I went to hear Ann Patchett at the National Cathedral on Tuesday. She was speaking on creativity, her process of writing, and how the experience of writing fiction intersects with “real life.”
A few things that stuck out (quotes are approximate, it’s just easier to write in first person):
She didn’t know a thing about opera before she wrote Bel Canto. She learned along the way, and now she is asked to write articles on opera for various magazines and newspapers. She has become Opera Girl, even to the point of befriending Renee Fleming, on whom many people think the main character is based. She talked about being backstage at the Met (OK, she made her life sound quite glamorous) and said, “So when people ask whether my fiction is about me, well, it becomes that way. My writing informs my life perhaps even more than my life informs my writing.”
When people tell her they are (or want to be) writers, she says, “I’m sure they are just as smart or as talented as I am (a gracious thing to say); the gift I have is I’m able to sit still for extremely long periods of time. I can read Henry James for eight hours. (Gah!) It’s important to be able to really work with an idea and get past the surface stuff to the stuff that’s risky, scary, interesting.”
Case in point: she developed the idea for Bel Canto while following the story of the terrorist takeover of the Japanese Embassy in Peru in the 90s. She became obsessed with the story, continuing to follow it even as the story moved from page A1 to A7, A13, the bottom of A19…
MFAs: Unless you can get in and out of an MFA program with minimal debt, it simply isn’t worth it. What you do need to learn is how to develop an internal compass for what your writing needs, and sifting through the disparate voices you hear in writing workshops will help you do that, but there are other ways to gain that experience too.
Her non-fiction book about her friend Lucy Grealy (see link above) came about because a few weeks after Lucy’s death, people would call Ann and say, “You sound better.” Only she didn’t want to sound better. She wanted to stick with it, wanted to grieve. So she wrote a book about her friend, because “Working on the book gave me ‘permission’ to feel everything I needed to feel, on a slower timeline. Nobody was bugging me to get on with my life because I was writing, I was working.”
I was thinking about this while reading Quotidian Grace’s lively review of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love. Her sense was that the whole conceit of the book was contrived, and it may very well be. I thought the book was entertaining, and not very deep at all, and the writing was just OK. I was mainly blown away by Gilbert’s marketing savvy. She got a publisher to pay for a trip around the world so she could heal from her divorce. C’mon people, that’s just genius! And as one who will probably not visit these countries any time soon, and who hopes not to be single and looking for love in Bali, ever, I enjoyed the escapism.
But otherwise, it seems similar in some ways to what Ann Patchett did with Lucy’s story. Isn’t that just how writers make sense of their world and their emotions? They write. That doesn’t mean the product should be for public consumption, or even be all that good, but writing is what writers do, eh?
These women are obviously in a totally different league than I am as a writer. Big duh. But still, I will find myself sometimes in the midst of an intense experience, thinking about how I would (or will) write about it. Taking notice of details, noticing what I am feeling and thinking. Making mental note of it. And on one level it probably sounds like a sort of detachment from what’s going on. But on the contrary, it feels like for me like I’m more in the moment (more me?) in those times. I think it probably sounds opportunistic, too; like, does every experience need to be a poem? No, and feeling that urge to notice and describe doesn’t mean I’ll write anything down later. It’s just what I do mentally.
(Maybe a former spiritual director is right and I really am a 5 on the enneagram.)
Anyway, very interesting lecture and Q&A.
17 Responses to “ann patchett at the cathedral”
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Clearly Ms. Patchett doesn’t live with wee ones (or even a needy older one). I often think - longingly - about the days when I can sit for 8 hours and do any one thing. But then I realize how much I’ll miss all the distractions.
Sounds like a fascinating day for someone with a great love and talent for writing like you!y. I enjoyed reading Bel Canto. I thought it was a good, well-crafted story.
I’m sure jan’s comment above resonates volumes for you at this time in your life–it certainly described me for many, many years. And yes I do miss the distractions now that they’re all grown up and find i create them for myself.
You’re spot on in your observations about Elizabeth Gilbert’s marketing savvy. It is not only stunning–but look at how well it worked! Thanks for the link and the nice mention. Next time I’ll review something I can recommend!
I admit that I haven’t read her, and it sounds like I should.
I thought of doing an MFA for quite a while mostly because I think I require an assignment just to write. It seems so indulgent, in some ways, but that’s coming from a person who thinks nothing of indulging in other things…..hmmmmmmm
i haven’t read her, either, but i might now. the advice on mfa does sound very utilitarian, but, then again, there’s nothing wrong with thinking about the practical side of things sometimes, is there? also, i’m going through a can’t sit still phase. i could sit and read and write for hours on end in school… hmm.
i’ve read “eat pray love.” i’m fascinated that it’s struck such a chord, the same way i was fascinated that the da vinci code struck such a chord. i wonder if w/ EPL it’s b/c every once in a while sometimes i too want to hit the reset button, which is what she basically did. i was annoyed by the consumerist pick-and-choose what works for me individualist spirituality, but of course i was. i don’t know.
and this is in the wrong section, but i’m feeling lazy (sorry). i like my TP from the top, too. it just feels right that way to me.
Hi I don’t know Ann Pattchett’s work, but will look at it now– I totally agree about Eat, Pray and whatever. I thought it was it was “thin” ( opposed to “thick” descriptions as anthropologists in my last life describe things)…I thought it was self indulgent, (and genius to get someone else to pay for it). I also thought it might be written by three different people….
ok I was also baffled at the success of the DaVinci Code (if you have read the two other “thrillers” that Dan Brown wrote, you will know he has only one story, with similar characters…but I think he probably cries all the way to the bank).
I love Anne Lamott (not so much her last book, which was good but not great). I also like Kathleen Norris and am just sad she hasn’t written anything in the past few years–I know her husband died recently– probably a good reason to grieve privately.
Keep up the great blog…I enjoy it even
though I haven’t had kids around for a long time (my grandchildren are almost college age! yikes) Gail
I haven’t read Ann Patchett either, but this is the second time I’ve heard about her recently. The first was in the context of somebody linking to a review of her new book. My comment back at the link source was that of the reviewer and myself, ≥1 of us needed more sleep. I didn’t even understand the review, let alone get a sense of the book.
Interesting, I took the “I can sit for eight hours” thing more as a mental thing than as a function of her family situation. I understood it figuratively. Can I sit and follow an idea to its absurd and perhaps brilliant conclusion? Am I brave enough to drill down farther than one might think prudent? That kind of thing.
Though she may have been speaking literally too. Elsewhere in her talk she made a point of saying she doesn’t have kids. She does try to have a social life, and makes the writing life sound amazingly glamorous. A friend calls for coffee and she just gets up and goes. She doesn’t write every day. She doesn’t write at a certain time each day. Etc.
I really loved Bel Canto, by the way, and would like to read more from her.
And Keith, the review was rather impenetrable, but dude! I’m worried about you. Get some sleep.
Thanks for writing this up, since I missed the lecture (it was my husband’s birthday, and that trumps almost anything). I haven’t read any Patchett, will put it on the list. I agree that Eat Pray Love was “thin” that’s a great description. Brilliant in its marketing, absolutely. But RM, I wanted to comment about your “detachment” and your noting of details. IMHO, this is EVERYTHING and is the mind of a writer. Once you have this, you ARE a writer, even if for the moment you don’t write much because you have all these wee ones (and Quotidian Grace is right, later on you invent other distractions, amen) but still you are noticing, cataloguing, writing in your head, and I do believe this is a perspective, something you can’t get out of. Maybe it is even a GIFT! Hmmm. Of course it is. Praise God.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the talk — I read Bel Canto in seminary and really enjoyed it. Interesting that she didn’t know a thing about opera….
She said she learned the hard way that you should write books about things you’re interested in. The gender dynamics drove the decision to write about magic in The Magician’s Assistant, but she realized that she had not the least bit of interest in magic. Not so opera. She knew nothing about it but really wanted to learn. So the research was a joy.
I forgot another tidbit that I liked. People asked her whether she felt pressure to match Bel Canto with her subsequent books. She said no, because “I’m the only one there.” She writes for herself the book that she would be interested in reading.
If that’s true, that’s a wonderful way to be.
thank you for sharing this. i appreciated “bel canto” and “truth and beauty” and would love to hear her speak. you offer a great window into her lecture.
gilbert’s book is on my favorites list because it was the perfect book to listen to while traveling in europe, taking a language course, befriending Brazilians last summer. timing can be everything when “reading” a book, i think. i wonder if i’d appreciate it as much now. i really did love it though. maybe it’s also a better listen than read- some books are.
i read “bel canto” and listened to “truth and beauty”. it always feels like a gift to a hear a book in the author’s own voice.
thank you again.
And RM, I wanted to say that I really love the way you weave together so many things, and they’re all smart things. Well, thanks for doing that. I don’t have to read New Yorker—I get all my cultural stuff, here! (I really mean that, I realize it might sound snarky or dumb.)
Ok, so I admit somehwhat publicly that I liked “Eat, Pray, Love” - not really for the writing as the way she put certain things that I think are helpful for college students. Gilbert, I think, learned some lessons much later than even I did in my journey to adulthood, but for working with those making that journey now at 18-22, her conversations about the spiritual journey have been surprisingly helpful.
Bel Canto, and others by Patchett, are definately in a different league…
“But still, I will find myself sometimes in the midst of an intense experience,
thinking about how I would (or will) write about it. Taking notice of details,
noticing what I am feeling and thinking. Making mental note of it…”
I think this is amazing. Honestly. This is part of what defines you, makes you, a writer.
Glad you could enjoy the Ann Patchett lecture.
I’m the only one I ever care about when I write a book, but I’m not sure it’s wonderful.
And it’s also overstatement–or at least a statement of philosophy that doesn’t remember to look where it’s walking. Unless she lives on a mountaintop by herself with a direct-brain link to a printing press, she’s got readers, and she cares what they say. They might be friends, or loved ones, or her agent, or her editor, or who knows, but nobody gets from manuscript to published novel without hearing some opinions and thinking about them–and almost nobody even finishes the manuscript without some sort of input.
I’m the only one I need to please when I write, but that doesn’t preclude seeing the work from other vantage points, in order that I can be pleased without being blind. And I’d put money on that being what she meant.
As for reading Henry James for eight hours, big deal. Anyone at gunpoint can do that.
some books are for reading, others are for listening to while pulling weeds out of the begonia patch. that’s what i did w/ eat, pray, love and i totally enjoyed it in that way. didn’t have to get all balled up about what i couldn’t mark in the margin to go back and ponder later.
did bel canto in a book group several years ago and enjoyed it (especially after my opera-loving buddies expounded on it in the group).
we’ve just organized a 9 person book/video (etc) co-ed (couples and single) group in our neighborhood. we’ll alternate between books and other formats (plays, lectures, videos, etc). and choosing an odd # was important to us so we’d have at least one single person in the group.
we did this several years ago in an old neighborhood and had lots of fun w/ it. so we resurrected the idea in our new digs.
“These women are obviously in a totally different league than I am as a writer.”
I respectfully disagree. You’re an amazing writer.