Hearing Voices!

The Voice Inside

“The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.”

                                  William Faulkner

“I do not want to be frisky, and theatrical.

I do not want to go forward in the parade of names.

I do not want to be diligent or necessary or in any way heavy.

From my mouth to God’s ear, I swear it; I only want to be a song.

To wander around in the fields like a little reed bird.

To be a song.

                                  Mary Oliver (The Return)

         I am writing a book; a novel.  It is about the little town where I was born and some of the colorful people who inhabited it.  It is about love and redemption and the unkind things we do to each other.  Several times over the two or three years that I have written and rewritten, I have asked myself, ‘why am I doing this?’  One day this week, I was in the library searching the stacks for a book by Earnest Hemmingway, so I could see how truly powerful sentences are constructed.  It occurred to me that for every Hemmingway, there are millions of unknowns who write books.  The question arose again-why am I doing this?  I am no Earnest Hemmingway.  Living with uncertainty is a constant--an uncomfortable constant. 

         Several months ago, I decided that I would put the book to rest.  Just stop wasting my time with all this futile pecking away at the keyboard.  I slammed it shut and walked away.  And the thought followed me—what about Maud?  (She is a character in my book.)  What about Kathryn and Eula Belle?  Who’s going to tell their story if you walk away?  I argued with myself—who’s going to read about them if I don’t?  Nobody!  I wonder about my sanity sometimes, arguing with myself this way.  Do you do that?  Argue back and forth—who are those voices that argue inside my head?

         In the end, I decided that it isn’t about me.  Imagine that!  It is about Maud and Eula Belle and Kathryn and all the plain people they represent.  It is about family and community and how funny and quirky and murderous life can be.  I am not Earnest Hemmingway, but this is not his story.  I may not write another word once this book is finished.  It may never see the light of day, and no one on planet Earth may ever read it.  But it is mine to do.  And I will do it.  “From my mouth to God’s ear, I swear it..”

                                 

                                  To Hemmingway with love,

                                  Jane