Meanderings of Writer's Block

One of my favorite authors is a man named Gary Paulson. If you are a middle school teacher, you probably are quite familiar with his work. He is a phenomenal talent who writes accessible fiction that promotes thinking without being preachy. I was thinking about him the other day when I read yet another newspaper article about how brave the author of the Harry Potter series was to “out” one of her main characters. I was and still am unimpressed by her after the fact revelation. Had she written the character as a man who happened to be gay in addition to being the head master of a school for wizards that would have been worthy of praise. As it was, she opted for the cheap politically correct option of telling her readers she imagined that the character was gay as she wrote about him......not being gay. Not that it matters. Orientation is not the sole defining characteristic of any person and that should have been the point. It reminded me of Paulson because in his novel The Car, one of the man characters is a gay man. As readers we learn about this through yet another main character as he reveals the fact in passing during a conversation. Paulson never mentions the fact again in the course of the novel because it’s not relevant to the story, but he mentions it upfront and not as an aside in an interview later on. So why do I bring up Paulson at all? Was it to discuss the Rowlings revelation? No, actually I wanted to talk about his theory on writing. I may have mentioned it at some point in my blogging but it bears repeating. He feels that writers have to be willing to “go there” in other words, dig deep into the rubble pile that is the sum of all our bad experiences in life and be willing to put ourselves back in those circumstances and draw on the rawness to fuel artistic endeavors. And no, it’s not much more fun that it sounds. I know because I have been reading back through the first six months of my blogging from July through December of 2006. Not fun times. Although not as dark as times that preceded it in 2005 or 2004 or even earlier. When I truly think about, life has been a struggle since early spring of 2002. That’s when Will first began to be obviously not right in so many ways. That’s a long time to struggle. And sometimes I would like to forget about those times completely. Why not? There is no reason to go back there and agonize, second guess or berate myself. Except that those times made me who I am in the same way that my father’s alcoholism shaped me or my long, lonely single years laid the foundation I built upon when Will was sick and it was just me and Katy, just as examples. How do you integrate and use those lessons, for lack of a better word, and forget the circumstances at the same time. In retrospect, I am a lucky person because I know there are people who lives have been beset with far more tragedy than my own and for whom there never seems to be much, if any respite. Though most of these people are strong, resourceful and able to hang onto those wonders and joys of life that see them through and give them hope; no one is able to hold up the world day in and day out when it seems intent on rolling off their shoulders or becomes to heavy a burden alone. Those times when I felt that life was little more than an endless battle against the bad things; I hung onto the fact that I would be happy again. Even when I wasn’t sure if that was really true, I clung to it stubbornly and it saw me through to where I am now. Today I was reading one of the many widow blogs I peruse. It’s author, Alicia, called to mind the endurance that is necessary to sustain oneself when the forces beyond our control have us tightly boxed and seemingly in their grip. Her poem reminded me of the power within us all to dig within ourselves and express our need for strength and empathy and a glimpse of that elusive and lit tunnel exit sign.