Gustave Flaubert said “You must live like a bourgeois and save all your violence for your art.”
But what the hell did that jackass know? For years, I was deeply suspicious of Flaubert’s idea.
It wasn’t for the obvious reason, which is “What the hell is ‘a bourgeois,’ anyway?” (For my purposes here, I’m going to use it as shorthand for “middle class” and “upwardly mobile.”) Flaubert didn’t like ‘em, incidentally; he considered those interested in class-elevation to be acquisitive, shallow, and somehow icky. Implicit in his assertion that writers should live “like a bourgeois” is the assumption that a writer is by her or his very nature not “a bourgeois.”
But that’s not why I didn’t like the sentiment; I took it to mean some combination of “writers should be boring” and “writers should live in the suburbs.” I associated Flaubert’s sentiment with the “American Dream,” aka “A house in the suburbs.”
I was told — at some point in my early childhood — that “The American Dream” was “a house in the suburbs,” which is where I grew up. I had a fine bourgeois childhood. It was privileged and full of tragedy, like everyone’s (some far more than mine, on either or both counts) but for the most part my early life was full of love from a committed crew of adults and older relatives who had a passionate love of learning and reason and science and the arts, not to mention a conviction that we should all be nice to each other “and no one would have to get nailed to anything.”
I had and have no first-person argument with my upbringing — but in lifestyle terms, I didn’t want my adult life to be spent in the suburbs, because my love of learning had convinced me that shit was going down out there in the “real” world, and I wanted to be a part of it. (more…)
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I confess. I collect fortune cookie fortunes. The good ones, that is. One of my favorites is “Mistakes bring experience. Experiences bring wisdom.” to which I added, “Then make as many mistakes as you can.” Or as John Scalzi once told the ArmadilloCon Writer’s Workshop class, “Dare to suck.” Human beings learn best through trial and error, you see. And if there’s a time when trial and error is important, it’s during a creative endeavor. No creative does everything perfect the first time. In fact, nothing kills creativity faster than perfectionism. Creativity is dangerous, you see. Therefore, the best, most successful creative environments are child-proofed nests designed exclusively for risk-taking.* For writers, the creative environment is their own skull. Fill the brain case to the brim with negative criticism, and you might as well quit now and save yourself the abuse.
I think I heard people tell me I was “creative” long before they told me I was any good at writing. Mostly, though, I look back on it and it seems like I was some moronic nut job. I mean, I had a lot of pretend friends. I had long, luxurious dreams and daydreams. I’d sleep all the time just for the good dreams. I’d gaze out the car window on road trips and watch the movies in my head playing along beside us about folks fleeing some epic disaster while riding unicorns.
I haven’t yet met any writers who struggle with coming up with ideas for stories. Seems like more folks fall in the opposite camp: so many ideas, so hard to choose one to develop! But the initial spark of an idea isn’t the only role creativity plays in writing. Creativity allows a writer to see an unexpected solution to a thorny story problem; to find a new, deeper character arc when the original plan’s not working; to surprise and delight the reader by keeping the story fresh on the page. That’s when creativity gets a real workout – and since it’s not always a logical, conscious process, that’s when frustration and insecurity can set in.