Writing/Not Writing
I recently read Casey Cep's Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, the chronicle of an incredible murder case, the lawyer in the middle of it -- and of the To Kill A Mockingbird author, who did extensive research into the case for a book but never published one. In fact, as is well known, Lee never produced another novel after Mockingbird; the late-in-life release of Go Set a Watchman involved a book she wrote before her best-seller, and which after considerable reworking led to her classic work.
Furious Hours (which I recommend) ponders why Lee for the most part left the printed page after her one book, though without a clear solution. It's even possible that there is a manuscript or more stashed away in her sealed estate, where as Cep puts it her remaining work is "unpublished and unknown." Was it her drinking? Her inability to make her writing work the way she wanted, especially after the people who had helped with Mockingbird were gone? Did she choose "to write for her own satisfaction or for posterity, not her peers" as Cep wonders?
Was it simply a disinclination to subject herself to public scrutiny again, since she had been so unhappy about the unwanted attention her first book brought? Not for her was fame and ostentation: Cep says that in her later days Lee was playing penny slots, shopping at the local Piggly Wiggly, "and, never mind that she was a millionaire many times over, carried her own laundry to the Laundromat." People around her said she still wrote, and Cep speaks of her formidable correspondence, "letters ... even known to include appendixes, some of them in verse."
But no books.
And this had me wondering, too, why I've been so slow and unsteady when it comes to writing in this blog. It's been two months since I produced anything. (Today I have added posts from the NBC and Fox new-season announcements, and an odd little project I worked on last year.)
I used to feel itchy if I went more than a day or so without writing -- writing long, I mean. The last couple of months have found me on social media, posting links, pictures and the occasional terse comment. And I have gotten as far as making lists of topics to consider here: other books I've read, movies and shows I've watched, things to pop up in the news and in entertainment.
Doris Day, for instance. The singer-actress has died at the age of 97, and that had me remembering that, her frothy comedies aside, she was a pretty good actress and a singer more dramatic and subtle than her material at times allowed.She could also act, as should be evident in the selection of her movies on TCM on June 9. It also made me remember chatting with David Kaufman about his biography of Day back in 2009. (The Beacon Journal has reposted my story.) So there was plenty to talk about, but I didn't until now.
And why? Well, it's not enough to say I didn't feel like it. Or to fall back on the way my life has been busy this winter and spring with teaching and family commitments. I could say the lack of a deadline and a job to go to also affected my energy level, not to mention my ability to kick ideas around before putting them on a page. Or a screen. I could even blame my age -- shouldn't I be at the point where I slow down in some ways, that I am taking the idea of retirement seriously? Only there has still been plenty of time for reading and sitting around at night, so maybe it was just that ... I didn't feel like it.
Only I have. I wanted to tell you how brilliant I think Brockmire is, as well as Better Things, and the now-concluded You're the Worst, and how pleased I was at the way Avengers: Endgame wrapped up the saga. I could talk about The West Wing, which I have been re-watching, and about how so much of it was about failure, including in that dreary, problem-riddled fifth season (which we are now in the midst of). And about Deadwood, which is finally getting its longed-for last roundup on May 31, but one with shadows across it because of what's going on with David Milch. (See Matt Zoller Seitz's lovely story.) I have a couple of stories myself about Milch, whom I adored even when his work was less magnificent than his own troubled self.
I had some thoughts about why Shazam was so bad, about its inability to master tone, veering as it did from cheeky humor to horror without finding a way to make them fit together. I was impressed by the second volume of Gary Giddins's Bing Crosby biography, and right now am reading George Packer's biography of the diplomat Richard Holbrooke.
I had more to say, too, if only I could find those lists I kept making.
Maybe I will, Maybe I will figure out a way to get writing again because, just sitting at this keyboard right now, I remember both what hard work this is and how much I like it. So, want to talk?
Furious Hours (which I recommend) ponders why Lee for the most part left the printed page after her one book, though without a clear solution. It's even possible that there is a manuscript or more stashed away in her sealed estate, where as Cep puts it her remaining work is "unpublished and unknown." Was it her drinking? Her inability to make her writing work the way she wanted, especially after the people who had helped with Mockingbird were gone? Did she choose "to write for her own satisfaction or for posterity, not her peers" as Cep wonders?
Was it simply a disinclination to subject herself to public scrutiny again, since she had been so unhappy about the unwanted attention her first book brought? Not for her was fame and ostentation: Cep says that in her later days Lee was playing penny slots, shopping at the local Piggly Wiggly, "and, never mind that she was a millionaire many times over, carried her own laundry to the Laundromat." People around her said she still wrote, and Cep speaks of her formidable correspondence, "letters ... even known to include appendixes, some of them in verse."
But no books.
And this had me wondering, too, why I've been so slow and unsteady when it comes to writing in this blog. It's been two months since I produced anything. (Today I have added posts from the NBC and Fox new-season announcements, and an odd little project I worked on last year.)
I used to feel itchy if I went more than a day or so without writing -- writing long, I mean. The last couple of months have found me on social media, posting links, pictures and the occasional terse comment. And I have gotten as far as making lists of topics to consider here: other books I've read, movies and shows I've watched, things to pop up in the news and in entertainment.
Doris Day, for instance. The singer-actress has died at the age of 97, and that had me remembering that, her frothy comedies aside, she was a pretty good actress and a singer more dramatic and subtle than her material at times allowed.She could also act, as should be evident in the selection of her movies on TCM on June 9. It also made me remember chatting with David Kaufman about his biography of Day back in 2009. (The Beacon Journal has reposted my story.) So there was plenty to talk about, but I didn't until now.
And why? Well, it's not enough to say I didn't feel like it. Or to fall back on the way my life has been busy this winter and spring with teaching and family commitments. I could say the lack of a deadline and a job to go to also affected my energy level, not to mention my ability to kick ideas around before putting them on a page. Or a screen. I could even blame my age -- shouldn't I be at the point where I slow down in some ways, that I am taking the idea of retirement seriously? Only there has still been plenty of time for reading and sitting around at night, so maybe it was just that ... I didn't feel like it.
Only I have. I wanted to tell you how brilliant I think Brockmire is, as well as Better Things, and the now-concluded You're the Worst, and how pleased I was at the way Avengers: Endgame wrapped up the saga. I could talk about The West Wing, which I have been re-watching, and about how so much of it was about failure, including in that dreary, problem-riddled fifth season (which we are now in the midst of). And about Deadwood, which is finally getting its longed-for last roundup on May 31, but one with shadows across it because of what's going on with David Milch. (See Matt Zoller Seitz's lovely story.) I have a couple of stories myself about Milch, whom I adored even when his work was less magnificent than his own troubled self.
I had some thoughts about why Shazam was so bad, about its inability to master tone, veering as it did from cheeky humor to horror without finding a way to make them fit together. I was impressed by the second volume of Gary Giddins's Bing Crosby biography, and right now am reading George Packer's biography of the diplomat Richard Holbrooke.
I had more to say, too, if only I could find those lists I kept making.
Maybe I will, Maybe I will figure out a way to get writing again because, just sitting at this keyboard right now, I remember both what hard work this is and how much I like it. So, want to talk?
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