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Get confident, stupid!

Ah, yes, the immortal words of Troy McClure. And who wouldn’t have chutzpah with a smile like Troy’s! (Not to mention the rather handsome collection of pullovers he donned, which can now be found somewhere on the Stuff White People Like online showroom of sumptuously stylish sweaters.)

Lindsay Merbaum wrote an interesting piece in Electric Literature called “Not a Real Writer: How Self-Doubt Holds Me Back.” Self-confidence is one of those illusive and intangible parts of the human anatomy that everyone wants yet all of us so desperately lack in at least some areas of our lives. For many it’s public speaking. For a lot of us it’s expressing ourselves, whether through our fashion our words our actions or our opinions.  For Lindsay Merbaum – high school poet extraordinaire, Sarah Lawrence graduate, and recipient of an MFA from Brooklyn College, where she studied under Michael Cunningham  – it’s self-doubt with her writing because she’s not a “real writer.”

Wait. Hold the bacon and mayo a second.

If someone like  Lindsay Merbaum can doubt her own writing, who among us is immune from self-doubt when it comes to anything we do? I suppose the easy answer would be, well, nobody.  I’ve always found it interesting how the most beautiful women I’ve met are the most insecure about their looks; how the self-made entrepreneur couldn’t stir a single emotion in me when they gave a presentation; how those with toned, drop-dead bodies can’t help saying how “fat” and “out of shape” they are; how the nicest, kindest, most humane people I’ve had the good fortune of meeting believe – truly and for trues – that they are worthless. Alternatively, why is that those who seem to exude the most confidence have a special place all their own in the Deuchery Hall of Fame?

Confidence is electric. It’s alluring. It draws us to those who have it in spades like Poo to honey. So why, then, do many of us have such a  difficult time harnessing this amazing X factor which can do everything from make us more friends to landing a better job to having…I don’t know…clearer, more blemish-free skin?

Let’s return to the case of Lindsay Merbaum for a moment, shall we? There were a couple of things she mentioned in her piece which resonated with me and I’d like to address.

How do you justify the time devoted to writing when it doesn’t put food on the table, when you don’t receive much recognition for your efforts?

Because, to quote Mr. Jerry Scientology, it completes you. Writing makes you a better person. Pure and simple. It is to spiritual growth what drinking a kimchi, avocado, and cranberry smoothie is to a health nut. Well, sort of. As for the recognition part, if you can please yourself, that’s one more person than the average Joe/Joanne can do.

I have yet to publish a book. The reason for that is, in part, life gets in the way.

Right. That pesky and pernicious little thing called life. It doesn’t come with a manual or set of instructions. First rule of Fight Club: There’s no such thing as Fight Club. Second rule of Fight Club: Life will always get in the way. Remember that wicked, kick-ass ski trip you were going to take, only to break your leg the day before you left? That interview you prepared for, only to have it cancelled on you at the last minute? That guy you were going to impress LIVE AND IN THE FLESH after totally – so totally – connecting with him online, only to have Dirk Deuchebag not show up on your first date? (Note to self: no more online dating experiences.) Remember that Golden Rule of Fight Club so often forgotten by the best of us in our quest to conquer life? It’s not the strongest, most talented people who thrive and succeed; it’s those of us who know how to adapt to our environment most effectively that matters most.

When you have a better chance of getting into Harvard than a top-tier literary magazine, hope is no small thing.

True dat. Pandora would wholeheartedly agree. Hope is a good thing, a well of vitality in the barren, desert-like wintertime of our lives. Cling to it like a baby does a mother’s bosom when you have to, and otherwise don’t worry about how others measure success. A  completed manuscript is still a completed manuscript, published or not. It’s an achievement. You rock, despite what the naysayers might think.

As for the title of this post, which I took from Ms. Merbaum’s piece, I’m not sure I would rank it quite the same way. Art can be your work, and you can most definitely love what you do. Ergo, you can love what you do for a living and celebrate the medium in which you do it.

Or, as is said in a very touching video called “The Meaning of Life,” love yourself first and foremost. The rest will fall into place soon enough. And that includes, but is not limited to, confidence.

If the answer is yes, then congratulations. You may just have a longer attention span than the average Canadian. Or a goldfish.

According to a recent study carried out by Microsoft, the average Canuck had an attention span of 12 seconds in 2000. Fifteen years later, that number has fallen to 8 seconds, a full second less than a goldfish.

I was actually thinking about this subject last night while talking to a friend who has consciously chosen not to buy a TV or even sign up for Netflix! The audacity! Or perhaps I should say the sagacity! His argument was that he found it hard to concentrate on something for two full hours that wasn’t capturing his attention. And this from a man who can sit down and read for hours on end, and whose “living room” is actually closer to a library than a room in which you hang out with friends and sip on deliciously delicious libations. I think my friend would make Alberto Manguel proud.

So, after a grueling day of work, that same friend inspired me to sit down  and open up a book, even though my eyelids felt like they were glued shut. It’s a work of non-fiction about math. It’s got formulas. It’s got big words I can’t pronounce. It’s written by a professor whose IQ is probably somewhere near the height of the CN Tower. The book is Jordan Ellenberg’s How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking. By all rights, I should have put the thing down after 7.9 seconds (being a good Canadian and all, eh?) and fallen asleep. But guess what? It’s riveting. It’s electric. It’s full of interesting anecdotes and theories and insights about things I had never considered. Ultimately, I had to drag myself away from the book and turn off the light.

Why, then, do so many of us (especially those wily North-of-49ers) have such a tough time concentrating for more than eight seconds, let alone minutes or hours on end to read a book?

As per Microsoft’s study:

“Canadians with more digital lifestyles (those who consume more media, are multi-screeners, social media enthusiasts, or earlier adopters of technology) struggle to focus in environments where prolonged attention is needed.”

It’s easy to point the finger at technology, social media, New Age brain farts, Microsoft et al, but the truth is that it comes down to us as individuals and where we put our priorities. The fact that our attention spans are falling is our own fault. No matter how many D’s you add to ADD (or whatever it’s called these days), the ability to concentrate on one task at hand for a little longer than eight seconds falls on us.

Read the full article on the Microsoft report here.

“The words are there…formed from thoughts, opinions, dreams, emotions.

The fear that what will be said is not interesting or intelligent or fascinating is usually the problem.”

I came across an article recently that addressed something I’ve long thought about: Does writer’s block really exist? Like really, really, really exist?

According to a piece in The Marketing Square, the answer is a resounding NO! In fact, the author went so far as to say that writer’s block is a misnomer.

I couldn’t agree more.

As per the article, if you feel you’re suffering from writer’s block:

“The best thing to do is to put the pen down, get away from the computer.

Take a break and come back.

If it’s a good piece it will come to you.”

Margaret Atwood once opined that if she waited to write the perfect sentence every time she put pen to paper, she would never write a thing.

I think the same can be said for how we express ourselves when speaking with others. If you keep waiting for the perfect thought or idea to come to you – and then by extension the best way to verbalize it – you will remain a very quiet person. Writing is no different. Sometimes you just have to get the words out. Truthfully, they’ll probably suck the big one at first, which is why we go through revisions, edits and then proofreads.

You either live to write and write to live or you don’t. And if  you don’t, that’s fine. Don’t push what’s not there. As they say, you can’t draw blood from a…er…computer? A pen? A piece of paper? Write what comes naturally and don’t force it. As I like to tell myself when I write: Be true, be you. Everything else will fall into place in time.

I’ll end this post by quoting someone who once said, “Writer’s block is not the problem. The problem is not writing.”

The New York Times just published an article on writing. Who the what the where?

I know. Shocking. And shocking results. Writing is good for you. Like eating avocados and pomegranates. Or spending time with friends and family. Where will this madness end!

Although the following quote does not read well (ironic considering it’s on writing), I think it captures the spirit of what writing in any form does to you: “When you get to that confrontation of truth with what matters to you, it creates the greatest opportunity for change.”

For centuries, the (very few) literate were encouraged to write. Part of this had to do with penmanship, and part of it had to do with – well – literacy. But it fueled some of the greatest thinkers of our world. Da Vinci scribbling notes about objects that were centuries beyond his time; Sylvia Plath wrote furtively to deal with mental health.; Dante wrote The Divine Comedy in the wake of losing his beloved Beatrice; Orwell wrote when up against the fight of his life, which he would lose, as he finished the final pages of 1984.

We don’t need to write for any other purpose than to communicate, sometimes with ourselves, and sometimes with others. We write because it is spiritual. It’s holistic. It’s healthy. It’s good. We write because it’s an avenue to express our thoughts.

And in the end, each and every one of us wants a means  to express ourselves.

Click here to read the full article.

Ah, yes. Murakami Haruki. The giant of Japanese literature after Nobel laureates Kenzaburo Oe and Yasunari Kawabata. He has inspired an entire generation of novelists, including the illustrious David Mitchell. I was introduced to his books through a friend in 1998 with Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World.  I never looked back.

Since then I’ve read almost everything of his translated into English. And while Murakami fans like myself will usually agree that The Wind-up Bird Chronicle is his opus, for me it was A Wild Sheep Chase that showed me how special he was as a writer.

The Rat. Beautiful ears. A star-shaped emblem on a sheep in nowhere Hokkaido.

It was innovative literature that took creativity to a new level.

So innovative, in fact, that when Murakami won the Yomiuri Prize (Japan’s Pulitzer/Booker/Giller Prize) for The Wind-up Bird Chroncicle, Kenzaburo Oe could barely conceal his vitriol. At the awards ceremony, Oe and Murakami actually met (Murakami in standard running shoes for a black tie affair), and as Murakami’s long-time translator Jay Rubin recounted in his excellent biography, Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words , it was an awkward moment to say the least. It was a changing of the guard in Japanese literature.

Well, now the usually media-shy Murakami has decided to write a column in which he will answer people’s questions in a range of languages, including English. I’m not sure how many fans he will be able to respond to as a superstar writer, but if you haven’t read any of his books, do so immediately. Here’s my top 5:

1. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

2. A Wild Sheep Chase

3. South of the Border, West of the Sun

4. Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World

5. Hear the Wind Sing (his first literary effort and pretty much only available on eBay through an auction)

Click here to learn more about links to Murakami’s new advice column.

I’m not going to lie to  you. I don’t usually get a lot of visitors to my site, mostly because people complain about the food. The drinks aren’t very good either.

I’m working on it, people! Just give me a little time!

In any event, it would appear my post on Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk on “Your elusive creative genius” sparked a lively online conversation these past few days. This was crystalized by an old friend who contacted me out of the blue and wrote:

Did Elizabeth Gilbert ever confess that her creativity went down when her books became bestsellers? You see my point, right? Do not get hypnotized by the suffering-creativity nonsense. Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.

Ms. Gilbert asked a hypothetical  question near the beginning of her talk on behalf of non-artists everywhere who wonder why so many famous artists kill themselves: Must artistry lead to anguish?

I think this missed the more important point, which is that great creativity is sparked by an individual’s ability to revisit, draw on, and harness an excruciating memory of when they suffered greatly. It’s not that creating art necessarily leads to suffering. Rather, it fuels the fire which unlocks the invisible catalyst of creative genius.

Revisiting the past is difficult even for the strongest of us. If we don’t carry out this act from time to time, however, we not only neglect the chance for spiritual growth, but miss out on the opportunity to produce something glorious from it.

So why this time have I chosen Géricault’s epic Raft of Medusa painting at the top of this post? I’ve been very fortunate to see the painting in person and it had a visceral effect on me. Why, indeed, would someone paint what appears to be hell on earth for nothing more than viewers’ aesthetic pleasure? Maybe Géricault tried to imagine the suffering of those wretched French sailors. Then again, maybe he connected with their suffering on such a profound level that the feeling inspired him to create what is now ironically seen as a seminal work of French  Romanticism.

For all of you word nerds out there, The Guardian published an interesting piece not long ago on English words invented by some pretty famous authors.

You can read the full article here.

In February 2009, Elizabeth Gilbert, famed author of the international bestseller Eat, Pray, Love, gave a TED talk entitled “Your elusive creative genius.” I remember watching it shortly after it came out and scratching my head; I simply couldn’t understand what she was getting at. Suffering was “odious” as a means by which to achieve artistic insight? She went on to quote Norman Mailer, a writer whom I greatly respect, and question his now-famous quote: “Every one of my books…killed me a little more.”

I’ve wanted to address this TED talk for a while, but only recently found the impetus to put (computer) pen to (computer) paper after watching her second TED talk, “Success, failure and the drive to keep creating.” Even those who are not writers or artists can surely think of countless times when tragedy served as the flavour of the day, hardship the currency by which they bartered with between and among loved ones. It’s precisely those times which define us as individuals, illuminate for everyone all around what we’re made of, and strengthen our ability to adapt to this gong show called life.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but there is no doubt in my mind that pain, suffering and the universal human condition have been pillars of creative genius for time immemorial. Rejection, loss, hurt, sickness — they’ve all contributed to people’s creativity over the ages. I think of writers like Fyodor Dostoyevsky scrambling to write The Gambler and pay off his debts before going bankrupt and forfeiting his entire literary earnings for nine years; of Murakami Haruki going into self-imposed exile to deal with his newfound fame (from Norwegian Wood) and writing The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, a book which he later claimed had taken every ounce of strength he had and very nearly broke him; of David Mitchell having his first novel rejected across the board by agents and bouncing back to write Ghostwritten; of Sylvia Plath writing one of the most seminal works of fiction on mental illness while suffering from a crippling case of the very same disease; and of a 25-year-old Norman Mailer returning to the U.S. after WW II, the horrors he witnessed in the Pacific Campaign still fresh in his mind, only to go on to publish The Naked and the Dead three years later.

As those writers I’ve just mentioned show, suffering (in any of its varied forms) can, but does not necessarily, open the door to achieve greatness in a creative manner. Ultimately, however, the burden falls on us as individuals to seize upon these painful moments of our lives and to draw something from them other than misery.

So why the picture of Raphael’s cherubs staring at the Sistine Madonna at the top of this post, you might ask? For me, something about the artwork captures the essence of eternal hope. It also makes me think of one of my favourite quotes from the Bible, John 1:5, and something I think about a lot when in the doldrums of my own suffering: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

So the New York Times has a contest running that ends at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Friday, Nov. 21. You can write up to  150 words in “pulp fiction style” for the opening of the 1951 magazine cover as seen above.

Here’s my entry for the contest.

Dirk Luger looked down Banner Street with slits for eyes as thin as a stiletto. He didn’t trust no one, specially the three punks hanging fast and loose on the corner of East 12^th. Ain’t no matter, he told himself, ’cause Dirk Luger had been in plenty of tight spots, and not just as the tough kid from Brooklyn. He’d been in the service. Pacific Campaign. Now, a bunch of saps was looking to shake him down for all he was worth after snatching Veronica Newlove from the office yesterday.

Suddenly, two hatchetmen sashayed down the steps of a flophouse, Veronica Newlove jammed between them, each tuckin’ iron between their trousers.

“Showtime,” Dirk Luger said in a low voice as he began marching forward, the punks set to meet their Maker, his new moll, Veronica Newlove, about to see what a real man was made of.

If you like my pulpy opening, feel free to recommend it or comment on it by clicking here.

Alternatively, you can click here to go to the NYT page where you can submit your own entry.

I was curious recently which literary quote gets the nod for most searched or cited online. While this is obviously a subject that not everybody will agree upon, it seems the last paragraph of James Joyce’s “The Dead” (the final short story in his 1914 collection Dubliners) is the winner:

“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, on the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

I used to write down my favourite quotes as I read a book, but then I got old and lazy. And a little fat. And somewhat out of shape. Now I just rely on this interweb thingy called the INTERNET! Personally, the above quote doesn’t do much for me. As those who know me well can attest to, my favourite literary quote – and the only one I ever memorized – is from Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. It comes near the end, as the EP carries Katharine Clifton out of the cave and into the desert. I’d be interested to hear what other people consider the best/most beautiful piece of prose in the English language, but for me Ondaatje took his writing to new heights with this single paragraph:

“And all the names of the tribes, the nomads of faith who walked in the monotone of the desert and saw brightness and faith and colour. The way a stone or found metal box or bone can become loved and turn eternal in a prayer. Such glory of this country she enters now and becomes part of. We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for this all to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography—to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps. I carried Katharine Clifton into the desert, where there is the communal book of moonlight. We were among the rumour of wells. In the palace of winds.”