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The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art
A tribute to the brilliant craftsmanship of one of our most distinguished writers, providing valuable insight into her inspiration and her method
Joyce Carol Oates is widely regarded as one of America's greatest contemporary literary figures. Having written in a number of genres -- prose, poetry, personal and critical essays, as well as plays -- she is an artist ideally suited to answer essential questions about what makes a story striking, a novel come alive, a writer an artist as well as a craftsman.
In The Faith of a Writer, Oates discusses the subjects most important to the narrative craft, touching on topics such as inspiration, memory, self-criticism, and "the unique power of the unconscious." On a more personal note, she speaks of childhood inspirations, offers advice to young writers, and discusses the wildly varying states of mind of a writer at work. Oates also pays homage to those she calls her "significant predecessors" and discusses the importance of reading in the life of a writer.
Oates claims, "Inspiration and energy and even genius are rarely enough to make 'art': for prose fiction is also a craft, and craft must be learned, whether by accident or design." In fourteen succinct chapters, The Faith of a Writer provides valuable lessons on how language, ideas, and experience are assembled to create art.
Joyce Carol Oates is widely regarded as one of America's greatest contemporary literary figures. Having written in a number of genres -- prose, poetry, personal and critical essays, as well as plays -- she is an artist ideally suited to answer essential questions about what makes a story striking, a novel come alive, a writer an artist as well as a craftsman.
In The Faith of a Writer, Oates discusses the subjects most important to the narrative craft, touching on topics such as inspiration, memory, self-criticism, and "the unique power of the unconscious." On a more personal note, she speaks of childhood inspirations, offers advice to young writers, and discusses the wildly varying states of mind of a writer at work. Oates also pays homage to those she calls her "significant predecessors" and discusses the importance of reading in the life of a writer.
Oates claims, "Inspiration and energy and even genius are rarely enough to make 'art': for prose fiction is also a craft, and craft must be learned, whether by accident or design." In fourteen succinct chapters, The Faith of a Writer provides valuable lessons on how language, ideas, and experience are assembled to create art.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
120 people are currently reading
1999 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Carol Oates
854 books9,633 followersJoyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.
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October 13, 2021
There are few things as fascinating as being invited into an artist’s studio, or “backstage”, or at a writer’s desk and have a glimpse of the painstaking process that goes on ahead of the final work that is usually the one thing the public is invited (read: allowed) to experience. This is, in a way, what this book offers: a series of brief looks into the writing life of Joyce Carol Oates, one of the finest and most prolific authors alive.
The Faith of a Writer is a collection of articles previously published in different literary reviews. Many of these pieces are intended as nuggets of wisdom from a seasoned author to younger writers. Oates has been a creative writing professor at Princeton, Berkeley and Windsor (ON), and this little book probably articulates the nub of her teaching. I suspect these are also, to some extent, thoughts relative to her craft and pieces of advice she gave herself in times of need, like Marcus Aurelius writing recommendations to himself on the battlefield.
Concurrently to becoming a writer, Joyce Carol Oates has first and foremost been an avid reader. Her intimate knowledge of literature is staggering, especially regarding Russian classics (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov) and Anglo-American modernists (Henry James, Joyce, Woolf, Hemingway, Faulkner). But she also comments at length on her first literary puppy love: Lewis Carroll’s Alice novels. At any rate: “if you read, you need not become a writer; but if you hope to become a writer, you must read” (p. 110).
Bien entendu, JCO writes about her process: how she comes up with ideas, how running helps to hone these ideas, how she writes and revises and edits what she writes, and how writing is a way to ward off or even race against (run from?) death. The book also offers insightful analyses of classic short stories and some interesting views on one of her most famous novels, Blonde, a biofic about Marilyn Monroe. All in all, this is a very personal book, in the same vein as Stephen King’s On Writing or Margaret Atwood’s Negotiating with the Dead.
However, one of the most exciting chapters of this book is her “Notes on Failure”, where she reflects on this essential aspect of the art life. Not just because most would-be artists or writers often fail to produce anything significant. Not only because the creative pursuit is inevitably faced with constant self-criticism and possibly also indifference, disappointment or anger on the part of critics and readers. But more essentially because the lack of success and the willingness to embrace failure, coupled with an unwavering will to push on anyway, is ingrained into the very process of creating anything of importance. In this sense, JCO entirely agrees with Michel Houellebecq’s thoughts, bluntly and eloquently expressed in one of his early books, Rester vivant. And so: “if you keep writing, you need not become a great author; but if you hope to become a great author, you must keep writing”.
The Faith of a Writer is a collection of articles previously published in different literary reviews. Many of these pieces are intended as nuggets of wisdom from a seasoned author to younger writers. Oates has been a creative writing professor at Princeton, Berkeley and Windsor (ON), and this little book probably articulates the nub of her teaching. I suspect these are also, to some extent, thoughts relative to her craft and pieces of advice she gave herself in times of need, like Marcus Aurelius writing recommendations to himself on the battlefield.
Concurrently to becoming a writer, Joyce Carol Oates has first and foremost been an avid reader. Her intimate knowledge of literature is staggering, especially regarding Russian classics (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov) and Anglo-American modernists (Henry James, Joyce, Woolf, Hemingway, Faulkner). But she also comments at length on her first literary puppy love: Lewis Carroll’s Alice novels. At any rate: “if you read, you need not become a writer; but if you hope to become a writer, you must read” (p. 110).
Bien entendu, JCO writes about her process: how she comes up with ideas, how running helps to hone these ideas, how she writes and revises and edits what she writes, and how writing is a way to ward off or even race against (run from?) death. The book also offers insightful analyses of classic short stories and some interesting views on one of her most famous novels, Blonde, a biofic about Marilyn Monroe. All in all, this is a very personal book, in the same vein as Stephen King’s On Writing or Margaret Atwood’s Negotiating with the Dead.
However, one of the most exciting chapters of this book is her “Notes on Failure”, where she reflects on this essential aspect of the art life. Not just because most would-be artists or writers often fail to produce anything significant. Not only because the creative pursuit is inevitably faced with constant self-criticism and possibly also indifference, disappointment or anger on the part of critics and readers. But more essentially because the lack of success and the willingness to embrace failure, coupled with an unwavering will to push on anyway, is ingrained into the very process of creating anything of importance. In this sense, JCO entirely agrees with Michel Houellebecq’s thoughts, bluntly and eloquently expressed in one of his early books, Rester vivant. And so: “if you keep writing, you need not become a great author; but if you hope to become a great author, you must keep writing”.
October 8, 2018
A rich and prolific literary life—this is the reason why the young reader should prick up his ears, pick up The Faith of a Writer, and begin to discern the secret of JCO’s success. Her first invaluable gem of wisdom? “Young or beginning writers must be urged to read widely, ceaselessly, both classics and contemporaries, for without an immersion in the history of the craft, one is doomed to remain an amateur: an individual for whom enthusiasm is ninety-nine percent of the creative effort." Which means that only readers become writers—already, this has been highlighted over and over ad nauseum by the likes of Stephen King, Francine Prose, Mario Vargas Llosa & plenty others. Of course, her “faith as a writer” is her personal poetics themselves—already on page one she has set down her beliefs; the core of her craft. “The individual voice,” she tells us, “is the communal voice. The regional voice is the universal voice."
Musing about the origin of your reading addiction is a pleasant and constant activity. JCO makes us all sigh in relief when she recalls her first memories with literature. Although I particularly abhor the Alice books, I do agree with JCO in her assessment that as a child, the allure of books contained the “voices of adult authenticity." Wanting to grow up, indeed, goes hand in hand with constantly reading about adult themes and situations. When in elementary school, the avid reader, the smart kid, finds that there are riches beyond his wildest dreams in books by King, and Anne Rice, and anything that is strange and fascinating, and he finally leaves behind short adolescent novels by the likes of R. L. Stine, Stephanie Meyer, and Judy Blume.
In “To a Young Writer” we are once more showered with damn good advice. A list:
1) “your struggle…your emotions…make possible hours, days, weeks, months and years of what will appear to others…as ‘work’.”
2) Don’t lose courage or compare yourself to others (“if you want confirmation of your essential worthlessness, you can always find it, somewhere").
3) “Write for your own time, if not for your own generation exclusively."
4) “immerse” yourself in whatever strikes you—be as idealist, romantic, “yearning” as you wish, for this will come to your aid.
5) And Write your heart out, she repeats and repeats, like some magic, poetic mantra.
Again, a sigh of relief emanates from me, with JCO’s advice #3. I write contemporary stuff—so that’s clearly a plus—it certainly does inspire relief.
One facet of the writer’s life no other writer has, to my knowledge, made mere mention of as of yet is that of failure. In “Notes on Failure” JCO wisely tells her readers that the writer is a bizarre creature (duh); some masochistically believe in the needlepoint philosophy of “Beware the danger in happiness!” even though they have an “addictive nature of incompletion and risk."
Also, I am glad that in “Inspiration!” there is an appropriate mention of the early Surrealists—perhaps "Synesthetes" is majorly affected by their haunting influence?—of which JCO writes: “[Their] images were, at the outset, purely ordinary images, decontextualized and made strange.” I think this is the modern condition of every single writer living today: with every single plot and character type already having been discovered, there is only one genuine chance of creating a masterpiece by picking out (“borrowing") what works for that singular piece itself.
Perhaps the best reason to listen to JCO (What?! No recommended reading?!) is that, although she is incredibly prolific and has incredible range (novels, poetry, YA fiction, story collections, plays, essays…), she, too, knows a twinge about failure. I will admit that I’ve read gems of hers, novels such as Zombie and Black Water, but blatant crap like Oprah Book Club selection We Were the Mulvaneys is so totally disappointing, especially since she was already a literary behemoth by that time, that the legend of JCO becomes completely human—and that, at least, I can empathize with. The Faith of a Writer is essential: both reassuring and realistic.
Musing about the origin of your reading addiction is a pleasant and constant activity. JCO makes us all sigh in relief when she recalls her first memories with literature. Although I particularly abhor the Alice books, I do agree with JCO in her assessment that as a child, the allure of books contained the “voices of adult authenticity." Wanting to grow up, indeed, goes hand in hand with constantly reading about adult themes and situations. When in elementary school, the avid reader, the smart kid, finds that there are riches beyond his wildest dreams in books by King, and Anne Rice, and anything that is strange and fascinating, and he finally leaves behind short adolescent novels by the likes of R. L. Stine, Stephanie Meyer, and Judy Blume.
In “To a Young Writer” we are once more showered with damn good advice. A list:
1) “your struggle…your emotions…make possible hours, days, weeks, months and years of what will appear to others…as ‘work’.”
2) Don’t lose courage or compare yourself to others (“if you want confirmation of your essential worthlessness, you can always find it, somewhere").
3) “Write for your own time, if not for your own generation exclusively."
4) “immerse” yourself in whatever strikes you—be as idealist, romantic, “yearning” as you wish, for this will come to your aid.
5) And Write your heart out, she repeats and repeats, like some magic, poetic mantra.
Again, a sigh of relief emanates from me, with JCO’s advice #3. I write contemporary stuff—so that’s clearly a plus—it certainly does inspire relief.
One facet of the writer’s life no other writer has, to my knowledge, made mere mention of as of yet is that of failure. In “Notes on Failure” JCO wisely tells her readers that the writer is a bizarre creature (duh); some masochistically believe in the needlepoint philosophy of “Beware the danger in happiness!” even though they have an “addictive nature of incompletion and risk."
Also, I am glad that in “Inspiration!” there is an appropriate mention of the early Surrealists—perhaps "Synesthetes" is majorly affected by their haunting influence?—of which JCO writes: “[Their] images were, at the outset, purely ordinary images, decontextualized and made strange.” I think this is the modern condition of every single writer living today: with every single plot and character type already having been discovered, there is only one genuine chance of creating a masterpiece by picking out (“borrowing") what works for that singular piece itself.
Perhaps the best reason to listen to JCO (What?! No recommended reading?!) is that, although she is incredibly prolific and has incredible range (novels, poetry, YA fiction, story collections, plays, essays…), she, too, knows a twinge about failure. I will admit that I’ve read gems of hers, novels such as Zombie and Black Water, but blatant crap like Oprah Book Club selection We Were the Mulvaneys is so totally disappointing, especially since she was already a literary behemoth by that time, that the legend of JCO becomes completely human—and that, at least, I can empathize with. The Faith of a Writer is essential: both reassuring and realistic.
September 23, 2014
There's something really absurd about writing a book about writing a book. Every mind is so different, and what works for one, will not work for another; so inevitably these books (Oates' The Faith of a Writer, Lamott's Bird by Bird - which I only recently learned isn't about bird-counting, who knew right?, the many, many "On Writing"-esque pretensions) are not about "how to write" but are an entirely egotistical account of "how I write."
That is the obvious shortcoming of this book. But it is somewhat saved by the the grace of Joyce's literary slant. She analyzes not just the process of writing well, but analyzes examples of what is well-written. She attempts to bridge the gap between her personal methodology and the universal standard of writing. Despite her anecdotal histories, her idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies in her writing practice, her goals are constant, her idols are set firmly upon the tabernacle of creation.
The real value of this book is not in the "how to write" bollocks, but rather in her attached and unaffected reverence for literature, her humility and her elegance, reminiscent of Woolf. She tells us:
FOR THOSE LOOKING FOR GENERAL RULES OF WRITING, IN LIST FORM:
From Mark Twain:
1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.
2. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help develop it.
3. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.
4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.
5. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.
6. When the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description.
7. When a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a Negro minstrel at the end of it.
8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale.
9. The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausably set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.
10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.
11. The characters in tale be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.
An author should:
12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
14. Eschew surplusage.
15. Not omit necessary details.
16. Avoid slovenliness of form.
17. Use good grammar.
18. Employ a simple, straightforward style.
From Elmore Leonard:
1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
From Kurt Vonnegut:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things – reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
From George Orwell:
1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
But honestly, do whatever the hell you want! In writing the only rule is to break the rules! Curmudgeon-y dead white guys be damned.
That is the obvious shortcoming of this book. But it is somewhat saved by the the grace of Joyce's literary slant. She analyzes not just the process of writing well, but analyzes examples of what is well-written. She attempts to bridge the gap between her personal methodology and the universal standard of writing. Despite her anecdotal histories, her idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies in her writing practice, her goals are constant, her idols are set firmly upon the tabernacle of creation.
The real value of this book is not in the "how to write" bollocks, but rather in her attached and unaffected reverence for literature, her humility and her elegance, reminiscent of Woolf. She tells us:
One is born not to suffer but to negotiate with suffering, to choose or invent forms to accommodate it.And for her, writing (and running) is a way to negotiate that suffering and pain, with the beauty of potential, of fiction. Fiction is not what is, but what might have been, could have been, or maybe could never have been. Fiction is a lie which deceives only to enlighten (cruel only to be kind) - a lie which mediates what is with something that is not: something inexplicable and out of control with a fictive world shackled and led only by the writer's imagination. Why do we suffer? why do others hurt us and why do we hurt? why can't we have what we want? In the real world these answers must inevitably escape being fastened down, but in fiction we can reconcile those questions with answers which follow strictly the logic of the world we create.
FOR THOSE LOOKING FOR GENERAL RULES OF WRITING, IN LIST FORM:
From Mark Twain:
1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.
2. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help develop it.
3. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.
4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.
5. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.
6. When the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description.
7. When a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a Negro minstrel at the end of it.
8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale.
9. The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausably set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.
10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.
11. The characters in tale be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.
An author should:
12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
14. Eschew surplusage.
15. Not omit necessary details.
16. Avoid slovenliness of form.
17. Use good grammar.
18. Employ a simple, straightforward style.
From Elmore Leonard:
1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
From Kurt Vonnegut:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things – reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
From George Orwell:
1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
*****
But honestly, do whatever the hell you want! In writing the only rule is to break the rules! Curmudgeon-y dead white guys be damned.
May 19, 2024
There were a ton of books and authors referenced. Too many to list, but they were mostly the big names you'd expect to see — Carroll, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Emerson, Melville, Poe, Dickinson, Lawrence, Homer, Ovid, Frost, Whitman, Yeats, Dickens, James, etc.
These are some of my favorite quotes for aspiring writers:
These are some of my favorite quotes for aspiring writers:
"Write your heart out."
"Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you to read."
"Immerse yourself in a writer you love, and read everything he or she has written, including the very earliest work. Especially the very earliest work. Before the great writer became great, or even good, he/she was groping for a way, fumbling to acquire a voice, perhaps just like you."
"If you find an exciting, arresting, disturbing voice or vision, immerse yourself in it. You will learn from it."
"The first draft may be stumbling and exhausting, but the next draft or drafts will be soaring and exhilarating. Only have faith: the first sentence can't be written until the last sentence has been written. Only then do you know where you've been going and where you've been."
dnf
September 9, 2017meh. dnf at p. 182. i think i have no soul.
October 1, 2022
Um conjunto de textos pequenos em que a autora começa por revisitar os tempos da sua meninice e das aprendizagens da escrita e da leitura na sua terra natal. Mas Oates continua depois a revisitar a importância da escrita d e modelos de leitura e aprendizagem das técnicas de escrita.
Os textos são cheios de referencias literárias interessantes e enriquecedoras.
Adorei descobrir que Joyce Carol Oates adora correr. Olha que belo sinal dos tempos!
Os textos são cheios de referencias literárias interessantes e enriquecedoras.
Adorei descobrir que Joyce Carol Oates adora correr. Olha que belo sinal dos tempos!
March 17, 2010
She says "memesis."
Reading this, I felt angry, bored and jealous. Then I hated her more, then I decided I'd hate her writing. Then I wasn't reading this for like a week and I keep thinking about it. She seems humorless and boring, but part of me is angry that I can't manage to be exactly like her and dear Lord, look at the number of books she's written. You'll hear a lot of Ivy League and Summer Home and "my office" comments, which if you are mature will not make you angry. Just don't expect to read someone who is like "my struggles are like yours and I turned out okay." This is what I was expecting. Like Stephen King's "On Writing" where he was an alcoholic in a trailer. That's the story I can get into.
Everyone else loves this, but I am not capable of memesis.
Reading this, I felt angry, bored and jealous. Then I hated her more, then I decided I'd hate her writing. Then I wasn't reading this for like a week and I keep thinking about it. She seems humorless and boring, but part of me is angry that I can't manage to be exactly like her and dear Lord, look at the number of books she's written. You'll hear a lot of Ivy League and Summer Home and "my office" comments, which if you are mature will not make you angry. Just don't expect to read someone who is like "my struggles are like yours and I turned out okay." This is what I was expecting. Like Stephen King's "On Writing" where he was an alcoholic in a trailer. That's the story I can get into.
Everyone else loves this, but I am not capable of memesis.
February 12, 2015
One of my challenges this year is to read one essay a day. 365 essays in the course of the year. To that end, I have been exposing myself to essays by a variety of writers, some familiar to me, some not. I was actually searching for something else by Joyce Carol Oates, when I happened upon this small volume and thought I would give it a try.
By the time I finished this book, sadly I was pretty convinced that in spite of the fact that I have been telling people for the past two year that I write memoir and personal essay, that perhaps I do not like the form at all. Perhaps what I write is not personal essay? Perhaps I don't like to read what I like to write?
I am not blaming Joyce Carol Oates or this book in particular. I have been getting more and more discouraged over the first six weeks of this year, when having read something over 45 essays I have found less than a handful that I actually liked. None that I found exceptional.
I hope no one feels the need to judge me or my genres as harshly as I judge others. I would be devastated. And, in fact, I feel the need to take responsibility for all of this myself, rather than placing the blame on the writers or the form. But, frankly, I just don't get a lot of the essays I read. It is like they try so hard, so self-consciously to be more than what they are, that they end up just leaving me in the dust by the side of the road.
I am not giving up, in fact I have already started another collection of essays by another writer. There are essays out there that I am going to like, going to love, going to want to emulate. I just know it. I feel it in my ever-increasingly-creaky bones.
Sorry JCO. I will stick to your fiction in the future.
By the time I finished this book, sadly I was pretty convinced that in spite of the fact that I have been telling people for the past two year that I write memoir and personal essay, that perhaps I do not like the form at all. Perhaps what I write is not personal essay? Perhaps I don't like to read what I like to write?
I am not blaming Joyce Carol Oates or this book in particular. I have been getting more and more discouraged over the first six weeks of this year, when having read something over 45 essays I have found less than a handful that I actually liked. None that I found exceptional.
I hope no one feels the need to judge me or my genres as harshly as I judge others. I would be devastated. And, in fact, I feel the need to take responsibility for all of this myself, rather than placing the blame on the writers or the form. But, frankly, I just don't get a lot of the essays I read. It is like they try so hard, so self-consciously to be more than what they are, that they end up just leaving me in the dust by the side of the road.
I am not giving up, in fact I have already started another collection of essays by another writer. There are essays out there that I am going to like, going to love, going to want to emulate. I just know it. I feel it in my ever-increasingly-creaky bones.
Sorry JCO. I will stick to your fiction in the future.
March 17, 2009
Such an elegant writer. This is one of the best books on writing that I have read, and I have read my share. I copied this for my writing workshop: Since writing is ideally a balance between the private vision and the public world, the one passionate and often inchoate, the other formally constructed, quick to categorize and assess, it's necessary to thin of this art as a craft. Without craft, art remains private, Without art, craft is merely hackwork." I mean, really, what more is there to say. That being said, there's lots of other advice in here too -- including whose short stories and novels to read to learn various aspects of the craft. All you reading-writers out there, I highly recommend!
August 29, 2023
Kein herkömmlicher Schreibratgeber, sondern eine Essay-Sammlung, die wohl für fast jede:n etwas bereithalten wird. Es gibt Tipps (ein paar direkte, mehr indirekte), Tagebuch-Auszüge (von Virginia Woolf oder Sylvia Plath), jede Menge Zitate, ein Interview. Ich fand die Gedanken der Autorin interessant und mag ihre Art, die Dinge zu betrachten und in Worte zu fassen.
May 18, 2024
Reread May 2024.
September 15, 2013
Writers of literary fiction will find The Faith of a Writer indespensible. Joyce Carol Oates goes to the heart of issues that concern writers of serious fiction. Oates writes: "It isn't the subjects we write about but the seriousness and subtlety of our expression that determines the worth of our effort." She makes the case for a careful study of craft, tied to inspiration, to shape art in prose form. She stresses that "it's at the junction of private vision and the wish to create a communal, public vision that art and craft merge." On today's crowded prose highway, Oates offers a much needed on-ramp to serious writing efforts.
December 15, 2014
This book is about the art of writing. Oates tells us that 'writing is not a race ... the satisfaction is in the effort.' She presents what is important to the narrative craft and so much here is like a good meal. She writes a whole chapter here on failure: are artists (writers) secretly in love with failure? I especially liked her examples on how to read as a writer, and, her thoughts on the destructive self-criticism that so many writers struggle with. If you are a writer who desires to understand more about yourself, this is a book that will open the windows to understand why you write.
August 6, 2021
É sempre grato quando uma autora com o talento e a versatilidade de Joyce Carol Oates partilha as suas reflexões e conselhos com aprendizes da escrita e amantes da literatura. A fé de um escritor consiste numa série de catorze ensaios, vindos a lume ao longo de quase três dezenas de anos, acerca daquilo a que Oates chama “a mais solitária das artes” (p. 11), ou seja, a escrita literária.
Nestes textos, a autora explora questões essenciais para quem deseja entrar no mundo da poesia e ficção, ou apenas compreender melhor os complexos meandros da criatividade. Como argumenta Oates: “(…) raramente a inspiração e a energia e até mesmo o génio são suficientes para se fazer arte: porque a prosa da ficção é também uma técnica, e uma técnica tem de ser aprendida, seja por acidente ou por desígnio” (p. 100).
Esta valorização da técnica, companheira do talento e da perseverança, assume particular relevo numa altura em que as estantes das livrarias começam a receber os primeiros manuais de Escrita Criativa redigidos por portugueses. Contudo, algumas dessas obras não passam de cadernos de exercícios, com o objetivo de aproveitar comercialmente a moda da EC. Neste contexto, livros que se debrucem sobre a técnica literária, como o de Oates, são preciosos, pois ajudam a complementar um ensino que, em Portugal, ainda gatinha e apresenta fraca substância teórica.
Algumas das reflexões da autora prendem-se com o papel ético, social e artístico do escritor, ou seja, a sua missão: porque escrevemos e qual a importância da ficção literária nas nossas vidas? Outros capítulos, mais práticos, clarificam a natureza do ofício da escrita, e transmitem algumas técnicas: como dinamizar um enredo; como construir uma personagem realista; a importância da experimentação; o valor da autocrítica; o motivo da metáfora, etc.
Este livro de Oates pode ser, pois, lido como um manual básico de técnicas de escrita criativa, embora deixe insatisfeitos os aprendizes com alguma experiência, e que procurem estratégias mais avançadas relativamente à estruturação do enredo por géneros, ao ponto de vista do narrador, à criação de atmosferas ou ao polimento final do texto. Para esses, não hesito em recomendar Solutions for Writers, de Sol Stein, ou o prático The Writer’s Workbook, de Jenny Newman, Edmund Cusick e Aileen La Tourette.
Não se devem confundir as técnicas, conselhos e dicas difundidas por Oates com receitas. Pelo contrário, Oates incentiva o jovem escritor a transgredir, através da experimentação, para que encontre a sua voz singular: “A arte é por natureza um ato transgressor” (p. 45). Esta transgressão revela que Oates não desses ensaístas de EC que prometem êxito ou receitas para cozinhar best-sellers — mas antes uma perspicaz conhecedora da multiplicidade de técnicas, e da importância da inovação. São aspetos que Oates não apenas professa, mas também pratica — ou não fosse ela uma prosadora, poetisa, dramaturga e ensaísta que arrebatou, entre outros, o prestigiado National Book Award. E quem leu gulosamente os romances Them, ou Blackwater, ou ainda algum dos contos, encontra nestes ensaios um idêntico prazer, pois Oates polvilhou a teoria com situações anedóticas e memórias, sobretudo da infância. Neste espírito, revela, por exemplo, o momento epifânico do seu despertar para a leitura:
"Em 1946, no dia em que completei oito anos de idade, a minha avó ofereceu-me uma magnífica cópia ilustrada de Alice no País das Maravilhas e Alice do Outro Lado do Espelho, de Lewis Carroll. De repente, vinda do nada, aquela maravilha apareceu diante de mim, uma rapariga do campo, a morar na casa de uma família que vivia do seu trabalho, em que havia muito poucos livros e muito pouco tempo para os ler. A prenda da minha avó, com a sua bonita capa de tecido enfeitada de criaturas bizarras em relevo e, no meio delas, uma Alice com aquela expressão de perpétuo espanto estampada na cara, revelar-se-ia o grande tesouro da minha infância, bem como a mais profunda influência literária da minha vida. (…) Tal como Alice, com quem me identificava de modo impressionante, também eu caí vertiginosamente pela toca do coelho abaixo e/ou passei aventureiramente através do vidro e mergulhei na sala do espelho para, e isto é uma maneira de dizer, nunca mais regressar inteiramente à vida real." (pp. 27-28)
Nesta partilha de confidências e de conhecimento, Oates serve-se da sua experiência como autora, docente de EC e, não menos importante, leitora atenta. Logo na introdução, encoraja: “Jovens escritores ou escritores principiantes devem ser instigados a ler muito, incessantemente, tanto autores clássicos como contemporâneos, pois sem esse mergulho na história do ofício de escrever estamos condenados a não passar de amadores (…)” (p. 12). Este último aspeto tocou-me, em particular, pois também defendo que a Escrita Criativa deve ser concomitante à leitura criativa, isto é, o estudo de uma obra, para descobrir como um autor conseguiu obter um determinado efeito.
Assim, e para escorar as suas opiniões, a ensaísta convoca uma polifonia de vozes antigas e novas: Lewis Carrol, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Anton Tchékov, Virginia Woolf, etc. Citando passos da obra destes génios literários, ou relatando episódios das suas vidas, Oates permite ao aprendiz compreender que não está só nas dúvidas e ansiedade; no êxito e no fracasso; e no desejo (quase um sacerdócio) de ser um escritor maior. De facto, também os autores maiores já foram aprendizes ansiosos, titubeantes, talvez mesmo descrentes nas suas possibilidades. Até terem aprendido ou descoberto por si as primeiras técnicas que lhes permitiram usar criativamente o poder mágico da palavra.
Numa espécie de profissão de fé, que inspira o título do livro, Oates afirma: “Acredito que desejamos ir para além do meramente finito e efémero; fazer parte de algo misterioso e comum a que damos o nome de cultura — e que essa aspiração é tão profunda no ser humano quanto o desejo de reprodução da espécie” (p. 15). Poderá haver propósito mais nobre para um escritor? Lida a obra de Oates, apetece-me dizer amém a essa partilha do fruto belo e tangível a que chamamos imaginação.
João de Mancelos
Nestes textos, a autora explora questões essenciais para quem deseja entrar no mundo da poesia e ficção, ou apenas compreender melhor os complexos meandros da criatividade. Como argumenta Oates: “(…) raramente a inspiração e a energia e até mesmo o génio são suficientes para se fazer arte: porque a prosa da ficção é também uma técnica, e uma técnica tem de ser aprendida, seja por acidente ou por desígnio” (p. 100).
Esta valorização da técnica, companheira do talento e da perseverança, assume particular relevo numa altura em que as estantes das livrarias começam a receber os primeiros manuais de Escrita Criativa redigidos por portugueses. Contudo, algumas dessas obras não passam de cadernos de exercícios, com o objetivo de aproveitar comercialmente a moda da EC. Neste contexto, livros que se debrucem sobre a técnica literária, como o de Oates, são preciosos, pois ajudam a complementar um ensino que, em Portugal, ainda gatinha e apresenta fraca substância teórica.
Algumas das reflexões da autora prendem-se com o papel ético, social e artístico do escritor, ou seja, a sua missão: porque escrevemos e qual a importância da ficção literária nas nossas vidas? Outros capítulos, mais práticos, clarificam a natureza do ofício da escrita, e transmitem algumas técnicas: como dinamizar um enredo; como construir uma personagem realista; a importância da experimentação; o valor da autocrítica; o motivo da metáfora, etc.
Este livro de Oates pode ser, pois, lido como um manual básico de técnicas de escrita criativa, embora deixe insatisfeitos os aprendizes com alguma experiência, e que procurem estratégias mais avançadas relativamente à estruturação do enredo por géneros, ao ponto de vista do narrador, à criação de atmosferas ou ao polimento final do texto. Para esses, não hesito em recomendar Solutions for Writers, de Sol Stein, ou o prático The Writer’s Workbook, de Jenny Newman, Edmund Cusick e Aileen La Tourette.
Não se devem confundir as técnicas, conselhos e dicas difundidas por Oates com receitas. Pelo contrário, Oates incentiva o jovem escritor a transgredir, através da experimentação, para que encontre a sua voz singular: “A arte é por natureza um ato transgressor” (p. 45). Esta transgressão revela que Oates não desses ensaístas de EC que prometem êxito ou receitas para cozinhar best-sellers — mas antes uma perspicaz conhecedora da multiplicidade de técnicas, e da importância da inovação. São aspetos que Oates não apenas professa, mas também pratica — ou não fosse ela uma prosadora, poetisa, dramaturga e ensaísta que arrebatou, entre outros, o prestigiado National Book Award. E quem leu gulosamente os romances Them, ou Blackwater, ou ainda algum dos contos, encontra nestes ensaios um idêntico prazer, pois Oates polvilhou a teoria com situações anedóticas e memórias, sobretudo da infância. Neste espírito, revela, por exemplo, o momento epifânico do seu despertar para a leitura:
"Em 1946, no dia em que completei oito anos de idade, a minha avó ofereceu-me uma magnífica cópia ilustrada de Alice no País das Maravilhas e Alice do Outro Lado do Espelho, de Lewis Carroll. De repente, vinda do nada, aquela maravilha apareceu diante de mim, uma rapariga do campo, a morar na casa de uma família que vivia do seu trabalho, em que havia muito poucos livros e muito pouco tempo para os ler. A prenda da minha avó, com a sua bonita capa de tecido enfeitada de criaturas bizarras em relevo e, no meio delas, uma Alice com aquela expressão de perpétuo espanto estampada na cara, revelar-se-ia o grande tesouro da minha infância, bem como a mais profunda influência literária da minha vida. (…) Tal como Alice, com quem me identificava de modo impressionante, também eu caí vertiginosamente pela toca do coelho abaixo e/ou passei aventureiramente através do vidro e mergulhei na sala do espelho para, e isto é uma maneira de dizer, nunca mais regressar inteiramente à vida real." (pp. 27-28)
Nesta partilha de confidências e de conhecimento, Oates serve-se da sua experiência como autora, docente de EC e, não menos importante, leitora atenta. Logo na introdução, encoraja: “Jovens escritores ou escritores principiantes devem ser instigados a ler muito, incessantemente, tanto autores clássicos como contemporâneos, pois sem esse mergulho na história do ofício de escrever estamos condenados a não passar de amadores (…)” (p. 12). Este último aspeto tocou-me, em particular, pois também defendo que a Escrita Criativa deve ser concomitante à leitura criativa, isto é, o estudo de uma obra, para descobrir como um autor conseguiu obter um determinado efeito.
Assim, e para escorar as suas opiniões, a ensaísta convoca uma polifonia de vozes antigas e novas: Lewis Carrol, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Anton Tchékov, Virginia Woolf, etc. Citando passos da obra destes génios literários, ou relatando episódios das suas vidas, Oates permite ao aprendiz compreender que não está só nas dúvidas e ansiedade; no êxito e no fracasso; e no desejo (quase um sacerdócio) de ser um escritor maior. De facto, também os autores maiores já foram aprendizes ansiosos, titubeantes, talvez mesmo descrentes nas suas possibilidades. Até terem aprendido ou descoberto por si as primeiras técnicas que lhes permitiram usar criativamente o poder mágico da palavra.
Numa espécie de profissão de fé, que inspira o título do livro, Oates afirma: “Acredito que desejamos ir para além do meramente finito e efémero; fazer parte de algo misterioso e comum a que damos o nome de cultura — e que essa aspiração é tão profunda no ser humano quanto o desejo de reprodução da espécie” (p. 15). Poderá haver propósito mais nobre para um escritor? Lida a obra de Oates, apetece-me dizer amém a essa partilha do fruto belo e tangível a que chamamos imaginação.
João de Mancelos
August 9, 2020
I thought this would be a quick, sweet read. But it’s more like heavy clotting blood: thick, dark and resonant. Definitely one to keep and return to.
December 3, 2007
A disappointment, particularly on the heels of reading The Falls. The clash of her fast-flowing, emotionally involving narrative voice with the kind of studied, academic blah blah blah I hadn't encountered since...well, since leaving grad school.
February 19, 2024
4.5 stars. I enjoyed this insightful collection of essays about a writing and reading (although once again, the parts about reading reconfirmed my belief that pretty much everyone, not surprisingly including JCO, is a better, more careful, more perceptive reader than I am, and I may as well be reading grocery lists for all I'm making out of it).
Some lines I marked:
"This 'other dimension' is a counterworld into which only one individual has access: '...The artist needs only this: a special world to which he alone has the key' (Andre Gide). The counterworld both mirrors the 'real' world and distorts it; in it, you both are, and are not, yourself ... the most primary, if unacknowledged, fact of artistic creation." (p42) - this was interesting in light of the author of The Gray House saying she will not be writing a second novel because that was a world she had access to and there isn't another, which is really too bad for the readers of the world. Also, I like the relatively extravagant use of punctuation in those two sentences.
On inspiration, which happens to mirror my belief about luck: "It would be naive to imagine that grace really falls upon us from without-- one must be in spiritual readiness for any visitation."
On criticism: "Joyce offered no rejoinder to his brother Stanislaus's judgment that Finnegans Wake is 'unspeakably wearisome...the witless wandering of literature before its final extinction. I would not read a paragraph of it if I did not know you.'" (p132) "To have a reliable opinion of oneself, one must know the subject, and perhaps that isn't possible." (p136) and "My life, to me, is transparent as a glass of water, and of no more interest." (p136)
On the persona of JCO: "But while writing exists, writers do not - as all writers know." (p153) and "No one wants to believe this obvious truth: the "artist" can inhabit any individual, for the individual is irrelevant to "art."
Some lines I marked:
"This 'other dimension' is a counterworld into which only one individual has access: '...The artist needs only this: a special world to which he alone has the key' (Andre Gide). The counterworld both mirrors the 'real' world and distorts it; in it, you both are, and are not, yourself ... the most primary, if unacknowledged, fact of artistic creation." (p42) - this was interesting in light of the author of The Gray House saying she will not be writing a second novel because that was a world she had access to and there isn't another, which is really too bad for the readers of the world. Also, I like the relatively extravagant use of punctuation in those two sentences.
On inspiration, which happens to mirror my belief about luck: "It would be naive to imagine that grace really falls upon us from without-- one must be in spiritual readiness for any visitation."
On criticism: "Joyce offered no rejoinder to his brother Stanislaus's judgment that Finnegans Wake is 'unspeakably wearisome...the witless wandering of literature before its final extinction. I would not read a paragraph of it if I did not know you.'" (p132) "To have a reliable opinion of oneself, one must know the subject, and perhaps that isn't possible." (p136) and "My life, to me, is transparent as a glass of water, and of no more interest." (p136)
On the persona of JCO: "But while writing exists, writers do not - as all writers know." (p153) and "No one wants to believe this obvious truth: the "artist" can inhabit any individual, for the individual is irrelevant to "art."
November 24, 2018
To a Young Writer, What Sin to Me Unknown..., and My Faith as a Writer were extremely compelling. Other than that...I love Joyce Carol Oates, but her masturbation of literary references was tiring and inelegant; it was as if she was just showing off her extensive knowledge of literature instead of using it to make her point. That said, this is a great anthology of titles to which any young writer (or reader) might return in the future. But the work as a whole felt, at times, self-indulgent. We get it, Joyce, you are well-read. (I know, I know...how dare I! Believe me I wanted to like it!)
October 29, 2020
As a writer, I find it so wonderfully comforting to know that most great writers either doubted their work or hated it. And the fact that Joyce Carol Oates rewrites her work multiple times is quite soothing. It's like when Neil Gaiman said: "no one ever has to see your first draft", or when Elizabeth Gilbert talked in big magic about how when you're writing your first draft you feel like someone is watching you when no one is. statements like these make the messiness and ridiculousness of the first draft much more bearable.
June 29, 2021
Other than the first essay (which touts the trite injunction to "write as though your life depended on it," I found this essay collection to be inspiring, stimulating, refreshing, and motivating as a young writer. She explores the whole gamut of issues related to a writerly living: perfectionism, criticism, inspiration, craft, among others. Taken together, they aptly illuminate the rich, hidden life behind an elusive craft.
July 23, 2022
I have to admit that Oates is someone I've always wanted to read, though, for some reason or another, I've only rarely managed to do so. I really should read her more, even though her very extensive backlist seems very daunting. This slim volume is simple in its prose, though I wouldn't say it's minimalist at all. There's a lot of literary flourishes, and yet, none of them are overbearing. While reading, I could tell I was reading the work of a true literary master- and yet, there's a nice, quiet, simple elegance to her style. At the very least, this made me develop a great appreciation for Oates as a writer, and I really will try to tackle some of her extensive backlist. Maybe I should try some of her poetry next? We'll see.
September 20, 2017
3,5/5. Grandiose par moment, vraiment de belles perles réflexives sur l'art d'écrire et la littérature, mais d'autres passages sont plus lourds, plus ennuyeux et se rapproche parfois de la biographie de l'auteur plus que d'un ouvrage de réflexion. La lecture vaut tout de même la peine, même si j'aurais retranché certaines parties pour vraiment demeuré dans le sujet.
March 2, 2018
I love JCO! This book blows my mind. I don't know whether to return it to the library or start it over tonight. It's one I'll definitely end up going back & copying half of word for word into my journal. Wow. I wish I could buy a copy for every young person, especially every young woman, I know who wants to be a Writer.
March 5, 2018
omg. i love joyce carol oates.
August 22, 2024
motherrrrr
September 16, 2025
Must-read for writers
January 5, 2009
"Art," writes Joyce Carol Oates, "is the highest expression of the human spirit." And while humankind has often struggled to express why it is that art is so very necessary to our spirits (why is art the first course cut in public education when budgets require constraint?), we cannot exist without it. Art is, in great part, our communication with each other, our attempt as social animals to connect, but first and foremost, as Oates goes on to describe, it is our solitary striving to go deep - into ourselves, connecting with our innermost and hidden hearts.
In this collection of essays, Oates, known perhaps more for her amazing ability to be one of the most prolific writers of all time (something she says in one of her essays that she does not quite understand, that is, why she is seen as prolific ... to which point, I urge the author to check out her own list of published works, in and of itself a short book), examines the art and craft of writing. These are not necessarily essays written one to build upon another, but separate and independent pieces, including an interview done with Oates to discuss her fictionalized history of Marilyn Monroe, "Blonde."
Included in this collection are biographical essays on how Oates grew up, her childhood and one-room school days, a time of discovery that reading books was entering a new world beyond this one. Fittingly, "Alice in Wonderland" was the first book that so mesmerized her and has kept its hold on her lifelong. Dropping down the rabbit hole into a world that was a surprise at every turn, where all things were open to re-creation, where one is never quite sure one will be able to return fully to that other reality, is not unlike the life of a writer.
Also, essays on honing the craft prior to the art - and that would always begin, and never end, with reading. Reading and reading, endlessly reading, and she puts an almost equal importance on reading the classics, but no less the not quite classics, such as comic books. All can teach the writer - something about language, something about storyline, something about plot movement and suspense and conflict and resolution. It is not so much what one reads as that one reads.
There are also essays on a writer's space, what it might and should contain, the art of self criticism, the squishy business of inspiration, surely important notes on failure, and others along that vein. Even a piece on running and writing, how Oates finds that much of her writing happens first in her head, long before it reaches paper (she writes her first drafts always in long-hand), and so running seems to be an activity especially conducive to unstringing such creative and transportive trains of thought.
Above all, Oates states, immerse yourself. If writing is about craft first, the learning of grammar and sentence structure (and she is one of those writers who revises as she writes) and other such primary tools, then it enters that ephemeral world of Art - like dropping through the rabbit hole - when one dares to leave this world and fully enter into that one. Immersion. Nothing less.
"I believe that we yearn to transcend the merely finite and ephemeral; to participate in something mysterious and communal called 'culture' - and that this yearning is as strong in our species as the yearning to reproduce the species."
Perhaps because fine art, in any medium, is itself a kind of reproducing the species. And giving it new life.
While this is not my favorite book of writer writing about writing - that spot is reserved for Annie Dillard's "The Writing Life," Bret Lott's "Before We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of a Writer's Life," and Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life" - it was satisfying. I found in some ways a kindred spirit, for I, too, prefer a first draft in longhand, revise along the way, feel that writing is like entering a trance not unlike madness, and wrote my first "masterpieces," just as Oates did, even prior to knowing HOW to write. I saw my parents writing, and although I had no idea what those scribbles meant, I was well amused to sit for hours doing the same. Rows and rows of looping and connected lines, containing magic. With a writer's faith that someday, somehow, someone will read my scribbles and sense the magic, too. As did Oates, today as mesmerized by that process as she was as a child. Therein, one suspects, lies the explanation to her ability to be that prolific.
In this collection of essays, Oates, known perhaps more for her amazing ability to be one of the most prolific writers of all time (something she says in one of her essays that she does not quite understand, that is, why she is seen as prolific ... to which point, I urge the author to check out her own list of published works, in and of itself a short book), examines the art and craft of writing. These are not necessarily essays written one to build upon another, but separate and independent pieces, including an interview done with Oates to discuss her fictionalized history of Marilyn Monroe, "Blonde."
Included in this collection are biographical essays on how Oates grew up, her childhood and one-room school days, a time of discovery that reading books was entering a new world beyond this one. Fittingly, "Alice in Wonderland" was the first book that so mesmerized her and has kept its hold on her lifelong. Dropping down the rabbit hole into a world that was a surprise at every turn, where all things were open to re-creation, where one is never quite sure one will be able to return fully to that other reality, is not unlike the life of a writer.
Also, essays on honing the craft prior to the art - and that would always begin, and never end, with reading. Reading and reading, endlessly reading, and she puts an almost equal importance on reading the classics, but no less the not quite classics, such as comic books. All can teach the writer - something about language, something about storyline, something about plot movement and suspense and conflict and resolution. It is not so much what one reads as that one reads.
There are also essays on a writer's space, what it might and should contain, the art of self criticism, the squishy business of inspiration, surely important notes on failure, and others along that vein. Even a piece on running and writing, how Oates finds that much of her writing happens first in her head, long before it reaches paper (she writes her first drafts always in long-hand), and so running seems to be an activity especially conducive to unstringing such creative and transportive trains of thought.
Above all, Oates states, immerse yourself. If writing is about craft first, the learning of grammar and sentence structure (and she is one of those writers who revises as she writes) and other such primary tools, then it enters that ephemeral world of Art - like dropping through the rabbit hole - when one dares to leave this world and fully enter into that one. Immersion. Nothing less.
"I believe that we yearn to transcend the merely finite and ephemeral; to participate in something mysterious and communal called 'culture' - and that this yearning is as strong in our species as the yearning to reproduce the species."
Perhaps because fine art, in any medium, is itself a kind of reproducing the species. And giving it new life.
While this is not my favorite book of writer writing about writing - that spot is reserved for Annie Dillard's "The Writing Life," Bret Lott's "Before We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of a Writer's Life," and Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life" - it was satisfying. I found in some ways a kindred spirit, for I, too, prefer a first draft in longhand, revise along the way, feel that writing is like entering a trance not unlike madness, and wrote my first "masterpieces," just as Oates did, even prior to knowing HOW to write. I saw my parents writing, and although I had no idea what those scribbles meant, I was well amused to sit for hours doing the same. Rows and rows of looping and connected lines, containing magic. With a writer's faith that someday, somehow, someone will read my scribbles and sense the magic, too. As did Oates, today as mesmerized by that process as she was as a child. Therein, one suspects, lies the explanation to her ability to be that prolific.
January 23, 2025
This is an enjoyable book, split into neat chapters, each one of which addresses different aspects of writing, from dialogue to form. It’s also, just a good read, although in places you need to know some of the writers she mentions in order to understand their significance. A good book for those interested in the craft of writing.
September 8, 2017
hoş, güzel makaleler, meraklısı için aydınlatıcı gözlemler ve yazarlığa dair çözümlemeler..
February 28, 2017
I always enjoy reading books about the process of writing by writers whom I admire. This little book has quite many insights, and is a quick read. I especially enjoyed the chapter on running and writing, as I myself also run and usually get inspiration when I'm running, and untangle some structural issues. The chapter on reading as a writer: the artist as craftsman was a bit tedious and not what I expected. But overall, the book is clear, and Oates is a writer who writes about her process of writing in a humble, honest, clear, and non-pretentious way.
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