In my youth, I enjoyed sports and girls. I did not read, and
I did not anticipate a life of careful thought. In an effort to lure me toward
wisdom, in the second year of my high school education, my English teacher gave
me a copy of Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!
Perhaps he thought I might be attracted to the excitement suggested by the myth
of pioneering. I did open the book from time to time; a page here or there; I
even tried starting in the middle; but it remained unread. Nevertheless, the
attribute of finishing what one starts tugged at me, and about two weeks before
the end of the school year, guilt drove me to spend a number of skipped classes
sitting in the boy’s locker room reading O
Pioneers! and, on the final day of classes, I finished it.
Beginning my junior year, I became a reader. That change in
behavior enlivened the love of adventure which I discovered whenever a good
story quickened my imagination. As a final assignment in English that year, we
wrote a short story. I enjoyed that project, and at its conclusion, I thought I
might one day become a writer.
That process took many years. In the meantime, I went to war
in Vietnam, got married, fathered four children, and became a carpenter. I
learned some lessons as a carpenter, and I made several decisions as an
apprentice which later influenced my efforts at literature. First, I decided
that when I retired I would have all my fingers, for I met many journeymen with
shortened or missing digits. Thus, I accepted the responsibility of attending to
meaningful rules, in this case of safety, later, obviously, to rules of
rhetoric and story-form. I also developed an awareness of the importance of
preparation. One must prepare to be safe, checking tools, equipment, and so on,
just as one must prepare for any successful achievement. Additionally, my
father’s admonition, that if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well, began
to express itself in an understanding that learning occurs with a commitment to
willful intent and focused action.
One year after the birth of our fourth child, my wife
developed adult-onset schizophrenia, a protracted, debilitating illness. Because
of my wife’s disease and the consequent hospitalizations, I became a single
father. The depression and isolation that I felt drove me to moments of quiet
desperation, for I mistakenly believed I could save her and in doing so, I
would bring her back to us, bring her home. The loss of a loved one as a
consequence of emotional or psychological distance differs from the more
existential loss as a result of the body’s demise. With the loved one alive but
without emotional connection, the rules for meaningful closure become complex
and often feel illogical.
Eventually, I had to acknowledge that the illness was
stronger than both of us, and my children needed my attention. I accepted a job
superintending a project in Monterey, California, and this decision fostered
the infancy of my serious writing. I began to keep a journal of daily events,
of thoughts about life; I suspect many of you know this phase, attempting to
find words for life-lessons. However, sprinkled within the pages, I placed a
number of entries that expressed a growing desire that I wanted to begin
writing stories; I had, by this time, accumulated some stories to tell.
During this period, a serendipitous event played out. I was
sitting in a bar in San Francisco after a meeting, and a stranger and I began
to talk. While discussing motivation, he said he had a tape of Mr. Ray Bradbury
giving a motivational speech. He said he would mail a copy to me. When I
listened to the speech, I felt drawn to Mr. Bradbury’s contagious energy, and I
read his books. I took a chance and wrote him a letter. I explained a little
about my circumstances, including my journal, and I asked if he had any advice
for someone who might be thinking about becoming a writer. He did.
I received a personal letter, typed on his manual
typewriter. He noted that he received hundreds of letters a month and it was
impossible to answer each one, but he took the time to answer mine. In the
letter, he gave me two pieces of advice. First, buy a copy of an out of print
book entitled Becoming A Writer by
Dorthea Brande. I bought the book. The book is back in print. I recommend it.
Second, he suggested I take some college-level writing classes. Some years
later, I entered a junior college as a freshman to begin my formal education,
including an elective creative writing class. I enjoyed school, and over the
next decade or so, I earned an AS, a BA, an MA, and a PhD.
I accomplished all this before Mr. Bradbury died, and when I
earned the PhD, he sent me a congratulatory card. I could not add anything of
value to Mr. Bradbury’s extraordinary life. He did not owe me anything; he did
not know me. Yet, he took time and energy to share encouragement to a stranger.
This human trait, sharing one’s self with no expectation of anything in return,
exemplifies the potential of healing and kindness in each of us. It suggests,
for me, a principle of art: that artistic creation should reveal and embolden
that which is noble and altruistic in human nature.
The spiritual healing which is the true baptism that makes
us fully human occurs only after enduring the difficulties of vicissitude that
St. John of the Cross calls the “dark night of the soul” and that Joseph
Campbell calls the “belly of the whale.” Carl Jung considered this a lifelong, on-going
process; he termed it “individuation.” Whatever its name, its universality unites
us to one another as human family. The outcome of this passage emerges as an
intense striving to discover truth and to know love – truth, as in the wisdom
that derives from a life which combines the fullness of the body, the mind, and
the spirit; and love in the passionate, emotional, physical sense, as well as
love in a philosophical-spiritual connection to the Divine. As such, I choose
both to honor and to explore truth and love through the creative expression of
story-telling, for story remains the most fundamental trigger of human solace
and bonding.
I have found delight and guidance in such works as The Golden Bough by Sir James Frazer and
in The Hero With A Thousand Faces by
Joseph Campbell. These two volumes suggest in formidable detail the abiding
attitudes of spirit, family, and community that exist across time, geography,
race, and language. They highlight the similarities among us, not the
differences. They do not ignore nor minimize differences; they explain them,
recognizing such variants as size of community, adaptation to nature, trust of
science, linguistic complexity, and so on. Nevertheless, the startling reality
of human history reveals that we are all connected in our intellectual search
for meaning, or truth, and we are all connected in our psychological make-up, especially
in our desires to give love and to receive love. Carl Jung’s theories, specifically
his identification of archetypes and of the collective unconscious, further highlight
the significance of our ties to one another.
Four American writers have influenced me more than others, Ray
Bradbury, as already mentioned, for his great spirit, and for the intensity and
the diversity of his story-telling; T.S. Eliot, for language and theory; Nathaniel
Hawthorne, for tales that bring spiritual complexity to the world of fiction; and
William Faulkner, for style.
Eliot’s poetry, as with all great literature, offers fresh discovery
with each additional reading. His finesse with language, his intermingling of
the old and the new, and the clarity and usefulness of his theories, elevate
Eliot to a position of master that will linger as long as masterful literature
lingers.
Hawthorne’s tales combine the physical world and the
spiritual unknown. He is neither a literary author as we consider today’s
literary genre, nor is he a horror author as we sometimes consider horror as an
exploration of the unknown, spiritual kingdom. Hawthorne’s characters struggle
with the same problems that all individuals share who live within a complex,
organized social structure: how does one advance a culture in which the
individual possesses enough freedom to express his or her uniqueness, while
simultaneously protecting the integrity of the tribe, and somehow still maintaining
space for a meaningful submission to the goodness of a Divine will?
Faulkner’s greatest attribute remains his biggest
difficulty, his style. A colleague once told me, “People either love Faulkner
or they hate him.” I suspect this might hold validity. Nevertheless, no writer
in English displays such dexterity in the joy of free-flowing language, except
Shakespeare and Pope. Within the complexity of Faulkner’s style, one can lose
himself or herself in the resonance of sound, full of disparate images and
multitudinous clauses that allow the work to control real time. His best efforts,
especially when read aloud, like fine poetry, mesmerize with discrete clarity
and poetic majesty.
Being human in a physical world, acting within a time-space
continuum of experience, provides a fertile thematic landscape for
story-making, for therein one can explore the physical universe, including
earth’s natural phenomena, that is to say, nature, and the human body, with
every complex dialectic these suggest; one can explore the mind, including the
turmoil of both sanity and insanity; and one can explore the spirit, that
unseen world of knowledge that enmeshes reason, intuition, and imagination.
Within this broad essence I include the concept of life-death-and-resurrection
as it is played out in the universe; in each life lived and ended; and in the
psychological growth pattern of each person as he or she struggles through the
adventure of an on-going development of self-discovery and adaptation as
Campbell implied in his examination of the hero cycle.
My choices in plot, character, theme, and so on, draw on my
own life experiences and the meditative correspondence which reconciles them to
my self-image. My stories tend to reflect ordinary people who confront
extraordinary circumstances, and by doing so, they reinforce the elegance and
grace of our human nature. Thus, the imperatives of free-will, courage, and
independent thought form the foundation upon which my characters struggle to
interpret each adventure and how they discover a way to endure.
At this juncture, one might expect that I identify some
rules for writing. I will share some lessons I accepted from Mr. Ernest Gaines
when I studied with him in Louisiana.
Mr. Gaines promoted six rules for writing.
1.
Read.
2.
Read.
3.
Read.
4.
Write.
5.
Write.
6.
Write.
Mr. Gaines fostered
two rules for writing well.
1.
Write with fire.
2.
Re-write with water.
Finally, in its search for truth and love, my work makes
every effort to discern the myriad possibilities of human drama and of hope secreted
within the two great commandments of Christ: love God with all your strength,
with all your heart, with all your soul, and with your entire mind; and love
your neighbor as you love yourself.
Peace and blessings.
Thom. www.ThomBrucie.com
Copyright 2016©by
Thom Brucie, All Rights Reserved
