Of all the quests and callings one could pursue, why fiction? It’s the kind of question we could put to anyone. Why turn to sheep, shepherds? Why the law, lawyers? But to ask a storyteller to tell a story about telling stories — that gets tricky. The philosopher/literary critic Kenneth Burke has a phrase I quite like: the “Temporizing of Essence.” It’s defined as “the term whereby logical principles are…translated into a narrative of origins.” Chances are I’m misunderstanding the concept or misapplying it here (or both), but I think it means that the story you tell yourself about your beginnings as a writer — about how and why you write — has an impact on what you write.
With such a thought in mind and this month as Writer in Residence before me, I began to think about my own “narrative of origins” as a writer. I began to think about the kid I used to be in college: the one who spent weeks and months, and eventually years, teaching himself how to craft a sentence; who gave up a young marriage; who took a caretaker job in backcountry Oregon, alone for the better part of seven months, to have evermore time for putting words on paper.
When I think of that kid I used to be, it’s always with a mixture of envy and pity. He didn’t have what I have now — twenty years’ experience at the writing desk, twenty years of devouring books. He didn’t have literature as a map (albeit imperfectly drawn) of the world, or even as a guiding star. He had only the competing narratives of school, church, television and his life at home in small town Indiana, which wasn’t always easy. He had stories but not the words to tell them. Or know them. When I think of that kid, I marvel that he ever turned it around. I want to say that writing fiction rescued him by bringing him stories he’d have never known otherwise, by lifting him out of his loneliness, by teaching him to forgive himself for who he used to be and where he was from, and by challenging him to sculpt something beautiful from the cold granite of his hurt. I want to say those things, and I suppose to an extent I just have — but it doesn’t totally feel right. That kid I used to be wasn’t rescued or redeemed by some essayist’s epiphany. He needed stories. Still does. So maybe I’ll tell some this month. Temporize the essence that way.
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In the spirit of contemplating narratives of origin, I’ve asked several of my writer friends to weigh-in with stories of their own beginnings. As we progress through May, I look forward to sharing what they have written and sponsoring conversation around their words. And I want to extend that invitation to you, too. Does your reading or writing life have an origin story? What details do you remember? Were there books that sparked something? Mentors who shook you up? Do you feel as though your earliest inspirations have shaped the kind of work you continue to produce? Maybe we’ll learn something about each other this month. Maybe not. At least let’s tell some stories.