In Pursuit of the Unattainable: The Quest for Perfection

Having been deeply absorbed in the spurious pursuit of the unattainable these past few weeks, I have been reminded how entirely obnoxious people are when they focus on individual trees rather than the entire forest. Okay, you're thinking, where is this going? I understand. Where this is going, of course, given the tone, is in the general tilt of a rant. I get into ranting moods when I am confronted by situations that do not permit me to express a sense of humour about things I don't think are terribly important. When my sarcasm has to be contained, it leads to rants.

Correction, editing, and sentence-level grammar are of very little intrinsic interest to me. These tasks are considered, rightly, the final stage of the writing process. Think of it as the clean-up phase that comes long after inspiration, invention, creation, production, etc. In other words, only appropriate when the words you're mostly happy with have already been created. Too many writers, however, focus on this step in the writing process, which has the effect of truncating their thoughts. Now, thoughts, from my perspective, are precious commodities. They are the hardest part to come up with. Invention of a new thought is one of those things I take very seriously, and adamantly resist any force that comes close to interfering with it.

The clean-up phase requires a fair amount of attention to detail, but it also attracts obsessives and perfectionists. There is a mentality that focuses on error that is positively annoying, but it's also dangerous for some students, especially those who are marginalized. Mina Shaughnessy's Errors and Expectations deals with this subject. The politics of error correction has the effect of limiting what students are allowed to say, and how they are allowed to say it. There are not-so-subtle social expectations that there is one "right" way to say something, and when we force this on writers (and students, especially) we squash their creativity and tell them they are deficient the way they are. We tend to shut down their communicative abilities, as we attempt to reform them in "our" image.

Correcting error is a tricky path to walk. It is extremely difficult to correct someone without employing criticism, or implying the other is a flawed being. Very few people are so self-confident that they have learned how to ignore the psychological and emotional affect of having been corrected. Most people feel it very keenly, and if the act of criticism is handled badly by the person in power who is authorized to do the correcting, the person who is being corrected might shut down completely and stop writing entirely. There is no error that makes taking this risk with a student's creativity worthwhile.

How right does the error-corrector need to be? Writers need to know when they've made a mistake, yes. However, there are people who correct writing who carry this need to convey wrongness to extremes. Think about the effect your need to be right will have on your student, or on the basic writer—or even on the published writer who is, nonetheless, insecure. The quest for perfection, and forcing correctness on others (especially students who cannot defend themselves, due to the inherent power imbalance in the student-teacher relationship) is redolent of the Victorian era, when the English dominated the planet and were allowed to tell everyone, in judgemental tones, how to conduct their business. I keep wondering when students will rebel against this treatment.

The Political Nature of Grammar

Grammar is typically taught very much as a form of "inside the box" thinking. In other words, there are rules, they're packaged and sold as being fairly linear; follow them, and your writing will improve. However, the deeper truth about grammar is that it's actually extremely complicated, and accurate use (an arguably impossible task) depends very much on who you're reading and why they wrote their grammar guide. Scariest of all, there are actually multiple grammars.

Let me start with my strangest-sounding proposition first, the notion that there are, in reality, multiple grammars. This statement flies in the face of what we grow up being taught, that there is "one" grammar, one way of doing something, and one true way to write. In fact, grammar use is highly political, it's fluid, and it changes with the prevailing values of the dominant culture. You are forgetting, even as I write this, the grammar you learned to set in cement when you were a child.

The reason you're forgetting is because you do not use the grammar you learned as a child. You don't realise it most of the time, but it's true. A great deal of what you learned when you were young is probably still valid, but there are once-important bits and pieces that no longer matter, that no one cares about, and that few people, except perhaps die-hard grammarians and linguists, think are important. In other words, the grammar you were taught to cling to as a life raft on the sea of errant words has been over-written by more recent information, and that newer information was written when you weren't paying all that much attention.

So the concept of multiple grammars starts with the simple fact that there are acceptable ways of saying something and unacceptable ways of saying something. The second aspect to the concept of multiple grammars lies with the inherent politicization of the use of language when a grammar is applied to it; the grammar forms and restrictions determine 'correctness' at the cost of meaning, but if you're representing the dominant voice in society, do you honestly care if a group's meaning is erased by the power of your grammar? No, you do not. Your concern is to make the group learn 'the correct way' to say something.

Unfortunately for those you dominate with your grammar rules, they had their own forms, methods, and ways of saying something, now in the process of being erased by your need to 'correct' them. Grammars then become a method of controlling what people are allowed to say, how they are allowed to say it, and who, ultimately, will be heard. In this way, the deep structure of language is controlled by the very few in charge who are authorised by society to make the decision to approve or disapprove language use.

You begin to see the inherent risk of making it necessary to say something in any one way, when you start to realise how rigid, limiting, and controlling the concept of grammar can be. Grammar is never a value-neutral activity; it always carries with it the danger of oppressing the writer's unique voice, creativity, and style, and replacing it with what you approve of, what the dominant voice in society approves of—this is what makes grammars political. Yet, control constantly slips through the hands of those who seek to manage the unmanageable. The very fluidity of language makes it an impossible quest for lost verb forms to try to tell someone to use the language the way it was used in your Aunt Sally's era.

Further, the disparity between the grammar that is approved by those 'in charge,' and the grammar that is actually used, reveals the divergence between someone's reality and someone's ideal, and that territory belongs to philosophy. Grammar exists in that space very uneasily, and should come with a warning label: danger, you're entering heavily politicized ground! User beware! Just remember that correcting someone carries with it a tremendous responsibility. Who and what are you turning them into, precisely, when you correct their language use? You? Perhaps they'd like to be themselves instead.

Let our pen be at first slow, provided that it be accurate...

"We must write, therefore, as carefully and as much as we can, for as the ground, by being dug to a great depth, becomes more fitted for fructifying and nourishing seeds, so improvement of the mind, acquired from more than mere superficial cultivation, pours forth the fruits of study in richer abundance and retains them with greater fidelity. For without this precaution, the very faculty of speaking extempore will but furnish us with empty loquacity and words born on the lips. In writing are the roots, in writing are the foundations of eloquence. By writing, resources are stored up, as it were, in a sacred repository, from where they may be drawn forth for sudden emergencies or as circumstances require. Let us above all things get strength, which may suffice for the labor of our contests and may not be exhausted by use. Nature has herself appointed that nothing great is to be accomplished quickly and has ordained that difficulty should precede every work of excellence. She has even made it a law, with regard to gestation, that the larger animals are retained longer in the womb of the parent...."



—Quintilian, Book 10, Chapter 3, Institutio Oratorio. 

The Bravest Act a Writer Can Perform...

In Victoria Nelson's On Writer's Block, writers are encouraged to come face-to-face with their inner fears, resistance, and blocks about the act of writing. From personal experience, I know this is harder than it sounds. I am not sure that I agree with her fundamental premise, that a resistant writer's first task is to find self-love, although maybe she's right. I'm not sure resistant writers throughout history have necessarily found the "peace" of self-love before they forced out yet another manuscript. I think plenty of writing goes on whether the writer feels self-love or not. 


However, I do agree with her that resistance stems from some fairly deep places within the psyche. I'd say it's probably more accurate to start, not from a lack of self-love, but from the overwhelming and subsuming lack of confidence that probably cripples most resistant writers. I'd say, from personal experience, and from talking to most writers who have not yet determined that what they want to say is important enough, lack of self-confidence eats away at one's desire to be a writer. 


Nelson counters emotion with some simple, but entirely reasonable, logic. It is not logical, she says, to claim you have a novel in you that you hope to get published "some day," if you're not also willing to put in the time practicing to write that novel. She's not saying practice to get published. She's saying write as an activity, practice how to write—this reduces your stress, because instead of thinking of writing a novel and getting it published, you think in more reasonable terms. Her analogy is that a long distance runner doesn't just suddenly leap up one day, prone from years on the couch, expecting to run the Boston Marathon. It requires practice—daily practice, in fact—to hone your abilities to do any long-term task as large as writing a novel (or running a marathon).


However, the resistant writer baulks at the notion of 'practice.' What seems logical and simple on the surface gets tangled in the strands of cloying, destructive inner nay-saying. So Nelson's point is, you're sitting there, a writer-wannabe, in front of the piece of paper (nowadays more likely to be the computer screen) and your mind is filled with thoughts far too grand and complex to translate adequately to the page. And she isn't wrong. Every word I write is a negotiation with what it should have been, if only I'd been a "better" writer, one who has a better command of structure, intention, plot, character, etc. Even now, writing this blog, a low-risk endeavor, there are so many better ways I could have chosen to say what I'd like to say. There were better choices of topic, or more elegant methods of expression. Yet here I go, writing anyway, ignoring (as much as I can) the negative voices saying "this sounds stupid," or "do you really need this sentence? can't you find a better way to say this?"


Nelson's contention is that the bravest act a writer can perform is to simply put one word down, and then the next, and the next. One mundane, inelegant word after another. Each word will be inadequate, and won't say precisely what's in your mind. All the wonderful, Xanadu-like structures your imagination has created won't be expressed in precisely the way you think they should: "The bravest act a writer can perform is to take that tiny step forward, put down the wretched little word that pricks the balloon of inflated fantasies with its very mundanity, and then put down another word directly after it. This act marks the decision to be a writer" (11). Perhaps then the hardest part is not a lack of self-love, but the puncturing of one's inflated ego? But that question is for another blog entry.  

The Writer's Museum, Edinburgh, Scotland

There is a lovely little museum along the Royal Mile just below the Castle in Edinburgh containing exhibits, pictures, writings, and a little bit of multi-media presentation of the lives of Robert Burns (1759-1796), Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), and Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). Tucked in to Lady Stair's House, built in 1622 for an Edinburgh merchant, one has to search a bit to find this tiny resource. It is a bookstore, gift shop, and educational center, all at once.

The house's structure is charming, and exactly what writers love; it is 'romantic' in the sense that there is a narrow circular stone staircase connecting the three floors, which is low enough that you will have to watch your head as you go up and down. On the main floor, you walk through a number of rooms with the personal effects of Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott on display. The bottom floor contains photographs and writings of my personal favorite Scottish author, Robert Louis Stevenson, whose "Land of Counterpane" written when he was a sickly young man, forced to stay in bed due to his ongoing ill health, has always charmed me. Take a look at A Child's Garden of Verses. I spent many, many hours reading those poems.

When I was quite young, I read Scott's "Lorna Doone," a classic novel about daring and adventure in the moors of Scotland: Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor (Oxford World's Classics). I have long loved Robert Burns' poetry; he is renowned for writing the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne, amongst many others. See The Complete Poems and Songs of Robert Burns if you have any interest in his writings.

On display are many items, including the swordstick used by Robert Burns while working as an Excise Officer, and the writing desk from his house. Also on display are Scott's chess set, a rocking horse he played with as a boy, and his dining table from 39 Castle Street. The printing press upon which Scott's "Waverley" novels were printed is included, as is Robert Louis Stevenson's fishing rod, pipe, riding boots and hat he wore while living in Samoa.

Outside the museum is Maker's Court, celebrating the achievements of a few Scottish writers you might otherwise never have heard of through quotes from these writers.  Here is my favorite of the stones set into the pavement outside the museum:

Try to imagine a world in which writing is not difficult...

... and is not characterized by the metaphor of agonism. To say "writing is a struggle" or "writing is difficult" implies that writing is, of necessity, something we fight with. Writing is something we pursue, rather than something we allow to come to us. When we write, then, we are active; not writing feels wrong, and we judge ourselves as being "bad," or not being writers at all if we're not  applying pen to the proverbial paper. In other words, it's not okay, in a paradigm of action, to wait, to sit, to think, to let the thought percolate to the surface.

If instead we could revision writing as organic, where the impetus to write wells up from within, as a more gentle response to inspiration, I think a few things would change. For one thing, we would not experience writer's block as it is currently thought of. I have taught seminars where the question I asked students is, "how does this block serve you? what is the writing block trying to tell you?" because usually, there are very good reasons why you're not writing. Writer's block is not what we think it is a lot of the time; in fact, it's often our mind's way of protecting us against going into a subject we're not ready to handle. Writer's block might also be a response to pain, fear, boredom, loss of interest in the subject... any number of things stimulate writer's block. However, most people get frustrated, because they're not "supposed" to experience a block. It's not how writing is "supposed" to work.

Everyone who wants to write, also wants the writing to flow smoothly, but that is unrealistic. We often feel forced or compelled to write when we really don't feel like it--sometimes for a deadline, but too often because we believe that's what's expected of us as writers. It somehow feels like failure to sit, thinking, doodling, or daydreaming. We feel like we're getting nothing done. In a different paradigm, however, this would be allowed. It would be all part of the organic flow of writing, to stare off into space, if that was what would clear your mind to allow the next new thought to emerge.

There is research that indicates that allowing the brain to rest, instead of aggressively pursuing the next thought or the next sentence, increases access to creativity. However, the most important place to begin is not with neurological research, but with acceptance that when we approach writing, we have learned to think of our relationship to writing and creativity as something we should expect will not be easy. We believe it will be difficult, and unfortunately, our adherence to that belief system is part of why it is difficult--because we see words as something we must struggle with to "get right." If instead we saw the word coming to us, and allowed words to permeate our consciousness, we could let the words gather and build momentum, until we had enough to start writing.

It's a different way of thinking about writing, and it's certainly a less invasive or painful approach. I liken it to the Japanese water catchers you see in traditional gardens; rainwater is allowed to collect at one end of a bamboo pole, in a hole or cup carved for this purpose. When enough rainwater gathers, it tips the pole down, until the rainwater falls into a stone bowl. Only when the rainwater is heavy enough can the pole tip; so too should we wait for enough thoughts, words, and inspiration to collect before we write.

I prefer this metaphor. It's a much gentler way to treat yourself when you're writing. You'll notice that the rainwater never struggles to collect; it's a natural process. No one says to the bamboo "you haven't collected enough rainwater." No one accuses the rainwater of slacking off. No one says to the rain clouds "you're not working hard enough to fill up that fountain." This way of thinking about an organic process would sound absurd, because you accept that nature works in its own time. Then why can't we, when we write? Learning how to wait for the right time is the essence of this approach.

The Myth of the Lone Genius

Think about this as it relates to what you believe is true about writing:

If interpersonal skills and sensitivity to others is valued in some cultures, in America, the individual’s ability to overcome adversity on one’s own and emerge successful against competitors is considered a virtue. Combine this idealized image with the “modern view of creativity [which] has venerated the artist or genius as a cultural hero,” and it is understandable “why the popular image of the lone genius or solitary artist is romanticized” (1). The creative individual is worshiped when she has “forged something new and original by struggling against and rising above the limiting, stultifying forces of the conforming masses” (2). Most importantly, the achievement of this struggle represents a mythic role for the individual, a role that is ‘larger than life,’ which further separates the Self from the Other, especially when the Self is exalted and the Other is made up of ‘the conforming masses.’ Creativity becomes “hyper-individualistic” in this model, which, as researchers Montuori and Purser discuss, must be understood within a sociohistorical context of creativity studies that delineate the development, over time, of the exaltation of the supreme agency of the individual, and the rise of the notion of Authorship. The Author might be dead in theory, but in practice he is very much alive, as I will discuss.

Montuori and Purser trace the historical development of concepts of creativity and who is therefore sanctioned to be considered an Author. Central to constructions of creativity are definitions of self and world; the concept of an autonomous self, for example, does not become part of the definition of creativity until quite recently. Stating that “[c]reativity is, among other things, the function of a judgment made by people, and these judgments are influenced by trends, traditions, and the social, political, economic, and aesthetic perspectives of their time and place,” (3) the researchers contextualize individual creative expression in the West. During the ‘mimetic’ or theocentric phase when early medieval artists did not often sign their work, the self was subsumed and sacrificed to the “greater whole or God”; the mimetic period is associated today with collectivist societies “where art serves as propaganda and the state takes the role of deity” (4). In contrast, creativity as poiesis—to make anew—is a recent Western cultural invention. It is during this Modern period that the self emerges as an autonomous, creative individual. The notion of originality also emerges during this period, when “artistic creation is idealized as the paradigm for the achievement of self-discovery, self-expression, and self-definition” (5). A perceived need for originality and innovation requires the creative person to “disengage him- or herself from the environment. The resulting psychic isolation, along with what are perceived to be the “deviant” “schizoid” behaviors of the creative person, is romanticized or even seen as being synonymous with genius” (6).

In America, the ‘cult of the individual’ is threatened by collaboration, and is even more threatened, ironically, by the dissension found in the postmodern notion of the group ‘mind,’ whose agency seems amorphous and chaotic. Collaboration subsumes the supremacy of the individual, which threatens the individual’s idealized subject position of authority and autonomy. In America, a society in which the “self is socially constructed to believe it is not socially constructed,” (7) the individual is always at risk of being demythologized. Even when the romantic myth of the lone genius is resisted by those who believe that writing is an act of social construction, the society referred to has been enculturated to believe that ‘real’ writers do not rely on one another for inspiration, and that ‘real’ writing takes place in isolation. A correlative of this belief is that writers can be studied in a laboratory setting, a belief that further reifies the isolation from society the writer inherits. Further, to say a piece of writing is created as a process of dynamic verbal, intellectual and emotional exchange amongst one’s peers or classmates does not remove the writer from the influence of myth. The power of myth lies in human willingness to acknowledge its illogic and to believe it anyway, because the myth reinforces a value system so deeply embedded as to be unmoved by mere logic or persuasive research.

The myth of the isolated writer is seductive, even in the face of experience. Professor of English Linda Brodkey, for example, who acknowledges that her life as a writer functions because she is overtly connected to others, still finds it necessary to “exorcise the image of the writer-writes alone” which she identifies as a modernist construct “where the metaphor of solitude is reiterated as the themes of alienation in modern art and atomism in modern science” (8). The modernist ‘scene of writing’ is a narrative of inescapable isolation and alienation, “the “fact” of life that modern novels set out to articulate” (9). In this scene of writing, the writer functions solely as an amaneuensis: “in such a freeze frame, the writer is a writing machine, as effectively cut off from writing as from society” (10). Brodkey questions the “unexamined assumption that this and only this moment counts as writing” (11). And yet, the romantic contradiction at war with the logical outcome of extreme alienation, nihilism, reinscribes the individualism of the writer. At the same time that the writer is alone, he is fully an individual, observing, not participating. Romanticism will not permit the writer’s nihilism to erase the writer’s identity, which is fundamentally exploratory, revolutionary, masculine in expression, especially when it reifies the agonism of ancient Athens.

Quotes 1-7: Montuori, Alfonso, and Purser, Ronald E. “Deconstructing the Lone Genius Myth: Toward a Contextual View of Creativity,” Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 35:3, Summer 1995. 69-112.
Quotes 8-11: Brodkey, Linda. “Modernism and the Scene(s) of Writing,” College English, 49:4, 396-418.

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