Nothing to say...

"There's nothing on the Internet this morning. You write anything?" my husband asked.
"Nope," I said.
"How come?"
I shrugged. "Nuthin to say," I told him. This flies in the face of all that terrific advice I used to get in my creative writing classes: There is ALWAYS something you can write about. That's true in the literal sense...see my comments on graphomania in an earlier post...but does the world need to hear my thoughts on bird antics in my back yard, the funny ways of UPS delivery guys, the Albertson's checker who doesn't like cats etc.? Not when I have a sinus-migraine-TMJ headache, as was the case these past few days. I managed a few sentences on an article I need to get off to a magazine and then hobbled back to the couch and to a soothingly moronic movie, one where Everything Works Out In the End.

My father was a wonderful writer and he taught me how to write, for which I'm everlastingly grateful. He also told the most enchanting and funny stories, so I asked him once, "Why don't you write a book?"
"Well, dollface," he said, "I've tried, but I realized I didn't have anything to say."
Since I was nineteen at the time, I took this in silently and didn't probe further. Now I think he meant that he didn't have some grand overarching message...a big honking important something to tell the world. But who does?

It makes me glad I spent so many years as a painter. The great thing about the visual arts is that Big Ideas are few and far between. Once you get past the landscape, the still-life, and the portrait, it's thin pickings on the concept front, even if you count all that spectacular Renaissance religious painting. In fact, the whole Renaissance period is pretty instructive when it comes to big messages. Painters of that period were more consumed with how to paint than what to paint. They took for granted religion-as-subject-matter...it paid the bills. What the artists were hyped up about was mathematical and arial perspective, and a host of other technical ideas. The really good painters understood that it isn't what you do, it's how you do it. Later on that idea got misplaced. Certain 19th century artists, looking backwards to the glory of Leonardo and company, fastened onto The Important Message. Endless historical tableaus were cranked out, showing Napoleon winning a battle, or someone else defying the Turks, with all the human figures looking either stuffed or carved out of soap.

When I became a full-time, no-fooling, out-in-the-open writer, I spent a lot of time floundering in the Big Idea waters. I wrote bales of stuff that never saw light of day and didn't worry about it over much because my years of painting had taught me something. Sometimes, to find an authentic voice, it's necessary to splash around and look like a jerk. But then, it happens: you write something that only you could write. It doesn't happen every day...some days you have a really terrible headache.