Just got back from visiting a memoir-writing class -- I was invited by a professor on the assumption that I'd know something about creative nonfiction. A strange situation: because he teaches a continuing education course, I was the youngest person in the room by about two decades, and I talked to these people about memory and truth. I felt incredibly naive and potentially fraudulent, but they all seemed to take my personal essay well.
I am constantly being reminded of the humility of writers. The students in this class were middle-aged, with real stories and experiences to tell. Some of them had previously been journalists. They talked about families and townhouses and hospital visits. In a sense, they were much more real to me than Jonathan Safran Foer, who seemed to be playing at a life instead of living one. (Must think more about why this is my impression.)
One thing Foer and every writer I meet keep telling me: Writing is not glamorous. It's a keyboard and you and hours and hours (days and days and months and years) of painstaking effort. It's work. You can't be a coward for this, nor can you expect to be validated by anyone else. I should probably inspect my own level of commitment and fortitude before I so casually tell myself that I will write.
I agree with this so much. I'm really n00b, only 3 weeks into my first creative writing class, learning what you're relearning and what I guess I'm relearning too since Helwig said this repeatedly a zillion years ago: crafted writing is so so different between the product of mere talent and inspiration. And the humility of all the writers we read as they write about writing is astounding; they're so human in it all. Ah, I don't know what else, just a big pile of resonance.
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