Reason and Revelation
In reading Stephen King’s On Writing, I can trace what I think is a very common romanticism most writers have with their craft—a complex relationship mixed up in your identity, combining pride and purpose with self-loathing and fear in equal measure. How can I create art? And how can I do that creation artistically? Often, the two questions call for divergent answers. And they feed into one's aesthetic philosophy. What is the point of art?
King's childhood is obviously important to his writings. But as far as I can tell, the beginnings of his explicit reflections on his own relationship with art started in college. He begins by describing a common view among student writers he knew that "good writing came spontaneously" and that "[w]riters were blessed stenographers taking divine dictations." (62). This is contrasted with a poem that Tabitha read for their workshop. King saw "a work-ethic in the poem that [he] liked" suggesting that writing "had as much in common with sweeping the floor as with mythy moments of revelation." (65). He says that this "writing ethic resonated through all [his] heart and soul." (66). So here's one of the most important things that aesthetic values can do: when they are shared with others, they create an immediate and lasting intimacy. King will have to amend his statement that his "marriage outlasted all of the world's leaders except for Castro." (61). It's lasted longer than Castro too. Human beings care deeply about beauty, and that's not something to be relegated to the interior creative life. When others experience beauty the way we do, we find them beautiful too.
Now, a perceptive reader might say, hold on! King was just deeply attracted to Tabitha and wanted to relate to her, because he is all about revelation. After all, he frequently used the following model to describe having an idea (this once being Carrie in particular): "Pow! Two unrelated ideas, adolescent cruelty and telekinesis, came together, and I had an idea." (75). But the notoriously prolific King is all about writing ethic. He explicitly disclaims running around shouting Eureka. (Ibid.). Instead, he left Carrie "simmering away" in the liminal space between his conscious and subconscious mind. (76). He then wrote a few pages, threw it away, analyzed the problems with it, and began once more after encouragement from his wife. (76-77). If that's how one takes dictation from God, Moses's stone tablets would have been covered in redlines.
Haruki Murakami's writing habits offer something that can help us further reconcile Carrie-King and college-King. No doubt inspiration plays a central role in authors' lives. That's what the "Pow!" represents. But is that the same as revelation? Or can we conspire through effort to induce inspiration in ourselves? Murakami suggests the latter. Of his writing routine, he explains:
When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.
Murakami's Daily Routine. Self-mesmerism is the key. That's the divine dictation that so many chase. But that too can be the product of work ethic rather than waiting for the muse. I think King too realized that subconsciously, without arriving at that conclusion explicitly (and frequently suggesting otherwise, in bouts of what I would generously describe as Socratic irony).
King's rejection of authors' preciousness reaches its conclusion at the end of a chapter called C.V., when he discusses his writing desk. He explained that, when battling alcoholism and drug addiction, he "dreamed of having a massive oak slab that would dominate a room," and eventually got one. (100). But after sobering it up, he turned it into a living room table and got a new writing set-up, a tiny desk in a corner under an eve. (101). That constituted his final piece of advice: reminding yourself that "[l]ife isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around." (Ibid.).
Earlier, King had discussed Hemingway when exploring his own alcoholism. I had the good fortune of visiting the Hemingway House on a trip to Key West. Sixty-odd cats, many six-toed, roamed the property. It was an old Floridian mansion, with a pool, and lovely grounds, and pillars and balconies. Large windows and lush greenery. What was most striking was a smaller building out back: a multi-storey writer's den which Hemingway retreated to. I remember remarking enviously that I wanted one. Most would argue that Hemingway is the superior author. But King, despite all his suffering, almost certainly has had the happier life. (One need only peruse Hemingway's Wikipedia page to get a sense of what I am referring to). His wife and kids, certainly, must be thankful that King (ironically as a horror writer) seems to have adopted the role of a happy warrior, ever gleeful about his opportunity to write for a living. Leave the dour obsessions and sexy angst to others. Even through trauma, write for fun, and leave it in the corner of the room. Not revelation, not self-important divine dictation. Instead, writing as play, with effort and ethic.
