Thomas Sullivan

Hello, pen. Hello, paper. Hello, computer screen. You are the three faces of my family. Me, myself and I. You have always been there, always will be. Thank you for that. Damn you for that. Because you are all there is.

Writing is a reflection of a solitary state. I don’t need a mirror of words to tell me that. Whatever the tangles of my soul, there is no untying them. The Gordian knot lies within. And never lies. At least there is that. Truth. At the end of the day that is faint consolation. At the end of a season it is hollow. But at the end of life? I expect it will be enough. It has to be.  

Everything I wrote above is true for me…was true for me at the time I wrote it. I thought that writing and being read was a way of escaping the solitude of one’s personality. And it is, as far as it goes. But you know, there are exquisite possibilities no matter how complex and inaccessible you may think you are. And for a writer that may mean that you can do more than just pen letters to the world to be read by strangers. It means you may interact one on one, if you run into the muse who can draw that out of you. Creating from the deepest part of you, as true artists do, is a little like sending a signal into deep space hoping it reaches intelligent life. Most artists who keep faith with themselves never expect to make full contact. The audience is a compromise of your fantasy, and you’re lucky to have any part of it in this competitive world. A muse is a preview of coming attractions and subject to the same limited possibilities as any group of respondents. Or unlimited possibilities, if you’re lucky enough to find that eclectic person who can span the same ranges you do. Then you may interact without compromise, and that is liberating to a writer’s soul, an analyst’s mind, and a poet’s heart. Call it what you will – simpatico, empathy, a meeting of ideals and tastes, sheer congruency of the rarest type – it compounds the possibilities for both inner space and outer reality.

I suspect I’m describing a lot of writers in a general way. Describing a lot of people, actually, writers or not. You don’t have to be the fly on the wall to discover that people need to express their inner cores. What are prayers, if not that? Or silent communes in the woods, or wishing on stars, or watching a fire burn down as if the sparks are the freed heat of one’s soul. People talk to dead loved ones, or to themselves, or if they feel self-conscious, then to pets furred, finned or feathered with whom they may keep up both ends of a running conversation. I spoke to my mother for a time after she died, just so you know where I’m coming from. And I catch myself now and then saying out loud, “…I miss you, man,” to Freddie Bean, a cowboy writer who rode over the horizon too soon. I wrote a while back about the beast of the Lawndale Hotel who I thought beat and berated his roommate, only to find out he didn’t have a roommate (http://storytellersunplugged.com/thomassullivan/2007/01/16/thomas-sullivan-empty-boxes-i-have-worn/). Expression. What doesn’t come out, dies and kills the host a little. Only, where do you let it out? People think I’m gregarious as hell, but what they see (and it will vary) are personae that hang in the closet with my other clothes when I return to my inner sanctum. I have always had solitary pursuits for my naked soul to come totally together. The T-sax, working out, transits under stars, wandering alone in the woods, driving at night. You do too. Think about it. Whoever you are – whoever you really are – like a vampire fleeing the light of exposure, you must return to your native soil every 24 hours. It’s a darkness that will allow you to restore and metamorphose and manage so that you can rise up fresh for the world and its relationships. If you’re a writer, the rising up fresh is essential, because the gateway to the world looks very much like the cover of your next book or the next page you write of a work-in-progress. So how much better if you have the possibility of restoring yourself in the presence of an actual human being: a muse?

But how do you relate to a muse? I thought I knew. I thought it was a variation on management, a control situation in which you know who you are revealing something to and therefore can gauge their reaction. You allow yourself to be managed in a “what if?” way, because for those moments of exchange you are letting them be your whole audience. It’s difficult to find muses who can give you candid reactions. They will likely feel under the gun to be more than themselves. It’s a Goldilocks need you have for something not too extreme, not too sparse, but just right with honesty, objectivity and spontaneity. Add inspirational. That’s the part I didn’t get.

I didn’t get it because it never really occurred to me that a muse could be a muse BEFORE you have written something. It’s difficult enough for most writers to show an unfinished ms, but to let someone see your thoughts being assembled with all the rough edges is a challenge. I am apt to create multiple and conflicting layers of the same scenes when I write and to gloss over weak elements I take on faith that I can make credible. No chance for perfection at that stage. Sort of like making sausage – you don’t want people to see what goes into it. That’s a lot of trust. But you know, it takes you a whole lot further down the road if you can actually express your inner thoughts to someone as opposed to have them whisper and die half-formed in your mind. The very act of articulating them in whole statements and then knowing they are shared makes them less likely to be lost or left in limbo.

Give me credit for recognizing it, at least, when it happened. It really wasn’t much different from the circumstances I wrote about in http://storytellersunplugged.com/thomassullivan/2006/09/16/thomas-sullivan-ky-jelly-the-headless-squirrel/, the first of my Cannibal Essays meant to help writers find the stories in their lives. I wrote then: “Helps if you have a mentor, companion, relationship with someone who is like that. Kills you if you have someone just the opposite who dulls you down, smothers you, and inhibits your potential…the worst thing is to miss a catalyst in your life.” I should have added “muse.” But I wasn’t thinking prescriptively about that term then. A muse was sort of post mortem to having writ. Now I’m suggesting that a muse is a dress rehearsal before you even write, someone who can actually trigger your voice and awaken you to your full range. Someone perhaps who sees you more clearly than you see yourself at times, and who – by their very presence – causes you to develop and express your thoughts. Here’s an example of the difference:

Take #1 [from my stream of consciousness]: There is a very large broken branch hung up in the towering basswood in my backyard. It has been lodged there for at least two years, and sooner or later it’s going to come down – maybe on me while I’m mowing the lawn. I should throw some stuff at the branch to try to knock it loose. I threw some stuff at it.

Take #2 [to my muse]: “…so I’ve always had this thing about this Greek general Perseus. He was sort of invincible. I mean the guy was a cat with a refillable prescription for nine lives. Nothing could take him out, until he was in some victory parade and an old lady accidentally tips this flowerpot out her window and clocks him dead as he’s marching past. So that’s how I figure I’m gonna go, you know? Something stupid. And here’s this branch hanging up there like a Sword of Damocles. So I’m on it two years ago in my head, like nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag. But I don’t really do anything about it except cut the grass funny underneath it, shouting “Timber!” as I gun the Toro push mower. The grass there looks like a bad haircut on the Jolly Green Giant. Winter arrives and storm after storm comes through. Nada for the seesawing branch. So now it’s mow time again, and the branch is looking lethal, so I borrow the neighbor kid’s basketball from her aunt. There’s a strip of trees and some underbrush between the basswood and the lake, so I figure the basketball will stay in-bounds, right? I heave the sucker 60 feet in the air, it bounces 30 feet and bumps through the underbrush like a pinball at the World Championships. Splash and bon voyage. Kid doesn’t even know her stupid neighbor has her basketball, and I’ve already pitched it in the lake. I spend the next half hour following it along the shoreline in my bare feet, scrambling over rocks wire-meshed into a levy trying to reach the basketball with a stick, but the wind is blowing in brisk circles like its got eyes and a sense of humor. I finally get a finger on the ball and bounce it water polo style to get my palm under it. So now I’m out of the NBA, and I get a sisal rope and thread it through three rusty sockets from a socket wrench. Slingblade Sully whirls and tosses. Up, up she goes, like the Hindu rope trick, only then the rope falls back slack and the last I see of the steel sockets they are disappearing over the neighbor’s lawn. This is the same neighbor whose kid’s basketball I just pitched in the lake. Can’t wait for him to mow the lawn. MAPLE GROVE MAN FOUND WITH SHRAPNEL WOUND IN CHEST. PRESUMED BOMB EXPLOSION COVERED BY SOUND OF LAWN MOWER. IDIOT NEXT DOOR SHRUGS, SAYS, “I DIDN’T HEAR NOTHIN’.” It will be the first homicide in this ‘burg in 22 years. Maybe they’ll think it’s terrorism, which it sorta is, since last time I flew on a plane I was on a terrorist watch list and now I’m bonded to every customs agent from here to Nassau. The next brainstorm for lobbing something at the branch is short and dumber even than the first two. I try an iron bar but lose sight of it as soon as it’s above my head. You don’t need the details, but hey, Perseus died, I live. But now I’m all for the proper branch snagging equipment, and I go to Walmart where I discover SpiderWire. This is fishing line. I get the 50-lb test spool and a little bag of “egg sinkers,” whatever those are. I stick a drill extender with a socket on one end through the spool, so that it will spin out freely. Back on the lake, one swing and all I know is the egg sinkers and the SpiderWire went UP. I do the womb position again, waiting for it to rain sinkers, but this time the sky does not fall. Two lead sinkers going on forever, passing space probes on the way to the edge of the Universe. Or, look on the bright side, maybe they took out the other neighbor’s hyper dog named Bear (no relation to Elizabeth). Looked all over. No line laying anywhere, no sinkers. Probably up in the tree right where I wanted it. Except now I see the end of the line is only three feet from the spool. The sucker broke. 50 lb test line! I can’t believe it. What the hell, we don’t need Star Wars Missile Defense, just put Sully out there with his egg sinkers and 50-lb test line. Back in the house for the remaining sinker. This time I tie a double bowline. In the yard, I start to swing the weighted SpiderWire and it sounds like an Australian bullroar – whooom! whooom! whooom. Cowardly people are grabbing up their children on the lake trail beyond the thin strip of trees. They act like I don’t know what I’m doing. I let go, and the bullroar rips through the air and catches the wrong branch. Also the wrong tree. I don’t know what I’m doing. I play tug o’ war with the tree for a while, then snag another branch. The squirrels are going nuts, and not for nuts. Apparently, they can’t see the SpiderWire either, and when I tug and the branches start swaying here, there and everywhere, they flip out, scurrying around trunks, dodging invisible pursuit. Man, you do not know where egg sinkers and SpiderWire are going to travel when you let go. On try number 27 I have so much line off the spool that it’s wrapped around both my legs, and the sinker shoots back like a yoyo, nearly taking off my kneecap. This is embarrassing. TERRORIST FOUND TIED UP AND STARVED TO DEATH IN BACK YARD. SUICIDE SUSPECTED (SNICKER). It’s getting dark and I can barely see the fishing line in the grass. I have my scuddy yard shoes on and the SpiderWire keeps catching on the Velcro tabs. I end up having to take the shoes off, but there is no circulation in my
left foot below where the line is still wound around my cuff. I see the solution, but I absolutely will not do it. No way. There is such a thing as dignity, you know. My foot is beginning to look a coal scuttle. I will do it. I take off my pants. Suddenly there are no more people on the trails, and I hear the disturbing laughter of children, which is almost the same as the laughter of disturbed children. In the failing light I see that the end of the metal drill extender isn’t a socket like I thought, but a drum rasp. This could explain how the 50-lb test line broke. But the 473^rd time is the charm and I catch the branch. Full moon, but what the hell, I’ll wait for daylight. I’m getting good at this. Tree 473, Sully 0.”

The second take, of course, is an approximation of how I told it to my friend, a muse for every season. So the truth finally dawned on me. The true definition of a muse is inspiration.

Thanks for reading. Your thoughts are welcome, your attention valued. My web site is below. If you’d like to see more of my writing, please check out the free sample chapter from my latest novel, THE WATER WOLF.

Thomas “Sully” Sullivan
www.thomassullivanauthor.com

Frank T. Wydra

While most who frequent the Gonquin table are of the literary ilk, today natty Noel Coward occupies the chair facing the gallery where his posturing can be best appreciated by hoi polloi. Characteristically, upon his entry–stage left–he asks Al, the Gonquin’s owner, for a chair cushion.

Papa stage whispers into Bram’s ear, “The old boy must have had a raucous night.”

Bram smirks, but we all know the pillow is to make the little man look taller.

Noel eyeing the exchange says, “My body has certainly wandered a good deal, but I have an uneasy suspicion that, as with so many here, my mind has not wandered enough.”

Just then, there is a delighted gasp from the gallery as a woman, strikingly outfitted in a blue, pinstripe pantsuit, waves to us.

Noel, similarly outfitted, greets her by saying, “Edna, how delightful to see you. And in that costume, you look almost like a man.”

Edna Ferber, who appears not to have noticed the actor-playwright before he spoke, replies with a playful malice in her voice, “Well by God, Noel, so do you.”

“Oh, delightful,” Noel says clapping his hands, “You did that so well, as if you had practiced. You know, wit ought to be a glorious treat like caviar; never spread it about like marmalade.”

“Well, thank you,” Edna says. “And your plays, are people still doing them?”

She has speared him, but he takes pains to hide it. “They go as well as your books.”

“Congratulations, then. My books are all still in print. But then, living the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles and causes you to bump into people not going your way.”

Mary, who has been lurking while the cats clawed, says, “What an interesting notion? It seems people are always talking about the latest book published. But I wonder whether once popular books are still read.”

Edgar says, “Mine are. They are taught in all the literature courses.”

Mary wrinkles her nose. “”No, that’s not what I meant. We around the table here have a body of work that seems destined to persist because of the academics. What I’m wondering is whether books of the popular culture are read voluntarily, out of the classroom–say, ten or thirty years, after they were popular–by the average reader? Books such as Costain’s SILVER CHALICE or Yerby’s FOXES OF HARROW? What becomes of such books? Do they disappear from the collective conscience? Is there a graveyard where they are buried?”

Papa says, “These young readers lust after new titles and have no appetite for books with age on them.”

Bram seems to agree. “It’s no wonder, the writing is not what is once was. The Times list is populated with poorly written tomes where plot trumps character.”

I furiously finger my BlackBerry, connecting to amazon.com.

Noel says, “People are wrong when they say writing is not what it used to be. It is what it used to be. That is what’s wrong with it.”

Bram raises a brow at what seems an affront, but before he can rebut, Edna says, “I think that in order to write really well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion. Dislike, displeasure, resentment, fault-finding, imagination, passionate remonstrance, a sense of injustice–they all make fine fuel. Infuse that into a book and it will be read for generations.”

Al is hovering and Noel signals him for a refill on the single malt, laughing, “I am not a heavy drinker. I can sometimes go for hours without touching a drop.”

I say, “Costain’s SILVER CHALICE is still in print, but Yerby’s work is only available from the used book stores.”

Noel lifts his chin to better look down his nose at my BlackBerry. “I’m over-educated in the things I shouldn’t have known at all, but what is that thing you are using?” I pass it to him.

Edgar says, “It’s the critics. Popular writing is driven by critics. They wax words and a writer slides onto some list.”

“Not so,” Noel says, looking up from the gadget, “Criticism and Bolshevism have one thing in common. They both seek to pull down that which they could never build. I have always been very fond of them. I think it is so frightfully clever of them to read book after book and in the end glean so little from the effort.” He hands the BlackBerry back to me, as if dismissing it along with the critics.

Papa says, “With all respect, Edna, it is not simply the writing. Many of the best selling authors are quite skilled, as are those who receive literary awards such as the Pulitzer. Yet I suspect their work is discarded with the rest.”

I start a search for the New York Times best seller archives.

Bram says, “There are, I think, exceptions. In my case, DRACULA was very popular, but several of my lesser known works such as LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM and LADY OF THE SHROUD still remain in print. Publishers would not waste the ink unless there was a market.”

Edgar says, “It is not a fair comparison. All of us are touted by the academics. They distort the market by forcing impressionable minds to read our works.”

Edna, laughing, says, “Perhaps too much of everything is as bad as too little. Writers should be read but not seen. Rarely are they a winsome sight. Take Noel, here, they wrote him off after the war, but he persevered and made a new life for himself on this side of the pond.”

Noel playing to the gallery rolls his eyes. “Well, in the first place, nobody of parti
cular importance wrote me off. And in the second place, I didn’t notice it.”

Mary says, “I suspect there is much truth in what Edna says. It’s not the critics or the academics who keep books alive. People like to read good writing, writing infused with emotion, and say what you will, good writing abounds. Books like Ken Robert’s LYDIA BAILEY, Mailer’s NAKED AND THE DEAD, Wouk’s MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR, Drury’s ADVISE AND CONSENT, all written a half century or more ago. All best sellers on the Times list. All books certainly not taught in the classroom, but each a compelling story written by a master storyteller. Certainly, Noel, these are works you remember.”

“But of course. I have a memory like an elephant. In fact, elephants often consult me.”

There is a chortle from the gallery. Noel bows.

Googling the titles, I say, “Sometimes technology is better than memory. All of the books Mary mentioned are still in print. And, so is HIS FAMILY, by Poole, the first fiction to receive a Pulitzer back in 1918.

“Well, then,” Edgar says. “Blood money.” Edgar has never liked it that literary prizes were not available in his time. “But, be that as it may, it seems to make Bram’s point. In today’s literary marketplace, who would publish were there no buyers? And why would reprints be bought if not to read?”

“Extraordinary how potent cheap writing is,” Noel quips.

All of the authors eye him, but it is Edna who says, “A closed mind is a dying mind. Need a lift to the cemetery?”

“As I see it,” Al says, “Achieve literary success and you—or your estate—will be guaranteed reprints, for publishers like sure things.”

“But” says Papa, “it is the mid-list writer who fades into oblivion. The Fitzgeralds, who without a stroke of fortune, write and achieve little fame in their lifetime.

“Often they are very good writers,” Bram agrees.

“Still,” Edna says, “Life can’t ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer’s lover until death–fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous constant. Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. But amusing? Never.”

Noel, as if making a speech to the gallery, says, “I’m an enormously talented man, and there’s no use pretending that I’m not. But there is also work. Work is much more fun than fun. Work hard, do the best you can, don’t ever lose faith in yourself and take no notice of what other people say about you. Do that and it will not matter if you are reprinted and read by later generations.”

Edgar’s eyes narrow. “Said by a man who will surely be forgotten.”

Mary says, “Except by mad dogs and Englishmen.”

Bram says, “Who go out in the noonday sun.”

Papa sips his daiquiri and smiles, as if dreaming of Sloppy Joe’s in Key West.

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Note: Most of Ferber’s and Coward’s observations are quotes from things she or he have said or written, and, as usual, seasoned to the taste of this writer.”

frank.writestuff@gmail.com

Friday, May 13, 2007

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