What J.D. Salinger Got Right

I recently watched a documentary called "Salinger", and when it was over that sadness that always lingered after reading his stories was present in the room.

Media called Salinger hermit and recluse. Clearly he was neither of those as he was constantly seen about the small town near where he lived, took frequent trips to New York and Florida. He wasn't hermiting, he was simply trying to live out the last thread of sane left to him after surviving WWII, and then surviving the crashing success of Catcher in the Rye--the same novel that would be fingered as the reason and justification of three high profile shootings including the murder of John Lennon and the shooting of then President of the US, Ronald Reagan.

It's possible that Salinger decided to withdraw from life in public because he understood his capacity to be a dangerous man if allowed to stew too long in the soup of public pressure. Men and women hunted him down believing he had answers to their chaotic, hopeless lives. He didn't. And he knew it.

It's possible that Salinger's own writing left him with no alternative but to turn his back on the media lest he become entrapped in the same poser culture he railed against in his theology thinly disguised as fiction stories (he was a follower of Vedanta, Hindu philosophy and his stories always preached the tension between    body    and     spirit).

No doubt, Salinger walked a tightrope of being and maintaining his status as public figure and being fully dedicated to writing itself. Pure writing without any distractions.

It's murky and complicated (just like life), but there's one thing that stood out for me, one point where I believe Salinger was right: you can't talk about writing and be a writer. You must write. Only that.

There's a discipline to this, especially in the world of the internet where it is (literally) possible to glean so much information about how to write fiction that you could--in time--present college level courses on the subject and yet not be able to execute any of it.

A writer could, in theory, spend every weekend at one writer's conference after another soaking in so much knowledge he or she might feel a brain burst coming on. But so what if you can't actually do it?

I'm not against writing conferences. If you have a plan and have carefully selected workshops that will actually benefit your writing, and leave the conference with measurable ROI (return on investment), then great. Rare. But great.

But.

Nothing trumps the doing.

Write.

Read.

Write.

Read.

Don't stop.

Remember that well hashed saying that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill? My husband recently pointed out that I've passed that milestone. I am, according to the hour formula, a master writer. (Can you see me giggling right now?)

What's the singular biggest lesson those 10,000+ hours of writing have taught me?

I can't talk myself into becoming a good writer.

I can only write, and write, and write some more until I find my true self and then write that.

When the Lord Shuts a Writer Down... or Up

Remember if you comment on any of the posts this month, you qualify yourself for an autographed copy of The Mormon Mirage (Zondervan, 2009.) In fact, this is the book mentioned later in this column. So, speak up!

I often hear published writers often talking about how the Lord has advanced their careers, or put them in advantageous positions in landing a good agent or happening on just the right editor at a conference. And surely He does work that way.

But for some of us, there are two sides to the story.

I believe there was a certain point – in fact, a day and hour -- in my life at which the Lord told me that He wanted me not to write for money nor recognition, until He released me from that stricture. He shut me down completely. I had been a published writer since I was in grade school. Suddenly I found myself in an open-ended situation in which it felt that my very breath was restricted. Not for days, or months, but for years.

For about eight years in fact, I continued to write but did it anonymously and/or without publication. When He began to release me it was to write business articles about utilities – gas, electric, sewer, water, and nuclear --and about military, financial, and technological subjects. All my religious writing I kept to myself or posted anonymously on a web site. My books all went out of print except one. The most popular one I offered free for download to anyone who wanted it.

I prayed for a very long time before I felt He would allow me to approach an agent. Year after year, prayer after begging prayer, His answer was “no.”

When He released me to write for the Christian marketplace, I knew it. I can tell you the day and place when I knew He was going to let me contact Janet Grant (and only Janet Grant). And in other cases, publishers approached me for books I’d been working on during that dry, dry time.

He’s a tough Master, but He knew what was best for me. It surely didn’t feel “glorious” at the time, though. There was no sense of being honored. I was under discipline, and I knew it. I’m not proud of that.

When he underwent great trial, Job asked the question, “When God sends us something good, we welcome it. How can we complain when he sends us trouble?”

I believe I must be a better writer than I would have been if I’d kept trying to market my work during those arid years. I have concluded that there is no such thing as "lost time" in God's economy of obedience.

In fact, I wonder just how different the quality of Christian writing as a whole would be if God put those kinds of restrictions on everyone.

Or maybe He is doing that, but we’re not listening?

Have you ever felt that the Lord hemmed you in or restricted you? What was the result?