Welcome to Alfred J

August 8, 2010

Battling Writer's Guilt

It’s five years since my last novel, Down a Narrow Alley.* I had begun to think that I had no more book-length stories left in me. To my surprise, I woke up one late July morning with what seems like a viable novel project, complete with interesting characters, at least a rudimentary plot line/narrative arc (always my nemesis).

Since I've been sitting on a half-written novel and a bunch of other “concepts,” I promised myself that I would not begin to write until I had a compass, in the form of a nearly complete outline (beginning, middle, and end).

Typically, the brainstorms that fly from my imagination have a short lifespan. This new one, whose working title is A Train to Bruges, feels different. It breathes pure oxygen and includes subplots/obstacles/solutions/twists that show promise of getting me beyond Chapter 5. The first 5,000 words flooded into an MS Word document. "Hey, world, A. J. Garrotto's got his groove back!" Then, I got sucker-punched. Never saw it coming. My attacker's name was Guilt (capitalized and italicized).

"Do you know how long it'll to take you to finish this thing?"

I recognized the strident, mocking voice. It has hounded me through every attempt to write a good novel, if not the Great American Novel. "Yeah," I said, already rocked back on my heels, "about a year."

"How can you justify a commitment like that when you already have a close-to-full-time job . . . and a family?" Not having a ready answer left me open to another jab. "And, even if you finish your sorry-ass novel, who's going to read it besides your relatives and most loyal friends? Oh, and by the way, have you checked the sales of your last three novels lately? Just how many millions down are they on Amazon's sales chart?"

I'm chagrined at how easily I succumb to this kind of writer-abuse, but there is a positive side. In the euphoria of inspiration and renewed dedication, I hadn't stopped to ask myself why I want to write this novel. This question is the step-child of the greater question, why do I write at all. Granting the validity of some of the negatives in my adversary’s mockery, are there any good reasons to write what might turn out to be another “dead-end” novel?

Yes! And let me point them out.

1. The search for meaning is the great work of my life. Writing a novel helps me to explore parts of my inner Self that I neglect in other aspects of my daily existence. Through my characters, I learn things about myself. Is it selfish to write for one's own benefit and growth? In a way, but I’d rather think of writing as a unique way for the divine to reach into my heart and put a few more pieces of the puzzle of my life in place.

2. I write to leave a personal legacy to my daughters and grandchildren. Maybe they’ll learn things about me that I have not disclosed in face to face revelation and understand how I got to be who I am.

3. Recently, while journaling, I had an insight about myself. I wrote, “I am a storyteller. That’s who I am.” Everything I do in life is related to story, whether it's journaling in private or writing fiction and nonfiction for publication. In my professional life as lay minister in my local parish, I listen to human stories and share my own jagged story--connecting all of it to the Great Story that God is telling in the history of planet Earth and the expanding universe.

4. Making up stories is fun!

Now that I’m warmed up, I could add to that list, but I don’t need to. I already have enough reasons to add chapters to this new work, mining its personal treasures and deferring judgments about its ultimate literary value and its future in the publishing universe. Let it end up two millionth on Amazon. The writing is the thing. And for this storyteller, that’s enough.

* Down a Narrow Alley is the sequel to Circles of Stone (2002, Hilliard and Harris Publishers)

I've always marveled that some children reared in wretchedly dysfunctional families grow up to be marvelous, well-adjusted human beings. Others born into loving homes and Western-style comfort and privilege choose an opposite path, living their lives in seemingly self-inflicted misery. Those who have scratched their way to maturity--even happiness--against the odds now have a new model and patron saint in Lisbeth Salander, the female protagonist of the late Stieg Larsson's internationally best-selling Swedish trilogy: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

Purists will argue that a literary (and now film) character cannot qualify as a saint.
There was a time when I, too, delimited my understanding of the spiritual world along
the boundary lines of fact and fiction. A crack appeared in my dualistic (either/or)
thought processes in 1969, when the Catholic Church admitted that only shaky
evidence existed to support the historicity of some saints who had long enjoyed their
special annual feast days. Among those demoted was everybody's favorite co-pilot,
St. Christopher.

Archbishop Jacopo de Voragine, author of The Golden Legend, a thirteenth century compilation of saints' lives, set off a seven-hundred-year run of popular devotion to the muscular Christ-bearer. Over the past three decades, the saint's medals and dashboard bobble heads have virtually disappeared. What became of those billions of prayers sent heavenward by travelers who relied on him for protection? Jesus assures us, as he did the people of his own day, that our God wastes nothing: "Your faith has saved you" (Luke 7:50).

Humans, whether religious or not, have always drawn inspiration from legends, as well as from certifiably historical people and events. So, why not adopt Larsson's protagonist, Lisbeth Salander, as a saint for our time, especially as a model for young adults? I won't give away the details of her life story here. There just might still be a few people on the planet who have not read the books (or not yet completed the trilogy). Personal discovery of her inner life, values, and unique, but finely tuned, morality is one of the trilogy's great rewards. But I give nothing away by saying that the Universe dealt Salander one of the worst hands of any child, fictional or real.

Canonizing Salander does challenge us to shift our understanding about what is moral and what is not. By rigid Judeo-Christian standards, the behaviors that enable her to survive as a functioning human being are immoral. But behavior alone is not the ultimate determiner of morality. For me, the most sensible and hallowed definition of morality is enshrined at the core of my own tradition. For Catholics, individual conscience is the final arbiter of morality, superseding everything else. The essence of morality is being human in the best sense, according to each person's unique capability at any given moment in life. Since we are made in God's image, whatever attitudes and behaviors help us to grow emotionally and spiritually--and thus become more like God--are moral. An intentional decision or action is immoral to the extent that it causes us to be less than the person God created us to be.

In The Girl Who Played With Fire, co-protagonist Mikael Blomkvist says of his friend Lisbeth, now a murder suspect, that she possesses a highly developed sense of morality. By this he means that her moral compass is a trustworthy guide and that she consistently operates from that core principle. In view of that, by what right does anyone judge her or condemn her choices? This is especially so, in light of the abuse she has suffered as a child and teen from the very adults responsible for guiding and protecting her (mother, father, legal and social welfare systems, and government at the highest levels). That she survives and arrives at womanhood as a still-moral human being is miracle enough to merit this fictional character the titles of role model and patron saint for the twenty-first-century.

August 8, 2010

Battling Writer's Guilt

June 19, 2010

The Saint With the Dragon Tattoo