocks will start to…get better. Soon, a block will start working—I can get all the way through it without a needle drop. The word that sometimes comes to mind is “undeniable,” as in “All right, this bit is pretty much undeniable,” which means that I feel that any reasonable reader would like it and would still be with me at the end of it.”

– George Saunders, from “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain”

Mind you, don’t ever hand out compliments unless you are sincerely impressed. But if you are, let the person know.

Preferably in front of someone else.

You’ll feel good for making them feel good – but that’s not the point.

The point is this: unbiased encouragement from someone with no vested interest might prove to be a game-changer for the one receiving the praise.

At the very least it’s affirmation that they’re on the right track.

You may not think you have one – but you do. The real question is: What is it telling you?

See, your internal narrative is constantly observing the world and interpreting what it sees. It’s possible to have control over this process, but it takes work.

This subconcious dialog can be functional, or dysfunctional – often, the pattern is set early on in life, and just keeps playing over and over again unless you conciously work to change it.

Anyone who has undergone cognitive behavioral therapy will be familiar with this. CBT is used to treat many disorders; depression and PTSD are two. The process in the beginning (which can go on for a long time) is simple. One writes down one’s thoughts and then reads them. Are they true or distorted? It turns out to be remarkably easy to make this judgement, because irrational, distorted thinking is immediately obvious when it’s written down.

The process of constantly analyzing one’s thoughts is the first step in changing your internal narrative. It’s an incredibly powerful and simple idea that happens to work.

What’s your internal narrative telling you?

No matter how painful your day was – either metaphorically or literally – ask yourself one question:

Am I still alive?

“Cuz if the answer is yes, you should rest easy.

It could have been worse.

Your health is a fragile thing. It might not seem that way, but that’s because you don’t work in an ER. I don’t know if this knowledge is a good or bad thing, and in the end I’m not sure if it really matters.

The unfortunate news is there are a million ways to suffer and die. If you’re healthy and feeling good, be grateful for what you’ve got.

This carnival ain’t going to last forever.

2020 was the year the world abruptly changed. One might even describe it as violently changed and not be accused of hyperbole.

To realize this is to grapple with the uncertainty and fragility of life. Things we always assumed would be part of reality we now realize are fluid.

Whether you choose to admit it or not, we have irrevocably altered our climate on earth and will have to deal with the consequences. Life will not go on as we so naively assumed it would.

We now understand how vulnerable our species is to viral pathogens.

America came dangerously close to fascism – close enough to make it clear that what happened in Germany in 1933 could absolutely happen here.

We learned how dark the heart of humanity really is.

Should I go on? 

Seriously, it’s right in front of you.

You just have to open your eyes to see it.

There is the external reality of the world with its laws of physics and messy human psychodynamics.

And then there is the reality in your mind, which is essentially whatever you want it to be.

Note: It’s important to understand that there may be very little, or quite possibly no overlap between the two. That’s alright — it doesn’t diminish the pleasure one derives from either perspective.

The degree to which any given person’s inner reality matches, or even exeeds the world’s external reality, may be the single factor that distinguishes artists from the general population.

Just a thought.