On wanting to work

I sit here not sure about what to do, my mind scattered, shooting in different directions. Yesterday was a difficult day because of some emails I had to respond to, some seemed to be threatening, while others hopeful but needed a measured response. In the end I got it done, leaving the office near 7pm and going to the gym. Yesterday I missed certain appointments that I wanted to attend: a compulsory meeting and a racquet ball overview at the gym and felt bad about it. Nevertheless, I felt better after doing 30 minutes in the cross-trainer and a few minutes in the sauna. The exercise had invigorated me; earlier I did not want to go to the gym and exercise but was glad I did. I got home at past 8 pm; ate dinner of chili crab, rice and pork chop, a glass of wine and grapes.

This week is significant for me because it’s closing week, finalizing the transaction to complete a significant investment. I calculated the cash flow with a spreadsheet and planned a way to liquidate some investments in Singapore if cash is needed to keep me up. The fear is that one’s finances is being stretched, spending more than what one brings in. Luckily I have Excel and I think the spreadsheet tool is possibly one of the best things invented in modern life, with the financial planning that one needs to do to keep up. Going back to my story: I needed to call insurance agents, evaluate premiums, call the movers, and call the phone and cable company and so on so everything will be in place when the move is done in the coming weeks. My wife is not around so I had to do this preparation while doing a lot of housework.

Compounding the stress is the work on my 2 projects at the office, now kicking into gear as the year ends, plus the fact that I am attending 4 classes online: a creative writing class, gamefication, handling large data and model thinking. Stupidly I have increased my reading and watching movies, too. In Orhan Pamuk’s recent lectures, he wrote about his rush to read books, to find out about the secret center of the novel, like some hidden confidence provided by the author that will explain the meaning of life. I had that urge and I still have it now in my middle age but wasted in triviality; a constant urge to read the latest bestseller or some trivial Hollywood biography or Vanity Fair article or watch some obscure movie by a German auteur director. As Pamuk pointed out:  to be part of elite, to be able to have bragging rights that one is in the know – a cognoscente.


This is the rat race: a constant journey to be someone at least in one’s own eyes. What does one want really in life? For some it may not be more money, more houses and cars but maybe just being a cultural maven. This brings me back to work, where one is not motivated on the task at hand because one has no ambition to earn more. Instead the literary savant continues to read and find meaning from external things like books and movies and experiences. But recently, the writing exercises has made me realize that I am a long way from my goal – more work is needed but I see the way clear in my mind. It was interesting to see the documentary ‘New York’ last night. The episode featured F. Scott Fitzgerald – a writer I had not paid much attention, instead focusing on his friend Hemingway. Reading his short stories and life, perhaps he is much closer to my own than anyone else. I just missed the road that he had taken and instead indulged myself, following Hemingway’s clarion call.

The Secret Center

Orhan Pamuk offers interesting insights on the art of writing in his Harvard lectures. Using Schiller’s essay on naïve and sentimental poetry as a starting point, Pamuk ventures forth on his own experiences as a writer and reader. He chart’s the development of his craft that I admit offers the best framework of understanding the act of writing than most books I have read. His concept of the ‘secret center’ is something I have not read about from any other writer though he does quote some writers who have similar conceptions on a novels ‘center’. It’s an intriguing concept as the ‘center’ evolves organically and not planned or structured the way a writer started out to construct when he began writing his book. In fact, the novel’s ‘center’ may not be what the author had intended but results from the reaction of the reader as he reads the book. Hence, it‘s an unintended consequence of reading that formulates out of each readers make-up: his culture, upbringing, education, experiences and so on. But the ‘center’ is also evoked from the writer’s work as he writes his passages, his narrative and the objects and sensations he places on the page – all based on his own make-up, too.

Being a writer from a developing country, although the recipient of an ancient culture, specifically an Islamist upbringing with echoes of Byzantium and Ottoman legacy, Pamuk has the same sensibilities as writers from the third world. Specifically a culture where only a small elite writes for their own class, at least during the start of his career, where an enlightened mass of citizens don’t exists unlike in the developed world with universal education and a mass reading public. It’s an intriguing viewpoint that I appreciate: the question is raised: who do I write for? The Western reader where the mass market exist or the small elite of one’s country: the decision would impact the way the novel is written. This will sway the novel’s ‘secret center’ and Pamuk covers all the territory that would impact the developing writer. It is a unique and informed insight and he cites samples from Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Stendhal and other great writers who were not really consciously aware of the ‘center’ as a literary model. The theory of the ‘center’ is what distinguishes genre and literary novels and he proves to be a well-read writer citing popular authors like John le Carre as one who moves away from genre towards being a literary novelist.

His book is highly original (despite starting off with Schiller’s premise using Goethe as his model); I have not had such incisive insights from other writers who write about writing such as Ayn Rand, Stephen King or Ernest Hemingway. I attribute this uniqueness to Pamuk’s intriguing background where he comes off as a sophisticated or cosmopolitan writer from the Middle East, someone who has Western sensibilities with no hint of Islamist tendencies. Perhaps this is a reflection of Turkey itself; a modern secular state that abolished the caliphate – a truly revolutionary act (perhaps akin to Mao’s Cultural Revolution) that boldly strives forward into the modern age by cutting its ties to the past. Indeed, abolishing the Islamic caliphate is like the Western states abolishing the papacy; thereby, getting rid of the Pope’s role. Hence, Turkey can be seen as heralding the future to the Middle Eastern, a call to modern ideas that has proven radical that only a few Islamic countries have followed. Perhaps being a native of Istanbul (or the former Constantinople) with one foot in Europe and one foot in Asia provide Pamuk with a synthesis that few Western writers (or critics) can understand but whom Asians can identify with.

Naïve and Sentimental Writer

Orhan Pamuk’s book introduces interesting concepts on the craft of writing. It is possibly the loftiest essay on writing that I have ever read. It is fruitful that I am reading his book now, during the writing course I am attending online. Pamuk has reflectively and analytically drawn a distinctive view on writing that is unique and thoroughly modern. Referring to Schiller’s primary essay as a source of his views, Pamuk distinguishes between naive and sentimental (or reflective) writers and readers. He also makes interesting distinctions between Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, between visual and verbal writers, between spatial arts like painting or sculpture and time based art like novels.  It is probably one of the most academic and insightful works on writing from a great writer; whereas one would usually expect this type of analysis from a professor or academician or literary theorist and not from a Nobel prize awarded in Literature. Therefore, he knows of what he speaks, applying his insights into his art to great acclaim

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According to his essays, he is a writer who is deliberate; a reflective writer who does a lot of plotting and planning before beginning the actual act of writing the book itself. Therefore he is the antithesis of the ‘naïve’ writer who rushes out and begins writing, driven by an enthusiasm that he thinks will carry him all the way to the completion of the work. There are writers who can achieve this ‘burst’ of effort effectively, perhaps writers like Stendhal, Dumas, Goethe or the recent example of the late Jack Kerouac with his automatic writing. I thought I was of this ilk, only realizing lately, after attending writing courses that this avenue often ends in a ‘writer’s’ block. He is the first writer I have read who has effectively explained the link between painting and writing; he is like a nexus or sweet spot located between the realm of literary and visual art, able to assimilate the lessons of each realm and explain their virtues which is why it provides a thoroughly modern perspective.

Pamuk also describes the way the mind reacts when reading or listening to a story, the way words would formulate on the brain, forming visual images as the words enter the brain page by page, the art of the novel proceeding in time as the reader works his way to the end of the book. Perhaps he is the first writer who has unlocked the secret of writing and explains the secrets in a simple and easy to understand manner. Overall it’s like delving into the mind of a great artist; plus the interesting fact that he is a Muslim Turk, a beneficiary of the ancient Arabian technology of the Middle East, of Persian and Ottoman influences, of the confluence of East and West, of Byzantium and the other ancient empires along the Silk Road; that he represents a rebirth of Ottoman renaissance, heralding the rise of modern Turkey in a European union bankrupted by Western excess. Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself, but he does have a whiff of modernity, high education and brilliance in his analysis.

I woke up early this morning, preparing for an early meeting, where we passed a milestone and approved to move to the next stage. It was a culmination of a tough week, with friends over last night where I cooked ‘cioppino’ – a tomato based stew of shrimps, clams and fish, an Italian dish popular along the docks in the Adriatic coast,  where the remaining leftovers of the day’s catch tossed into a soup by tired fishermen.  My wife has gone home to attend her mother’s funeral, staying away for a month; my youngest son is away in college and my eldest at home working on his college entrance. I am in my sixth week at the writing course reading lectures and working on my writing assignments, tasked to thoroughly revise my submitted story, perhaps following Pamuk’s advice on writing, while I prepare to move to my new house, looking forward to critiquing short stories and playing golf in the weekend.

Becoming a Writer

In Ray Bradbury’s book on writing, he mentioned the work ‘Becoming a Writer’ in the very last page, praising the lessons as helping him in his journey. The premise of this work is that one needs a ‘personality change’ to become a writer and those lessons on adapting one’s personality is the key, not just technical knowledge of craft. This premise conforms to my own view that being a writer is a holistic journey that involves not only the learning of techniques or accumulation of writing experiences but also the whole development of a person.  This means traveling, reading, experiencing life and possibly things like learning meditation and cultivating public speaking skills in clubs like Toastmaster. The goal is to perfect one’s voice which will reflect on the writer’s point of view in the stories he is writing. Hence, being a writer does not mean a solitary journey of introspective writing but a holistic endeavor that covers the full development of the person.

I have not read the book yet, not having the time to squeeze into my busy schedule. But the premise was intriguing enough for me to purchase the book in Amazon, where it is billed as a ‘classic bestseller’. My weeks are filled with writing and reading assignments, participating in the writing classes and critiquing the work of my classmates. It is an online version of the Toastmaster experience, where a group of people help each other via constructive feedback. The group activity is especially useful as one learns the background and work of others in the class, helping one assess his current ability by comparing it with the rest of the other students or would be authors, who are mostly adults, retirees, and a few young people and office employees looking for another career or pursuing a child hood dream. An interesting mix that is similar to Toastmasters where one develops his public speaking skills within a club environment.

This is my second class in the online course which is not cheap but more thorough than the previous workshops I have attended last year. The main benefits are the reading assignments, sharing and critiquing of work plus the feedback from experienced teachers who are also established authors. One is exposed to humility as one reads the work of others and receives useful criticism that one should take as a constructive feedback. For example, a short story I wrote in my first fiction class was praised after extensive editing, but my teacher in my second class, advised me to start all over again. The students from my second class are more exact and seemed at a more experienced level than my first class. I feel like stepping into a higher stage with more exacting people. After this class, I will take a break and reflect on my experience. I plan to read the book ‘Becoming a Writer’ after this course.

Currently, I am reading Orhan Pamuk’s ‘The Naïve and Sentimental Writer’, which is based on a series of lectures in Harvard. The book introduced a concept derived from a celebrated essay by the German writer Schiller. Writers and readers are categorized as either naive or sentimental and Pamuk’s describes the difference between the two. I fall into the naive category and the learning of craft has led me towards the sentimental or reflective category. These months feel like a revolution to me, after thinking that one has already learned all he can that one finds that he must throw away all his knowledge and start afresh. A young French man I worked with back in Asia preferred to work with young people, remarking about the old saying that an old dog cannot learn new tricks. Therein lies the challenge, that one’s past training and experiences would help one move to an entirely different field of battle, ready to work with new weapons and skills.

Zen and the Art of Writing

In my last writing workshop, Ray Bradbury’s book on writing was often cited. So I borrowed the book from the library, slightly aware of Bradbury’s work especially in science fiction having seen François Truffaut’s film adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 and having heard but not read ‘The Martian Chronicles,’ a work talked about with awe by other noted writers. I also recently watched John Huston’s film ‘Moby Dick’ starring Gregory Peck and was surprised to see Ray Bradbury in the credits, being the writer in Huston’s film who adapted Herman Melville’s book for the screen.  Obviously, Ray Bradbury is a man of many talents, straddling the multiple genres of science fiction and fantasy, adapting a literary classic for the cinema and, as I later found out, both poetry and free-lance nonfiction writing. It also seems that his stories have inspired cult films that involve colonies in outer space or aliens burrowed deep in Antarctica.

  
His book is an exuberant paean to writing, of the variety that is homemade and learned by instinct, having avoided college education or formal writing courses, instead dashing out to write a story and learning the craft through sheer hard work, sending out stories to magazine publishers, getting rejected, and persevering until being published by pulp magazines and eventually achieving success. It’s not only the writing gusto that is impressive; it’s the exercise of his imagination and creativity, to delve into worlds beyond normal human experience, in outer space and other fantastic realms but never losing sight of a core truth; delivering a basic drama and not focusing on the special effects. One wonders how someone could exist like that, to evolve as a writer with innate confidence, bypassing any self-doubt or neurotic impulses, allowing his imagination to run free to explore new realities and having the discipline to write about it, forever trimming and editing until the work is ready.

He is an unsentimental writer, perhaps like another science fiction writer William Gibson, who never wastes a word or sentence unless it has some commercial value, making sure their labor is aimed towards a publisher unlike someone like me who constantly procrastinates and writes in self-indulgent journals. Interestingly, Bradbury uses word association to get ideas and help him write, something like mind-mapping, or cluster writing to help him finish his work. It’s the first time I have seen a successful author admit using this technique – a subject that was elaborately described in a famous book about word clustering. Bradbury also cited an author who has helped him – Dorothea Brande, author of the book ‘Becoming a Writer’ an old book published in the 1940’s. Last night, I bought the book from Amazon after reading a synopsis. Her thesis is that to become a writer one must address the psychology or personality of the person, not focusing on aspects like learning the writing craft as usually done.

It looks like an interesting book to read; the premise is something that I instinctively feel is my major stumbling block, not the learning of craft which seems easy to surmount after attending the right classes and doing the right exercises. Rather it is the underlying motivation and confidence that drives the individual that must be improved, turned towards being a writer. If her work was enough to motivate Ray Bradbury then it’s good enough for me. Hopefully this will turn out to be a work like Steven Pressman’s ‘The War of Art’ a book that focuses on motivation and being a professional in outlook in order to be a writer. In the end, writing should be like achieving ‘Zen’, a meditative state where writing becomes a joy and not a chore, something that’s achieved when work becomes love and one just writes for the pleasure of the activity. Hence, it is a psychological state that a writer must achieve as he proceeds to work in the writing craft.

The Mysterious Flame

‘The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana’ is another interesting book by Umberto Eco.  I never liked his earlier works although the stories were unique and exciting. For example, ‘The Name of the Rose’ and ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’, both with interesting plots but not easy reading due to the way it was written, obtuse and dense to my taste. It was difficult to plod through his works as I was unable to grasp what his point of view was; perhaps one needed to be a European, to experience or understand the context to be able to grasp Eco. Later his works seemed to achieve more clarity like Mysterious Flame and ‘The Prague Cemetery’, but still the European sensibility moves towards the complex and nuanced view. American writers tilt towards simplicity, more direct to the point, writers like Philip Roth or Cormac McCarthy. Perhaps it is Eco’s background as semiotician, essayist, philosopher and literary critic that lends his work an academic and opaque air.

Someday I hope to read those 2 books I mentioned earlier, perhaps after getting more exposure to European history. Other European writers have a similar flair but authors like Carlos Perez-Reverte have simplicity of prose that is much easier to understand despite having a predilection for density that is the hallmark of European writers. Perhaps it is the key to understanding the European mind, not the English mind which has clearness such as Shakespeare (after removing the medieval syntax in the prose). Another good example is Winston Churchill who writes directly to the point, although with an elegance of phrasing due to his wealthy upbringing. On the other hand, one is bias because one communicates in the English language and not the Italian of Eco or the Spanish of Reverte. But it’s more than language and more on the focus on certain subjects, on certain ideas that seem esoteric and perhaps superstitious to the clear cut American mind.

The American writer closest to European sensibilities maybe John Updike with his dense prose. One does not leave his works remembering the plot but more the elegant phrasing, unlike Roth or McCarthy where one remembers certain scenes and plot details. Eco has a better record as one recalls the scenes that are interesting and also the phrasing of his words. Eco’s recent works resemble a feast, an entertainment that fully satisfies the reader (or a listener like me heeding to the audio book); the first person narrative is effective in giving the impression that one is hearing a story from someone sitting beside you, the voice immediate and intimate. Reading a book is like listening to music, the words flowing into the ears and into the mind until an image forms, sounds and sights materializing in the brain as the story unfolds, like watching a film. The writer is effective when his words achieve this effect and fails when he does not, which Eco’s earlier books were, failing to provide the cinematic effect. Until one understand the context, perhaps by study, reading other books or watching a movie about similar themes that one is prepared to understand Eco’s works.

Perhaps that is how one learns as he makes his way through life, letting the words from supervisors and peers wash over you at work, or from one’s friends and relatives, the mental picture of what needs to be done arising in the mind, allowing one to function normally in society. It is a visual world but the abstract meaning of words need time to formulate and gain traction. Stress is formed when the mind has not assimilated the message, the bombardment of emails, phone calls, meetings and discussions is too much to absorb; putting multiple demands on the person’s psyche. It is the challenge that one faces in modern life, similar to the narrator in the Mysterious Flame as he tries to reconstruct his memory from comic strips, books read and artifacts from childhood, having lost his memory after a stroke. In another sense, one is trying to determine the next step with the onslaught of information bombarding the mind. A typical example: working as project manager in a small project, supporting an application installed in seven warehouses, testing an application that is not working, organizing a seminar in the coming week, answering emails, reading multiple books and so on all at the same time. Achieving sanity and grace is like looking for a mysterious flame to light the way forward.

A Writer's Biography

I moved to South Carolina 3 years ago from Singapore. I always wanted to be a writer but never had a chance to seriously pursue the craft. So instead I write a blog – a way of telling (or fooling?) myself that I am a writer, to keep the dream alive; thinking that blogging is a way to practice the way a runner trains for a marathon.

But for years I struggled to complete a novel and some short stories, always blocked from finishing the work. Maybe I procrastinate too much; in between raising kids (both boys now in college), doing my day job, keeping my wife happy and having a decent family life. Trying to become a creative writer felt like a secret life, or a hidden vice like a drug addiction; going to work for a large company, working with computers but surreptitiously reading and enjoying books, practicing writing by blogging and attending short courses.

Now close to middle age, I feel time is running out, realizing late that writing is more about craft than divine inspiration; perhaps misled by writers like Ernest Hemingway who made it look easy; the first author I enjoyed reading, who led me on this path, soon progressing to other novelists like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Haruki Murakami, George Orwell, Yasunari Kawabata, John le Carre and Arturo Perez-Reverte among many others. Writers advise us to read widely and broadly as the first step, so I got that right but stayed far too long, neglecting to learn the writing craft; the clinical steps of revising or editing.

Recently I read ‘The War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield, one of many Do It Yourself books I read, as if writing can be learned like assembling furniture or gardening, like reading something like ‘Investing for Dummies’ , but this time it felt different. Inspired to be serious, to be a professional instead of an amateur, I was moved by the work, reading it while on a bus from New York, leaving Chinatown near midnight, travelling south towards rural fields, resolving to be a real writer by attending this course as the first concrete commitment.