A.
Manette Ansay is in town (Milwaukee) tonight, appearing at the Wisconsin
Conservatory of Music to talk about her latest novel, Good Things I Wish for
You, which explores the relationship between Clara Schumann and Johannes
Brahms. I went to Ansay’s blog this morning and found some interesting takeaways. For example, when asked if one needs to be unhappy or lonely to write
(that old romanticized image many people have of writers), Ansay replies:
“I
find it nearly impossible to write when I am unhappy, unsettled or ill at
ease. And loneliness, for me at least, is a form of unhappiness. But what I do require is a fair amount of solitude. To write well, I need
to be alone in my house or in a public place (such as on a plane or in a coffee
shop) where I feel that no one knows me or might interrupt me. I suppose I also
require a certain amount of emotional solitude as well. I could never
last long around someone who was constantly asking, What are you thinking?”
In
another entry, she writes:
“Thinking
today about the old chicken-or-the-egg question: Do we choose the stories
we tell, or do the stories pick us out of the crowd, follow us home, demand our
attention? I just finished reading Rebecca Skloot’s extraordinary first book, The
Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,
and it reminded me afresh of how important it is for those of us who write to
always be listening, as Stephen Dunn puts it, ‘with that other, inner
ear.’ ...
“
‘What does your character desire?’ we often ask our writing students–or are
asked, in turn, by those who read our own works in progress. ‘What does
this person want? What is his or her obsession?’
“But
an equally important question might be: What is the writer’s obsession
with the story he or she sets out to tell? For if it’s less than an
obsession–if it’s mere inclination or, god forbid, calculated choice–the deep,
primal heartbeat that drives a book’s creation for better or worse, for richer
or poorer, in sickness and health, cannot take meaningful root.”
Watch for an interview with Ansay by publisher Elfrieda Abbe in the December 2010 issue of The Writer.