De quoi écrire?

"De quoi écrire?"
Hermann Fenner-Behmer

     What to write about?

     When it comes to blogs, journals, or personal letters (you remember—those things you write to a friend and put in the mailbox with a postage stamp), should we ever really ask ourselves that question? Probably not. Blogs, personal ones anyway, shouldn't feel like a writing assignment, nor should journals or letters. They should all come under the heading of "leisure," even "fun." Yet, inevitably, they sometimes become an obligation—an obligation that, admittedly, we place on ourselves. We should keep reminding ourselves that even that long-overdue letter can wait another day, another week; after all, if the recipient is a true friend, he or she won't hold the delay against you.

     Of the three, I feel least guilty about my journal because, supposedly, it's there for me and not vice-versa. The same is true of this blog, but only to an extent; I do have readers, and I know I feel disappointed if one of the blogs I follow doesn't post anything for a week or more. (If it gets on to two months or more, I usually unfollow them. My blog list is too long as it is!)

     The painting above reminds me so much of my salad days, when I would hole up in a café with my journal and a book, feeling very Left Bank-ish and literary. I'd fill page after page with angst or random ramblings, imagining that someone fifty or sixty years down the road would find my journal in an antique shop and be utterly fascinated by my life and my verbal stylings. My book would usually be a Virago title; back then, Viragos were clad in black or the later green. They were visually unmistakable—at least, they were by other readers of middlebrow, neglected authors. My coffee would grow cold, and the server would tire of coming by to warm up my cup, because I sat there so long. The ashtray (yes, those were the days not only when I smoked, but when smoking was allowed in cafés and restaurants) would be overflowing with squashed butts. Ah, those were the days!

     Nowadays, I look at the blank "New Post" page on my screen, scratching my head and mentally asking myself, "De quoi écrire?" No, not really. I may be pretentious, but I do think in English.

Writing Tools: Picky, Picky, Picky!

     When I was a pianist, I, like every other serious pianist, was extremely sensitive to whatever instrument I was obliged to play. Aside from the piano he may have at home, a pianist is pretty much at the mercy of the piano at hand, whether at his place of work or at the place of a performance. He doesn't always have the luxury of choosing a piano for a recital and having it delivered for the event; he often has to use the piano that's there. Hopefully, it's a fine instrument that has been freshly tuned, voiced, and balanced, but sometimes it's better suited for firewood.

     As a diarist and poet, I'm every bit as sensitive about the tools I use, and from what I've heard and read, every other writer feels the same. When I first began keeping a journal in the eighth grade my tools were rudimentary, to say the least: loose pages in a ring binder and whatever pen or pencil was at hand. Then I found a large blank book my architect brother, who was then still in college, had left at home one summer, and I confiscated it for my journal. In later years, my preference was wire-bound notebooks—not spiral, but the kind with double wire rings down the length of the book (whatever those things are called, I don't know). Traditional spirals tend to bend, unravel, or otherwise get all misshapen and cockeyed. Also, the back had to be thick and sturdy enough to set on the knee, if a table or other suitable writing surface weren't available.

     For years, I avoided using the now ubiquitous hardbound blank book, simply because the cover couldn't be folded back so that the book fit better atop a crowded restaurant table (I love writing when dining out alone). If the book was smaller to begin with, it usually didn't lie flat when open, and its pages were too small to accommodate more than a few sentences.

     Then I discovered Moleskine hardcover notebooks with lined pages. They're ideal for journaling: just the right size for restaurant tables; the pages are sewn in signatures, not glued, so the books lie flat; the paper is nib-friendly (smooth, that is, so nibs don't get hung up) and takes high quality fountain pen ink well.

     Which brings us to pens. I won't even discuss pencils; they are useless to any serious diarist. Permanent ink is a must. My instrument of choice used to be the Uniball Vision micro point. It served me very well until I became enamored of the nib. I'd watch period films and wonder how those vintage dip pens felt to write with, and how on earth they held enough ink so the writer wouldn't have to dip every few words, as one had to do with feather quills. I bought my first dip pen in an antique store, bought a bottle of ink, and fell in love. This was not a calligraphy pen, mind you, this was a regular writing pen that was used in the late 1800's, before the fountain pen was invented. It was fitted with a good, sturdy nib that was flexible and held a good amount of ink with a single dip. The secret, of course, is capillary action and the curve of the nib's underside.

 

 

 

     The downside to using dip pens for journaling is that you can't carry an inkwell around wherever you go—well, I suppose you can, but it's inconvenient to say the least. There are such things as antique travel inkwells, but they can be costly. So for a while, I limited my writing to my time at home. Then I started giving a lot of thought to fountain pens. It happened that at that particular time, I was approaching my tenth anniversary working at the Houston Grand Opera. It is the company's tradition to give the employee a gift to mark the occasion, and they asked me if there was anything in particular I would like. So I asked for—you guessed it—a fountain pen. Luckily there was on our staff a person who knew a great deal about pens and even wrote for Pen World magazine. She personally chose my gift: a Sheaffer White Dot, a simple black beauty that I use to this day.

     As for drafting poetry, I'm much less particular about my tools. A rigid-backed wire-bound notebook and a good ballpoint with really intense ink does me just fine. My drafts aren't as crucial as my journal entries, though I do keep them for my records. I used to draft poems and journal in the same book, but no longer. Now I prefer to keep the two separate.

     Well, there you have it. Maybe someday I'll pontificate on the many virtues of manual typewriters. But you've probably already surmised that I love typewriters, haven't you?

A Poet's Voice

     When I first started writing poetry, I had absolutely no intention of getting it published. Poetry to me was simply a way of exercising my creative muscles, playing with words and forms. More importantly, it was another form of journaling, venting, purging -- and it still is, which is why all my poems are autobiographical. The difference between venting through prose (journaling) and venting through verse is that the discipline of writing verse gives me time to be a bit more detached about whatever it is I'm venting. Verse demands that I mull over the selection of words, the harmony of sounds, line breaks, punctuation, the arc of the poem; in doing so, I'm better able to examine objectively the particular emotion that I'm trying to convey, under the therapeutic microscope of poetic craft. When journaling, I simply pour out stuff without really thinking, without reasoning, without worrying about craft. Both of these purgative methods are beneficial, in different ways and for different reasons, yielding different results.
     If my primary motivation was to be published and read by a wide public, then, yes, I would attempt to turn outward for my subjects and not stay so much in my own head and heart. If I were really concerned about giving editors what they want today, i. e., "universal" poems rather than deeply personal, "confessional" ones, I would turn to nature, politics, or social issues for poetic inspiration. The truth is, I seem to belong to the confessional (albeit "formalist") school, but (I hope) without the extreme angst-ridden, suicidal overtones. If you really stop to think about it, though -- isn't all poetry "confessional"? Even when writing politically, how can one do so without delving into one's own personal politics? What is "universal," anyway? This universe, this society, this very world, are made up of individual people with individual opinions and feelings. Or should feelings come into play at all? How on earth can they not?
     At the encouragement of my sister, I did eventually decide to submit my poems for publication and am happy about my modest success so far. As long as there are those precious few publications whose editors welcome "personal" poetry, I will continue to send out my ventings in verse. According to the old maxim, I should write what I know. Well, what I know best is my own life, so that's what I write. And I think it's what I write best.

          Autobiography

          I only write that which I know;
          I only know that which I live,
          And life will seldom lie.
          But then, I cannot always know
          The secrets of the life I live,
          So I myself can lie.

          This much I promise: I will tell
          The truth as it appears to me;
          And if I tell it slant,
          Then truth is only time's to tell.
          But even time may not tell me,
          So truth, to me, is slant.

     Well, maybe that isn't my best, but you get my drift.