I just recently finished reading a book of quotes from Madeleine L’Engle. Her children’s book A Wrinkle In Time had a huge impact on me as a kid, and was influential in the development of my love of writing and of Science Fiction. I found this quote book at a BYU Bookstore sale a couple of years ago, and never really got around to reading it until now. However, now was the right time to read it, as I’m thinking more and more seriously about developing myself as a fiction writer.
The thing that stood out to me throughout the book was the deeply spiritual way she approached creative writing. I listen to a number of sci fi and writing podcasts, and most of the people on those podcasts deal with the business aspects of publishing and other practical aspects of the craft. L’Engle approached it from a much broader view as an art and a calling from God. It was quite interesting to read her thoughts on the subject, because these were thoughts that I hadn’t really considered much–or, if I had considered, I haven’t considered often enough.
Let me see how I can summarize what I took from her philosophy. I think a good beginning point is her philosophy of art and truth. Basically, writing is an art, and has incredible potential to point us to truth–not merely to things factual (since fiction isn’t really factual at all), but to the truth of our condition here as humans, to our being and the nature of the world in which we live. And because of that, fiction is extremely important to humanity:
…All art, good, bad, indifferent, reflects its culture. Great art transcends its culture and touches on that which is eternal…True art has a mythic quality in that it speaks of that which was true, is true, and will be true.
…To be a human being is to be able to listen to a story, to tell a story, and to know that story is the most perfect vehicle of truth available to the human being…We can tell more about God through the words of a story than through any amount of theology.
…Myth is, for me, the vehicle of truth. Myth is where you look for reality. Myth is how God speaks to us. We’re still hung up on the idea that myth is wrong, that myth is a lie. the only way we have to grope toward the infinite is through myth…We get closer to truth as we strive through myth to understand that which the human being cannot comprehend in finite terms.
Story isn’t something that the writer creates entirely by himself. It is something that comes to the writer and says “give me form and send me forth.” The writer then does his best to serve the story, or “serve the work,” as L’Engle repeated over and over. Then, after the work has been transmitted into words, it still requires the act of reading before it becomes a true story. Therefore, writing is collaboration between the reader, the writer, and the work itself, which comes to the writer from somewhere outside of the writer’s immediate conscious self. And ultimately, writing is an act of collaboration with God.
I guess that a good analogy that illustrates what L’Engle was saying is that writing a story is like giving birth and raising a child. The story is not something like a machine that originates with your craft, it originates outside of you and then comes and asks to be made flesh. It is a collaboration with God, to whom all creation belongs. It can be very painful and frightening, and also requires a lot of work. It is something that you should serve and never try to force or compel, and even though you will never serve it perfectly, it will still surprise you with how far it can go once it grows up.
…I am convinced that each work of art, be it a great work of genius or something very small, has its own life, and it will come to the artist, the composer or the writer or the painter, and say, “Here I am: compose me; or write me; or paint me”; and the job of the artist is to serve the work.
…Inspiration comes far more often during the work as things get rolling than before you sit at the typewriter. This is because the largest part of the job of the artist is to listen. To listen to the work and to go where it tells you to go. And this involves faith. Letting go of your own control and having faith in something you do not control.
…When the artist is truly the servant of the work, the work is better than the artist…When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens. But before he can listen, paradoxically, he must work. Getting out of the way and listening is not something that comes easily, either in art or in prayer.
…When a shoddy novel is published the writer is rejecting the obedient response, taking the easy way out. But when the words mean even more than the writer knew they meant, then the writer has been listening. and sometimes when we listen, we are led into places we do not expect, into adventures we do not always understand.
The most important points that I can draw from L’Engle’s paradigm and apply to my own are as follows:
1: Do not measure yourself by your talent (or lack of talent) for writing. L’Engle said that even though she knew that she wasn’t on the same level as Shakespeare or Dostoevsky, she never compared herself with them when she read them, but instead appreciated what they did as well as what she did. The important thing, according to L’Engle, is not how inadequate you are compared to the great writers (or, conversely, how much better you are than others), but what you do with the gifts that have been given you. When you read other writers, don’t compare yourself with them, either to put you down or puff you up, because that is at best a distraction from your true self as a writer.
…The important thing is to recognize that our gift, no matter what the size, is indeed something given us, for which we can take no credit, but which we may humbly serve, and, in serving, learn more wholeness, be offered wondrous newness.
2: Your feelings of personal inadequacy should never keep you from serving the work. L’Engle–herself a master of the craft–said that she has never written a story exactly the way that she has wanted to. That is pretty incredible! She has never gotten to the point where she could sit back and say “this is perfect.” She struggled with feelings of personal inadequacy as well! But for her, serving the work was more important. Those feelings only serve to keep us from using the gift that has been given to us–and if we truly use that gift in the service of the work, we can expect to accomplish things beyond our ability to do so.
…It is through the gifts of the spirit that art comes, that love comes. But because we’re human, we’re never entirely sure. We know we haven’t served the work as well as we would want to. But if I had to serve the work to my satisfaction, I would still be on my first novel. And that would be pride.
…We may not hear the story well. We may be like faulty radios, transmitting only static and words out of context. But I believe that it is a risk we have to take. And it is worth it, because the story knows more than the artist knows.
…We are never satisfied with what we have done. We know that our best is never adequate. If I had to be satisfied with what I have written I’d still be on my first novel. But I wrote what was for me the best book I could write at that moment in time.
…If we have to be infallible we are not free to seek truth. We are not free to say No, this time, and Yes, that time. Truth often comes by revelation when we least expect it.
3: You must have the faith to listen to the story without trying to control it. L’Engle would start stories with a clear plan and direction, and then, in the middle of writing, something would happen in the story that completely didn’t fit with the plan, but she would listen and follow it even though she didn’t know where it was going. In fact, some of her most important characters were created this way; in the middle of writing a scene, a character would come out of nowhere to converse with one of her other characters, and that character would become one of the driving parts of the story.
Stories are not things that we can control or coerce, they are things that come to us that we serve, then go on to do things that we didn’t foresee. But in order to do this, you have to abandon control and take a step into the unknown, which takes tremendous faith and courage.
…We live under the illusion that if we can acquire complete control, we can understand God, or we can write the great American novel. But the only way we can brush against the hem of the Lord, or hope to be part of the creative process, is to have the courage, the faith, to abandon control.
…Nothing is created without this terrible entering into death. It takes great faith, faith in the work if not conscious faith in God, for dying is fearful. But without this death, nothing is born. And if we die willingly, no matter how frightened we may be, we will be found, and born anew into life, and life more abundant.
…Slowly, slowly, I am learning to listen to the book, in the same way I try to listen in prayer. If the book tells me to do something completely unexpected, I heed it; the book is usually right.
…When I am working, I move into an area of faith which is beyond the conscious control of my intellect. I do not mean that I discard my intellect, that I am an anti-intellectual, gung-ho for intuition and intuition only. Like it or not, I am an intellectual. The challenge is to let my intellect work for the creative act, not against it. And this means, first of all, that I must have more faith in the work than I have in myself.
4: If you try to serve a work, you are a writer whether or not you are published–and that is a noble and an honorable thing. I was surprised to learn that L’Engle went through a period of nearly a decade without finding success in getting published–after she had published her first couple of novels. And then she wrote A Wrinkle In Time, that masterpiece that has had a lasting impact on my life! I was also surprised to learn that there was a time when she decided that she would give up writing entirely! She packed up her typewriter and decided that she would never write again. And then she cried so hard that she just had to write about this incredible feeling of sadness, and so she pulled the typewriter out to write about it–and, thankfully, never stopped after that!
But more than this, I found it interesting what she had to say about writing as a profession. She said that there are many people and forces that conspire to put writers and writing down, to make it look as something trivial, or something that isn’t real work. However, the truth is that when a dictatorship tries to control and manipulate the people, the first people to go are the writers because they are the ones who are so important in helping the society to find truth. Writing as a profession should therefore be something honorable, something recognized, not put down like mainstream society does.
…We tend to accept the images the world would put on us. And if you’re not a published writer, you’re not supposed to be a writer. Well, I know now that’s not true.
…The first people that a dictator puts in jail are the writers and the teachers because these are the people who have vocabulary, who can see injustice and can express what they feel about it. Artists are dangerous people because they are called to work with human clay, with the heart and the soul. So to protect itself, society has had to pretend that either art is unimportant or that it is simple.
…A young writer told me once that she was asked by a neighbor what she did; and when she replied that she writes poetry, the neighbor said “oh, I didn’t mean your hobby.” A woman probing about how much a year I make in royalties remarked “and to think most people would have had to work so hard for that.” Well, make no mistake about it, a work of art–great or small, major or minor–is work. It’s hard work.
There were many more things that can be taken from the writing philosophy of Madeleine L’Engle, certainly more than I can write here, but these are the major points that had an impact on me at this time. And she has undeniably had a major impact on me! Whatever I do now, I will always try to serve the work and listen to what the story is trying to tell me.
Source: Chase, Carole F., ed. 2001. Madeleine L’Engle: Herself. Shaw Books, Waterbrook Press: Colorado Springs, Colorado.
