The Sound of Paper Read online

  in the DMZ

  Emma Lively: my catalyst and collaborator

  on the opera Magellan

  As artists, we are not immune to our sur­roundings, we are attuned to them. If we allow it, life can feed our art.

  Courage

  The road west from Taos runs straight as an Indian's part. It bisects sage fields stretching to the horizon on each side. One hundred miles away lies a mountain range, but long before that mountain range lies the gorge. Six hundred feet deep, one quarter mile wide, it is the reminder of the Rio Grande s power to cut through rock. The Rio still flows at gorge bottom, notching it ever deeper. The gorge is an unexpected crack in the earth. A great gaping wound amid the sage fields. Now a steel-girded bridge spans its width. But to the early traveler, it was impassable, a sudden and catastrophic tear in the map. To cross the gorge required a forty-mile trip downriver to Pilar, where the river could be forged.

  Making art is a vocation, a calling like the urge that pushed the settlers west. Often we enter the vocation of artist without know­ing what it will entail. We strike out, just as the settlers did, encountering mountains and valleys, only to come upon the sud­den, impassable gorge. And yet, with effort and the courage to explore, the great gorge was passable. So, too, with effort and the courage to explore, our creative dreams are possible.

  Even in the lives of ordinary citizens working their day jobs, nine to five, the calling to write, say, a novel or an opera or a film script can loom sudden and threatening as the wound in the earth. And yet, the wound in the earth is natural, and so is the making of art. We cannot always turn to those around us for mirroring and

  support. Sometimes we must seek the example of our larger tribe, reading the biography of an explorer who has gone before us. Composers can find comfort reading about composers, especially when an autobiography is available, like Richard Rodgers's. What we are after here is the experience, strength, and hope of other artists, a sort of verbal legacy that states: "It is possible."

  Not only is it possible to make art, and large pieces of art, it is possible to make that art in the lives we already have. It is not nec­essary for the novelist to secure a cabin in Yosemite. A composer does not require a Steinway in a Paris atelier. Great music can be written in Libertyville, Illinois. A novel can be born in Council Bluffs. Art is made a moment at a time, a day at a time, and we can make room in life as we know it for the art we yearn to make. First we find time for Morning Pages. Morning Pages train our censor to stand aside. Released from the burden of perfectionism, we are free to create. Songs come to us, and short stories. Obedient to their shape and form, we scribe them down. A day at a time, our art is born, and we as artists are born through it. To be an artist requires no special trappings. Our passport is stamped by art itself. It is the making of art that makes an artist.

  Just as the settlers pushed west with many days of uneventful travel to the sudden, heart-stopping detour, so, too, an artist's life unfolds with daily regularity and the occasional heart-stopping challenge. We are called to make art, and we are sometimes called to make specific pieces of art that seem far beyond our capacities. An opera wants to be born, or an epic historical drama. We doubt our abilities, but the calling is imperious and not to be denied. And so, feeling as crazy as Don Quixote tilting at windmills, we answer the call. In my own career, I have spent five years on an

  opera, seven years on a musical, several years on a play. Sometimes fifteen years have elapsed between the conception of a piece and its successful execution. To be an artist is to learn patience, the same patience settlers learned trekking toward the distant moun­tains a day at a time until one day the mountains were at hand.

  COURAGE

  Try this: Although we seldom acknowledge it, we are all courageous. It takes courage to under­take a creative project. It takes courage to sustain it and complete it. It takes courage to make art in the midst of everyday life. Making art a pri­ority takes courage. Take pen in hand. Number from 1 to 5. List five ways in which you have been courageous for your art. For example:

  I have done Morning Pages daily for two

  decades .

  I have written many works for love, not

  money

  I have completed multiple drafts of hard

  projects

  I undertook piano at age fifty-four

  I have reserved time from my teaching to

  make my art

  All of us can make lists such as the one above. We have all overcome adverse circum­stances. Courage is a necessary ingredient of art.

  As artists, we all have it.

  Persistence

  From Tres Piedras to Taos falls a lunar landscape. The sage fields stretch in all directions, gray, green, and monstrous, the color of moon rock as seen on television when our astronauts landed. Barely breaking the earth, a fleet of "earth ships"—subter­ranean homes—stud the terrain. The vista is hallucinogenic—adobe houses shaped in fanciful spirals pierce the azure sky. Dirt roads bisect the highway. They are largely unmarked.

  Sometimes, in the making of art, we pass through a trackless landscape. Our projects are large and our landmarks are few. Writ­ing a novel may loom like driving cross-country: Here is the Mis­sissippi, there are the Rockies, but what lies between? It takes faith to be an artist, the faith to forge forward when the horizon is cloud-obscured and indistinct. The artist's prayer could be this one: "Lord, I believe; help my disbelief." Agnes de Mille tells us: "An artist never knows quite where he is going. Instead, we take leap after leap in the dark."

  Art is not often commissioned. We commission ourselves to make art. A young arranger works three years on a musical project that may or may not meet with a warm reception. A playwright wrestles with draft after draft, trying to bring to the stage the drama that unfurls in his mind. Artists love other artists, and part of what we love is their courage.

  My good friend Natalie is halfway across a new book. She has published many books, a number of them under contract. But this book has been undertaken with no publishing commitment. It is being written in the hope of publication but not the guarantee. For a year now, Natalie has written into the void. The book re­quires perhaps another year, maybe more. Natalie puts hand to the page, writing longhand, steering her book through the nether­world of art in process. Just as the road from Tres Piedras vanishes into the distance, so, too, the final chapters of her book shimmer as a chimera, and yet she drives herself toward them. This is persistence.

  After the signal success of his book The Milagro Beanfield War, novelist John Nichols wrote daily for a decade without seeing publication. The road to Tres Piedras is short by comparison with the span Nichols endured. It is the making of art, not our art "making it," that signifies an artist's life. Careers turn on a dime, artists are discovered "overnight," although seldom before they have passed through the dark night of the soul. Early settlers to the American West brought camels, knowing the dromedary was suited to long distances without water. An artist setting out must carry his own water, an inner belief that may not yet be mirrored by outer reality. In all artists there is a seed of inner knowing, a stubborn insistence in the face of doubt. It is this inner knowing that propels the artist across the harrowing reaches of hostile ter­rain common to making art.

  Encouragement

  PERSISTENCE

  Try this: Faith is a commodity we always feel is lacking. Who among us feels he has "enough" faith? And yet, we all do. It takes faith to inau­gurate a creative project. It takes faith to estab­lish an atmosphere where our creativity can flourish. Take pen in hand and list five occasions in which you have demonstrated persistence. For example:

  1. I went back to graduate school

  I took an improv class

  I hired an illustrator for my children's book

  I submitted my short stories for publication

  I made a CD of my garage rock band .

  Joseph Campbell tells us that "when we fol­low our bliss, we are met by a thousa
nd unseen helping hands." Take pen in hand. Number from 1 to 5. List five pairs of helping hands.

  A soft rain falls in the late afternoon in hushed whispers, gently bathing the dusty sage. Taos Valley is parched after its long drought and drinks the drops in greedily. The hope is, if it rains hard enough and long enough, the air will be washed clean of the smoke from galloping wildfires, and the valleys sunburned grasses will green again, providing food for its grazing herds of sheep, cattle, and horses. It does not take much rain to revivify the valley and raise spirits. As this rain falls, high-tailed horses race across the Indian lands where they are pastured. They love the rain as much for its cooling their sunbaked hides as for the promise it holds of renewed food.

  Rain is like encouragement. We need it, as artists, and the smallest amount can work wonders. At this time, a friend of mine is mid-stride on a new book. She e-mails it to me in chapters, knowing I am eager to read what she has written. I am her believ­ing mirror, there to cheer her on even when her pitches are a lit­tle wild. I myself have enjoyed an excellent believing mirror in my friend writer Ed Towle. He has made his way through early drafts of my work, muttering encouragement and urging me to keep at it if a book was not yet in shape. Growing up, I did not have a believing mirror. As a young writer, I wrote a novel that no one in my family wanted to read. It sat, unmolested, on a living-room table. No one opened its virgin pages. We all need encouragement. We need those who can cheer on our process rather than merely

  applaud our finished product. An artist's life contains variable weather. Our moods may move up or down, depending on how well the work is going. A true believing mirror is someone who can reflect us back to ourselves, at any point in the process, as competent, capable, and gifted. Even one believing mirror dou­bles our faith in ourselves and renews our commitment to make art. Ideally, we have a cluster of believing mirrors, a number of strong friendships in which our work is seen and cherished. My friend Sonia Choquette, writer and psychic, often helps midwife my large pieces of work into the world. When I have doubt in my process, she will say, "But I see the book, and it's a good one." I think of Sonia's precognitive feedback as being a little like a cre­ative sonogram. She is able to get a picture and report to me on the thriving health of a still-unborn piece of work. I have another friend, Larry, who takes a gleeful happiness in my successes— before they occur. Like Sonia, Larry enjoys a strong spiritual con­nection, and his faith in me and my work is palpable.

  It may take some detective work to discover the believing mir­rors in your life. It may take some trial and error as we divulge our secret dreams, first to those who doubt, and then to those who can believe. Belief has the same impact on a beleaguered artistic spirit as the welcome rain has on parched Taos Valley. Even the smallest amount of encouragement lifts our spirits. It is no acci­dent that many novels contain dedications to loving spouses and the notation "without whose help, this book would not exist." I myself hold such a debt to Mark Bryan for his belief and support while I was writing The Artist's Way. It is always easy, in cozy ret­rospect after a large success, to see that a project should have been believed in, but when I wrote The Artist's Way, my then-agent

  thought it was a foolish project. "Who would want to read about creativity?" Mark stubbornly insisted the book was good and would find an audience. Of course, he was right.

  Sometimes our believing mirrors are ephemeral. We may not have a human cheering section. We may take off in a new direc­tion so strange to our friends that they cannot muster their belief in it. This is why we say creativity is a matter of faith. Sometimes our sole support for an endeavor is spiritual. I have even prayed to have my desire to write some work removed, only to have it strengthened. It is my belief that the Great Creator and spiritual forces larger than ourselves take an intense and immediate interest in our creativity. When we are willing to receive it, we are brought support bit by bit, piece by piece, just as we need it. We "stumble" on a tiny article. We "happen" to see a flyer. We overhear a con­versation with needed information. We are led, guided, shown. It is fair play, however, to ask the universe for human support. As artists, we are like athletes. We often need a cheering bystander to make it across the finish line. This is not weakness; this is human nature. Art is an act of communication and connection. It is only natural that we harbor the desire to communicate and connect. One sim­ple, well-timed compliment, like one rainfall, guarantees our con­tinued growth.

  Milestones

  ENCOURAGEMENT

  Try this: Most of us have believing mirrors, those friends who have cheered us on during our creative endeavors. They may or may not be artists themselves. What they do value is our art, and the effort it takes to make it. Although we seldom acknowledge it, their encourage­ment can be pivotal in our productivity. Take pen in hand and number from 1 to 5. List five believing mirrors who have been your creative champions. From your list, select one name and write a thank-you note. You may wish to thank your entire list.

  Tiny Arroyo Seco is a postage stamp-size town, a colorful collection of craft shops, galleries, and family-run cantinas. On the Fourth of July it hosts a big parade—big for Arroyo Seco. There are tiny Indian dancers, mounted conquistadores, a posse of cowboys, a motley array of burros festooned with flowers, pulling carts. Because "Seco," as it is called, is also a home to Julia Roberts, the parade fea­tures Julia lookalikes waving gaily. On both sides of the tiny main street, crowds throng despite the fact that a young boy winds his way through them carrying a giant lizard and wiggling python. Sno-Kones are for sale for a dollar and ice cream cones for a dollar fifty. The crowd buzzes with neighborly cheer, taking enormous civic pride in the minuscule extravaganza. The festivities mark the Fourth as a genuine celebration, and the inhabitants of Seco welcome the special occasion to party.

  A creative career can go a very long time without any genuine markers to celebrate. A novel may be five years in the writing, a musical may run seven, an opera nine. This is too long to go between start and finish. Milestones need to be noted and cele­brated. A novelist I know celebrates her recurring character s birth­day. A screenwriter marks each successive draft with a dinner for friends. A composer spends time and money to record each stage; select friends receive CD samplers celebrating progress. Like the tiny Seco parade, such markers are arbitrary and festive inventions.

  As creative artists, we inhabit two worlds: the ordinary world we live in, and the extraordinary world of our creations. As any novelist will tell you, characters are as particular and ornery as everyday people. We come to know them as well as our friends. This morning, over a breakfast of bacon and eggs at the Dragon­fly Cafe, I was startled to look up and see my detective hero, Elliot Mayo, looming in the doorway. Of course it wasn't really Elliot, but Bradford Reed, a local architect. Elliot's double in many ways, Reed holds a special place in my affections, just as Elliot does in my imagination. For those who live with us, our invisible cast of characters can be a threatening shadow world. Our intimates sometimes sense that our attention is often spoken for, that we are listening to a conversation or plot unspooling in our ears. In a sense, our artistic creations are like invisible playmates, unheard and unseen by others but very real to ourselves. My daughter grew up in a world peopled by my literary creations. She knew that Elliot had a claim on my time and affections just as a sibling would.

  By celebrating the benchmarks of our creative passage, we give others a gentle entree into our creative world. "Have lunch with me to celebrate this draft of my play," we might say, or "I'm going to the theater to celebrate having completed a series of paintings." Most of our friends would like to be friendly to our work, if they only knew how. We can make them privy to the details of our work's maturing, if not the details of the work itself. "I finished a hard chapter; let's go to the Rio Grande and swim," I might say to my friend Natalie. She doesn't need to read the chapter to under­stand the sense of accomplishment. Some of our work may receive public recognition. Other work, equally valid, may not.
It is too easy to judge our work by its public validation. There is much

  more to a creative career than public success or failure. Our cre­ations are our brainchildren, and like all children, they love a spe­cial occasion. A book that is cherished in its unfolding remains a happy memory. "Remember when I mailed it off to my agent and we went for Thai food?" Like the little Seco Independence Day parade, it doesn't take much to have a good time. The part of us that creates is vulnerable and childlike. Is it any wonder our artist enjoys a little hoopla? I don't think so.

  Keeping Our Footing

  MILESTONES

  Try this: We often remark that the part of us that creates is young and vulnerable. We some­times call our inner creator our "creative child." And yet we seldom focus on that child in a way that a child might appreciate. Select one, or a group of friends, and invite them to attend a dinner in honor of your inner artist. Explain to each guest that the dinner is your attempt to honor your artist for work well done. You may find that throwing an artist party inspires you to mark other creative milestones: finishing a first or second draft, submitting your work, starting a rewrite. Any of these occasions deserves respect and celebration.

  Ten miles north of Taos lies the tiny town of Arroyo Hondo. As its name suggests, the little village straddles an arroyo, a gash in the earth. If you turn left just after Herb's Lounge, you are heading west toward the Rio Grande gorge. The paved road dwindles to gravel and then to dirt, twisting switchback upon switchback as it descends one thousand feet into the earth. As the road zigzags down the side of the gorge, willows rise up to meet it. Where there are willows, there is water, and soon the dark green Rio, with its silver ripples, is in view. The road meets the river at John Dunn Bridge, named for an early trader. The bridge is a modest affair, slippery and treacherous during rain or snow. Beneath the bridge, the swift-flowing river widens into a placid pool, deep and emerald. It is here that people swim, sunning themselves like lizards on the gray river rocks. A day at a time, a drop at a time, the river has carved the great gorge. Now it runs along the gorge bottom, innocently green and silver, its fierce, eroding current noticeable only when the waters are braved for swimming or trout fishing. So fierce is the flow, it can be difficult to keep your footing on the slippery riverbed.