Cheryl Anne Tuggle's Blog: Why I Love Charles Dickens

Every so often I mention in a review that this or that writer is one of those I can't forget long enough to enjoy the story. Sometimes the problem is affected diction or a literary style I find more distracting than innovative or lovely. Other times it's a teacherly stance the author takes and I feel that I'm sitting in a lecture hall instead of in the corner of my ugly, late 90's, blue plaid sofa, tucked up with what I had hoped was a good novel.

So, why do I love Dickens? "There's a wisdom of the head and a wisdom of the heart," he says, and shows me which kind he has by taking a seat next to me on the sofa. As if we're going to find out together if that nasty lawyer Tulkinghorn will get what he deserves.

Writers write because they believe they have something to say. What that something is may not be the same thing the reader gets. Then again, it may be.
A very elderly patron stopped by my desk at the library not long ago, to see about expanding his literary horizons. A heavy consumer of biographies and crime thrillers, he’d never read a classic. I knew from earlier conversations that he was of Scandinavian descent and had grown up on the northern plains, so I suggested he start with one of Willa Cather’s novels, adding that it was her lyric, Midwestern prose that had first inspired me to write. When I saw him again, about a week later, he had already checked out and read O Pioneers! and was returning it along with my novel,Unexpected Joy. We talked with enthusiasm for a while about Cather’s writing style and her vivid evocation of places he remembered and people he could have known. Then he held up my novel. “Now, your book,” he said, “your book had me curious to know what it was that you would write a novel to say.” It was a good question, and one I'd never been asked. I'd been logging periodicals while we chatted, now I paused and looked at him directly.
“And what did you decide?”
“I decided,” he said, slowly, “you wanted to say that old people like me are important.”
It’s generally frowned upon, at least in our library, to leap across a desk and bear-hug a patron, so I didn’t.

Often things are said (well-meaning, of course) that imply an artist should find satisfaction simply in the creative process. Painting pictures never seen. Composing songs unheard, unplayed, unsung. Writing poems never read and recited.

Nurturing a child in the womb and giving birth is only the beginning of motherhood and...
“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin

Recently I've been getting the itch to sew. It happens about every other year. Impatient over the eccentric choices the buyers at my favorite stores have made that season, or disgusted with the nearly disposable quality of the styles I do like and can actually afford, I determine that it's time to haul out my portable machine and run up a few pieces on my own. I'll search for a yard or two of fine cotton, or maybe some washable linen (the wardrobe of my imagination is filled with natural fiber clothing in muted earth-tones, soft blues and browns). And I'll need a pattern. Not a designer Vogue or a Butterick, mind you. I learned that lesson the hard way. After ignoring the bold #5 on one pattern envelope, I botched several yards of expensive fabric attempting a project far beyond my skill level. That failure still smarts a little today as I slide past the long shiny counter dotted with slick-covered pattern-books, avoiding the judging glances of seamstresses not so backward as I, and slip furtively over to the circular rack squeezed between two sale bins. The pattern envelopes on this rack don't even sport a number, only the comforting promise to "Sew-Easy".

Writing is much like sewing, I've decided. Or, I suppose, like any other craft. There are those who design a pattern and set to cutting out ideas with skill,sewing words into shapely, well-tailored classics. But does that mean the artist with less skill should be content just to stand back and admire or only to appreciate? I've decided no. I'm going to keep honing my craft, and checking the skill level on the envelope