I have read and seen and heard a lot about John Updike this week and that is as it should be as he is one of the great American writers of our time and he died on Tuesday, January 27th at 76. Friday I watched Charlie Rose and his guests on the Charlie Rose Show talk about the profound talent and prolificness of Updike I started to feel like shit. I know it is silly but as I heard them describe Updike’s process of writing I was quite sure that I was doing it all wrong, writing that is.
What I learned about Updike this week was that he was a man of middles. He was the chronicler of the middle-class. He was from middle-America even though he was from the East. He was from the middle religion( Protestant), he wrote a great deal about middle age and I bet if I Googled I would find out he was the middle son. I have never heard so much about the middle before except when reading Aristotle’s ode to the middle road.
His reverence for the middle did not stop there. Updike in an interview with Charlie Rose said that a writer should know the beginning and the ending as they begin to write a story and that it is in the middle that the ambiguity, the unknown and the mystery occurs. When I heard the silver haired Updike speak with an authority that comes with having over 250 short-stories, essays and reviews in the New Yorker I heard something in me say, “You don’t do that. You are not a writer. You will never be a writer because you can never do that, your ambiguity is everywhere except in the moment.” As I watched the tribute to Updike I was half watching and half torturing with myself that I will never-ever-ever be Updike or Philip Roth or Marcel Proust or any of them all because I cannot chart a story like that( that and I don’t have that kind of talent).
An hour and two glasses of Merlot later I decided to fuck the middle. Aristotle has never been my kind of philosopher and I was not born in the Midwest. I am not a middle child. I am not a man. I am not a fiction writer. I don’t have to do it his way. When I write I never know where I am going. I may barely know where I am starting. I may just have a single phrase or a word or the tiniest thread of an an idea. I may not. Today and most days I have no idea. Yes, I knew I would write about writing but what I wrote was any one’s guess. I could have written about why it is taking me so long to get to writing about Carolyn See’s chapter on writing charming notes to writers, agents, or publishers. It was very possible I could have written about writing with music on versus off and how it changes the writing or doesn’t it or a 100 other things that I have been thinking about in regards to writing. Let me assure you that I had no intention whatsoever of bringing John Updike into this. Truth be told I have a bit of a negative projection that John Updike has long carried for me.
My father loved John Updike. I am pretty sure that John Updike was his favorite author. Whenever a new Updike book came out he didn’t wait for it to become available at the Library like he did with other books. He would go to Brenatano’s and come home with a hardback book that I thought was about rabbits. The only rabbit books I had ever read were the Velveteen Rabbit and Watership Down. I had preferred the first to the second and I just couldn’t imagine my father who enjoyed drinking, women and caustic humor as if a competitive sport would run to the store for a story of an over-loved and overlooked rabbit or a novel in a lupine language unlike anything Peter Cotton-Tail ever told.
I have a very clear memory of my father lying on his bed reading “Rabbit, Run” by John Updike. It is such a strong and clear image that it almost feels like a picture that I have somewhere in a box with old birthday cards or matted and framed and once hung in a hallway. My father was not reclined on his back in repose like he was when he usually read but rather he was flat on his stomach his arms propping up his head and his legs bent at the knees with the bottoms of his feet dangling in the air like a child’s legs do when on a swing. Reading in that way seemed to indicate an engrossment that made him forget himself or was it that it made him remember himself, I don’t know. I remember silently stopping at his door to marvel at this shift in posture unable to name what it was I was seeing or what it was that made me stop to take notice of it.
It turns out that Updike’s books were not about rabbits at all but rather about the life of Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom. Harry was a god in his youth and adored by all and then Harry grows up to find that his glory days were behind him Harry marries a woman and has a child and abandons them both and then he does it again. No, I am not just talking about Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom but about my father whose name was also Harry. In the Rabbit series my father saw himself and his themes of lost glory, sex, divorce and adultery and I feel sure that he liked what he saw or he wouldn’t have read on.
I have read a lot of Updike over the years and I have liked it well enough but I never read the Rabbit series. I have forever linked those books with my father and somehow feel that they belong to him and that if he liked them so much perhaps I wouldn’t or perhaps more truthfully I felt that if I read them I might have a better understanding of my father’s psychology and I don’t think I was ready for that. I still may not be.
Yikes, I have gone off track. I thought this story was about middles and how I am not a writer who knows where I am starting or ending. I was hoping that somehow I could tell you a story that would have the moral that maybe there is no right way to write. I was going to tell you about how I write my way into knowing and that I never know how it is going to end and that I like it that way. If I knew how it was going to end I would get bored and tired and want to do something else. I mean, why keep writing if I already know the answers.When I was writing my graduate thesis people often asked me what it was about. I always answered with a good amount of shame, “I don’t know, I haven’t gotten to the end yet.”
I wish I could write like Updike. Golly, I wish I could just write fiction period—but I can’t. And, if I had to know where I was going and where the story would end in order to be a writer I don’t think I would. For me writing is a process of discovery, like going on a driving trip. I never look to the odometer to see how many miles I have left to go until I get there because I don’t know where I am going. Unlike Updike, when I write I don’t really have a destination and because of that I can get off the road and stop and visit a dinosaur museum or make a u-turn to a memory of my father lying on the bed and reading a book that was a mirror of his life. I don’t know how this piece is going to end. I guess I’ll know it’s over when I get there.
There is no ‘one way’ to write Belette – you know this deep inside.
I have worked with published authors (and successful ones at that) who wrote in different styles – some wrote a 90 page plan for a 200 page book, others sat down, no idea where they were going, and would just write and write til the ending came, but was not forseen.
As my mother would say “there is more than one way to skin a cat”.
Yay! Writing in Valencia is back!
I like your 'FTM' … also a quote from ?? re "I don't know what I think until I see what I write."
Good on you for leaving Rabbit to your father (for now, anyway). I could relate to some of Updike's WASP stuff – FWIW the Economist had this obit which I think is pretty good – more importantly you are already a writer! You write! and you write like YOU, not those old guys. Take care xxoo
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13014056&CFID;=41215892&CFTOKEN;=72379513
Imogen: I know it but when you here these bold and certain pronouncements from the writers who inhabit Mt.Olympus it does throw ones confidence a bit.
The part two of your mother’s quote is my favorite part “but no matter how you do it the cat doesn’t like it.”;-)
That is a beautiful way to look at the writing process. When I write, sometimes I do know where I want to go, but I hardly ever end up there anyway.
Everyone’s way of writing is different and I know how hard it is to think that yours isn’t the ‘right’ way, or to acknowledge that you might actually be quite good at it. So let me assure you that you are good at it, in fact you’re bloody fantastic! xx
Carolyn: WIV did have over a two week break. I was really trying to make this a weekly piece and then life took over.
“FTM” quote is mine–but I loved how you turned it into an acronym. It is so true, I don’t know what I think until I see what I write. That it is exactly it.
Those old white guys hold a lot of power( Updike, Roth, etc.) so when they say these definitive things about writing it can feel a little like hearing Moses read the stone tablets.
Thanks for the link. I look forward to reading it.
pretty face: Thank you. There are times I think I know what I want to say and where I want to go but I feel like the best writing and the most fun happens when I am responsive to the flow and let myself go places that I didn’t plan on stopping. The journey really can be better than the destination and I do think that it changes the journey to have a definitive ending when you start.
Now, dear Pretty Face, you got me blushing. Thank you for that. Reading a kind compliment like that is a lovely way to start a week. Again, thank you.:-)
I was a little concerned until I got to the 4th paragraph. I saw that only chid perfectionism creeping in.
Fact is, you have a lot of readers that love the way you write. We don’t want you to be Updike. We want you to be La Belette Rouge. That’s why we read your blog.
What has darling Lily done cute this weekend?k
Julianne: I am not at all surprised that in response to a man who so reminds me of my father that my perfectionism was constellated. Actually, I would be more surprised if it wasn’t. Happily I quickly got to rebellion.
Lily went to a wine bar last night and she loved it. We sat on the patio and she was the center of attention. Patrons and employees all fawned over her. She was loving all the attention.
I think it’s a case of each to their own. Sometimes what works for you wouldn’t work for anyone else and visa versa, but hey – variety is the spice of life!
BCB: I think that is why it is best for writers to talk about their own experience and be careful about globalizing it. An attitude of this is my experience and what works for me and your mileage my vary is probably the best way to go.
Holy Moly. This is a lovely piece of writing. And “middler” or no, you must know there is meat in the middle of this essay.
I refer to this as an essay and not a post because that, my dear, is what you write. Like you, Michel Montaigne asked, “Que sais je?” in his writings. Montaigne’s writings (or “essaies” trials) in the mid 1500s were the beginnings of the form we know now as “essay.”
Montaigne acknowledged that it is in writing through the unknown that we begin to know. That is exactly what you do in your posts, and what you do so especially beautifully here, as you explain your act of writing as one of exploration.
There are many lovely layers in this essay, the most significant perhaps, is that you’re claiming your stand as different from Updike’s, legitimate and rich regardless. That last paragraph of yours just sings.
Your approach of “writing through” is in good company. Let go of any comparisons to Updike, and embrace instead Michel Montaigne, Joan Didion, Annie Dillard. They make good company for your writing style, and you for theirs.
pontificating away in the northeast, admiring you all the way,
Kirie
I don’t know Updike very well, Belette. I’m sure he was a great writer, as more influential and cultured peple than me say so, but I just recall being a bit bored by his writing. Shame on me, maybe, but I’m not bored by what you write and how you write it. That might not make you a great writer (not yet!!!) but it means that tastes are different, the world of literature does not have really fixed rules. Just have that book publish, lady, and it will up to us readers to decide! All the best a big kiss to Lily. Ciao. A.
Kirie: Holy moly indeed. Your very kind critique gave me chills. Thank you so much, Kirie.
The irony is that if I had stuck and clung to what I loosely thought might be my destination I would have cut my father and Rabbit and all of that out of it—but for me that is where the meat ended up being.
To be honest I prefer and relate to the tradition of Michel Montaigne to that of the great American novelists. The question of “Que sais je?” is what most interests me most.
Updike said of writing,”You’d rather do almost anything than tackle that empty page, because what you do on the page is you.” I feel the exact opposite. I find the writing most fun,easy and energizing when I feel like I am discovering more of who I am through writing.
I wonder if it is a more feminine way to write, to live the question and to show that not knowing on the page. I think that not knowing is maybe not a comfortable place for a lot of men. Thanks again, Kirie. I am going to reread Montaigne, it has been a lot of years since I have.
Antonella:Thank you. I do not want to bore and I am so pleased that I haven’t bored you. I do know what you mean. Sometimes I read works that are considered great and I find myself working so hard to stay interested.
Thanks, Antonella, and I will forward the Lily love on to her as soon as she gets out of my bed( at the moment her head is on my pillow and she is engulfed in down blankets).
There is room on the bookshelf for Updike and Proust! (which seems to be your style….)
Be who you are meant to be….nothing’s wrong with that!
I’m a ‘middle’ and it can be a very lonely place.
Have a wonderful day!
Thank God for Merlot. I know middle. I’ve been in the middle. Updike is no middle.
Susand:Really, I could have an entire bookcase dedicated to these amazing men who so profoundly make me wish I could be the kind of writer they are and I am not. But I do have my voice and it is the only one I have and if I am going to write it is going to be with the one I have.
The more I read about Updike I see the cultural importance of all he achieved. He really got below the surface of the middle class and showed how there was so much that was unlovely just beneath the surface.
I am an only and that can be lonely too. I guess, truth be told, life, no matter your birth order, is lonely.
Hope you have a lovely Monday too.
Tessa: Yes, thank God for Merlot. And, you are right, he was on top. But, he did know the middle enough that he could write about it from the top. I imagine that is why he kept his distance from NY and played golf with accountants and dentists and the like.
I don’t know about destinations either. If I go somewhere and get lost along the way for a while I figure there must have been a reason I wasn’t supposed to be at the other place at that moment. There are lessons to be learned from the roads we travel and I believe your instincts are yet more subtle than Updike’s.. and your Father’s.
Keep writing because we love your descriptions of what you meet along the way.
Eh, fiction is greatly overrated. Nonfiction or fiction strongly grounded in interesting nonfiction, now we’re talking… Do you want to write like Updike and Philip Roth? You are not them, why would you want to write like them (I enjoy Cheever but don’t want to write like or BE him either – good Lord no). I don’t want to write like any of them – I want to write Like Me But Better. And you are already a lovely writer.
I’m not sure about the middle thing. I should try it sometime, but I NEVER start writing with both beginning and ending known. Not the way my brain works either. We are all different and thank goodness for it.
Your blog has inspired me to buy See’s book after looking at it and putting it back for years. I’m also scared of writing charming notes (won’t that seem weird? what writer wants to get a note from suburban professional wanna be writer me? how stalkerish… – I know this is just the fear talking, I must do it).
Also totally overrated? Only child perfectionism. I’m nearing 40 and finally purging most of mine – we cannot advance in our own lives if still oriented towards making Mommie and Daddie happy. And they had no right to impose those expectations on us in the first place – a person should not exist to make another person feel good about him/herself.
Susan: You made me howl with laughter and that is always a good thing. Yes, for sure, my instincts are more subtle than my fathers. His and maybe Updike’s to a certain degree had pretty Id based insticnts. David Foster Wallace wrote a wonderful essay called Updike a Phallocrat,
http://tinyurl.com/3guqtw
I do suppose that good books are really about the journey and I think for me that the journey is a different one if I am sure of the outcome.
OOOHHH….Marla…Are we related?LOL
Sorry, I just had to ask….
Marla: To be really honest( don’t tell anyone, I prefer reading creative non-fiction to fiction).That said,I so envy and admire those who can create a world out of their world. But I have come to accept that I am a creative nonfiction writer. I don’t want to write like Updike or Roth. But, I would like to be read like they are.;-)
I know I have said it before and I will say it again, Carolyn’s book is the best and most life changing book on writing I have ever read. I am so glad you are going to give it a second look.
I don’t want to write out my post on charming notes here in the comments but I will tell you I am with you. The charming notes scare the poop out of me.
I have been fighting only child perfectionism for YEARS!! I am finally getting the absurdity of it all now( thank you Igor). I do think that the perfectionism has given me some valuable skills but enough is enough.
If a writer has stories to tell, she writes fiction. If she has ideas to express, she writes essays. If she has experiences, a memoir. Sometimes the forms cross and inform one another.
And at the base of each is the power to create. Just write your material in whatever manner you wish, honour your talent, and see how it goes.
I must confess – I recognized the name John Updike but had no clue he was a writer until he died. Never heard of Rabbit. Recognized a couple of other titles of his but that is about it.
As for his process of writing – everyone is different. It is like taking notes in school. There are many ways to do it, but if it works for the student then it is the “right” way for him or her.
You are a writer. You write with your own voice, in your own style, in your own way.
And by the way, your voice is fantastic.
I must admit I haven’t read many of John Updike’s books. But I now feel I must.
I love the way you write. Its not fake or ostentatious but a friendly and truthful place to spend some time. I love going on your writing journeys with you.
x
So Lovely: I own not one Updike book. I have read him mostly in the New Yorker. I am thinking about getting Rabbit, Run at the library.
Thank you so much, Lovely, your kind reading and generous compliments mean a lot to me. I love to share the journey with you.
Kristen: It is sort of interesting that he is considered one of the top American writers and he is taught so seldomly in schools/universities. Did you see the Witches of Eastwick? He wrote that.
I know there isn’t a right way. But, when you here from an authority that there is sometimes you forget what you know.
Thanks, Kristen. Thanks a lot.:-)
Updike probably felt very small when he compared himself to Hemingway or Steinbeck.
And some of us might be very small compared to you
I write fiction. I start with characters in unusual situations and then follow them in the hope that they arrive somewhere interesting. Pretty much the worst approach I’m told but the only approach that feels organic to me.
Corine:You are good. You sent me to an image of all these writers taking out their “pen” and seeing who measures up. I can hear Updike saying to Roth, “no, you can’t add the circumsized foreskin to the measurement.”
If that is the way that works for you that is the best way!!
La Belette Rouge cannot write like John Updike because she is not John Updike. And Miss J for one is very happy for that fact. LBR has her own vision and voice and the world is a better palce for it.
Miss Janey:Thank you very much, Miss Janey. Truth be told I am glad I am not him as that would mean I would be dead and I am not ready for that.:-) But, yeah, I am happy enough being me and for the voice I have.
I love your voice too. I know you know that but I had to remind you.
Writing in Valencia is my favorite series of yours. Save these, and prepare to compile them in the future (hello, inspring book about a writing life!).
As many have said, there are so many writing processes that work (and just as many that don’t). If something doesn’t work for you, there’s certainly no shame in that.
When I was first assigned a research essay in 4th grade (I think it was), we had to write our research on classified notecards, and create an outline from the notecards. The essay (on mallard ducks) wasn’t hard for me, but the notecards were impossible. I hastily scribbled the facts I remembered after writing my paltry duck paragraphs. This is a practice I continued whenever I had to turn in my research–it felt invasive, and I couldn’t predict the end results of my research so neatly.
Anyway, all this is to say (and prove, I guess) that I very rarely know my endings. That’s not such a terrible thing…to switch directions suddenly, or find that our words and stories are suddenly possessed by their own life.
Thanks so much for this. My word verification is Prodysa, the Greek goddess of Prodigy and forward motion.
Cat’s are very rarely happy to be skinned I’m sure.
Oh, and I much prefer your writing to Roth or Updike, Amis and Patrick White (who I find a cure for insomnia). Maybe I’m the wrong generation, I find them rather misogynistic. I have to admit to having been left cold much of the time.
According to my WV – some of it is pyoutrid!
Middle class white males – who made them god?
The Storialist:Thank you!!I am so happy that you are enjoying this.I would obviously love this series to be a book.
I wonder if you can tell in a book if they knew the ending when they started or not.Hmmm…
You even make word vertfications poetic!!!
Imogen: No, I think cats as a rule like their fur.;-)
Hear that potential agents? Imogen who worked for a prestigious publishing house prefers my writing to Updike, Roth, Amis and White. You made my day!!!
I think it was white middle class men who made themselves gods.
Every which way – it takes everyone and every style and every where.
Just think global, thinke Barthes and beyond the norm the ‘normal’ the so called prize winners, those rewarded.
You are you and what you do is what you do. I have about 5 fictions books in my head and I have no time to write them!
You are going damn fine xx
This is a lovely tribute and remembrance, darling! Must read some Updike asap. Rabbit (one day late)!
xoxox,
CC
I remember thinking the same when I saw the rabbit books in the shelves as a kid. but yes, leave Rabbit for your dad, that’s very good advice.
You know darn well it’s best to just write like yourself
Never cared for Updike, personally.
la belette,
you write like a living woman, someone I would love to get to know who might live down the street or across town…your writings are as individual as you are, my dear, and don’t forget that as it’s what makes a difference…you don’t want to sound or read like anyone else! at least, *I* don’t want you to! so just stop that talk right now!!!
Make Do Style: I think because I link Updike and my father that those feelings of never being enough and that I am not doing it right were constellated.
Thanks for the encouragement.
Couture Carrie: I’ll be curious to hear what you think of his writing.
fashion herald: I wonder how many people judged the book by the cover and thought it was about a rabbit.
WendyB:I know but he is in the New Yorker and I am not.
Linda: Thank you, Linda. Yes, I will quit talking like this and go back to talking like me.;-)
First, although I’m a huge Updike admirer, I can understand the negative associations with your father. For me, his books are about a world that has absolutely nothing to do with my parents or the way I grew up.
But I think Updike’s most amazing characteristic is one that all writers can take inspiration from, and that was that he showed up. He sat down every single day and wrote, for several hours, whether he felt like it or not. I used to babysit for the children of Updike’s college roommate, and he said even on vacation Updike got in at least 4 hours of writing every morning. I think that’s the only way to do it.
Wow. Reading this just sent a chill down my back. I’m going to have to process this and come back. I have the beginning. I have the end.
It wouldn’t surprise you one bit to know that I’m a smack dab in the middle child from the midwest, would it?
Iheartfashion: The one thing I love about Updike is that he wrote you back. Every time I hear his name I will think of the generosity of that act.
Showing up is everything, or at least 90%. I don’t write on vacations or weekends. Other than that I do write everyday. Updike was enormously prolific. He left an enormous body of work.
Lisa: Thank you so much for sharing your gut reactions. The middle can be a hard place. No certainty. Only ambiguity. But, I have come to enjoy what ambiguity can bring if you can tolerate it.
Nope, it doesn’t surprise me.:-)
I’ve never been able to get into Updike and I don’t have any childhood negative associations. Just not my cup o’ tea. You, however…. just do your thing, girl. Be the best you you can be.
Irene: I have yet to meet a woman who loves Updike. I do think there is a misogyny that is off putting to many women.
Thanks for the advice.It is the best advice one can get or give; authenticity is almost always the right answer.
Art is like baby shoes. When you coat them with gold, they can no longer be worn. – John Updike
genius post! -paul
Paul: Great quote. And, thanks, so glad you enjoyed it.
Nice thoughts La Bel, and a good start that had me laughing with this:
“An hour and two glasses of Merlot later I decided to fuck the middle.”
P.S. I hope it was an Aussie merlot.
hey girl, relax and be you, lovely you!
…a nice glass of merlot always helps:)
“The heart prefers to move against the grain of circumstance; perversity is the soul’s very life.” (from Assorted Prose, 1965)
I have given you a little award my dear, nothing too fancy but I enjoy the read so i wanted you to know.
x
I never know where I am going to end up when I start writing – so I understand completely where you are coming from. I always think it is what I haven’t planned to say and end up saying that is the best. I am sure for fiction writers this may be a dangerous plan but for those of us who write from life experience and straight from the heart it is the way it works. I believe it is the random thoughts that combine to paint the picture and if you are too rigid in approach all emotion and creativity gets sapped in the quest for perfection. And about Updike – well, Updike is Updike and you are you. Oh I go on….sorry. BTW Love your writing series, xv
Um, don’t feel so bad about Proust. I don’t think he charted a damn thing and a modern editor would have slashed the hell out of quite possibly the Greatest Novel Ever, thereby making it less Great.
I’ve got the beginning and the ending. Wanna write the middle? I’ve got twenty bucks.
Braja:It is amazing the wisdom you can find at the bottom of a glass at Merlot.;-)
Carolyn: We do a lot of Aussie Shirazs but I have never had your Merlot. Hmmm…must do something about that.
L’air du temps: Good advice!
La Donna Welter: Lovely, thank you.
Panda Mime: I am honoured, thank you!!
Vicki Archer: Yes, you and I are clearly on the same page.I totally agree that is the unexpected that is often the best.
It is so interesting that many of us who write from our life experience feel uncertain about the endings but those who write fiction are more sure. It seems like it would be just the opposite, doesn’t it?
Thank you, Vicki. I am so glad you enjoy reading it. I really enjoy writing it. xo
Randal: I cannot imagine how he managed not to get lost in all that detail and still found his way to the end. Did you ever see Wonderboys? I love how the Michael Douglas character has a book that is something like three thousand pages long because he cannot figure out how to end it.
For $20 I will write the shortest middle in the history of modern fiction.;-) It would be something like,”And then all of these things happened that brought us to this moment.” I take cash, checks and all major credit cards.
What a wonderful revelation. I don’t think there can be one way to write because there is not one way to read or one way to do anything. Everyone is different and your writing is such a joy to read I can only imagine how exciting it is as the writer to write it.
I have read this post several times over several days, mostly because I get jerked away and haven’t time to mull over your words and let their tides wash over me. There is no one way to write. You are a fabulous writer and I love the way your writing seems to seek meaning and yields something that is not necessarily evident from the beginning. That is a joy.
Updike was a different kind of writer, I never “got” much of his work, but could sometimes appreciate the writing. Certain bits were more approachable by me. Thank goodness we do not all have to accept that one thing must speak to all of us.
Of all the “Writing in….” pieces you’ve done this one probably resonated the most with me. I too watched Charlie Rose and felt the same thing — “oh no, I don’t right like THAT, could I be doing it wrong?” Or if not wrong, then perhaps just badly (which is what ‘wrong’ is, right?)
Anyway, I especially loved this part: “If I knew how it was going to end I would get bored and tired and want to do something else.”
Soooo true, good gosh yet another nail hit smack on the head and hard! That’s exactly how I feel when I write, especially fiction but sometimes nonfiction too.
Anyway, I’ve finished your series and loved it more than I can say. You are an amazing writer and I admire you to no end. It felt like you were writing this all just for me, and I selfishly thank you from the bottom of my heart
Paula: I do sometimes forget the truth of what you said when I hear an expert say there is just one way. Everyone is different and your
Thank you so much. But, Paula, I think there is a travel writer in you just waiting to come out. No?:-)
Mardel: I cannot tell you how much it means to me that you give so much time and thought to this post.Thank you so much for your kind compliments. I definitely do seek meaning and I am not sure what I will find when I start or even if I will find one.
I do appreciate the craft of Updike’s construction of a sentence. I will never write like him and thank goodness I will never think like him.
Kayleigh:Thank you. It is quite something that we both watched the same show and had the same reaction.
I feel like if I am not having fun writing or if I am not discovering something that is unlikely the reader will either. I don’t want to be bored or to bore when writing.
Thank you so much for joining me on this writing series. I assure you that I am not even close to being done with this series. There will be many more WIVs. One WIV piece I am going to have to write is how to deal with incredible compliments like yours. I think I just recently figured out why that is. If you complimented a cake I made I could easily accept the praise as the cake is not me it is just something I did. But my writing is me and so if you say it is good or that you liked it I respond as if you are saying I am good and that is harder to accept. Does that make any sense? Anyways, what I am trying to say is thank you and that your compliments means a lot to me.
You were right, I am writing this whole series just for you.;-)