Lighthouse is fortunate to have as a summer intern Sara Aboulafia from Smith College--enough to give you hope for the next generations. Here's her take on last night's Writing Voodoo Lit Fest Salon.
The Voodoo That They Do:
A Brass-Tacks Conversation with Writers at Forest Room 5
by Sara Aboulafia, Lighthouse Summer Intern
Earlier this year my school spotted me a few hundred bucks to go to the Nieman Conference of Narrative Journalism, a large get-together of industry hot-shots and hopefuls over a March weekend at The Sheraton Hotel in Boston. After a strange stint writing for a volunteer organization in New Orleans, I thought the conference would give me some idea of what the field was really all about. I would love to say I walked away from the conference with inspiration clicking at my heels as I strode headfirst into a new reporting assignment for my local newspaper. Alas, I instead left with songs of industry-lagging despair ringing in my ears: “This is a miserable field,” one famous, published-in-every-magazine-on-the-block writer told me. But after Lighthouse’s first Lit-Fest salon, “Writing Voodoo” at hip LoHi spot Forest Room 5--where guests settled into a rustic parlor-like back-room with cocktails and beer in hand--I felt a little quickening in my step.
Rather than scribbling without coming up for a breath as I did at the Nieman Conference, I listened to the panel of writers taking nary a note. The impression that I got from the panel--journalist Shari Caudron and fiction writers William Haywood Henderson and Karen Palmer--was that it was the writers’ attitude and energy that, despite the occupation’s many pitfalls and pratfalls, kept them writing. When a few members of the audience offered questions which verged on the pessimistic and glum (“What do you do when your friend tells you have to write your whole damn book again? Tell me, how do you get one of those agent-things?) all three panelists responded with good-humor, humility, and enough self-deprecation that the gathering felt less like a staged success-story performance and more like the honest, open conversation it was.
Though the salon was called “Writing Voodoo,” the writers admitted that there were, ultimately, no tried-and-true spells or tricks to writing, and that its satisfactions and tortures tended to trade hands. To demonstrate this truism, writer Shari Caudron jumped up to provide a visual aid which plotted her emotional trajectory every single time she must tackle a new story. Her poster-sized graph depicted a massive reverse-check-mark whose
top began with Excitement at the conception and beginning of a new project, moving down steeply to Despair - when she is in the midst of writing and feeling at a loss about the direction of the story--and then back up to Satisfaction--not as high up there as Excitement, but, Caudron said, a feeling much deeper than that initial elation.
When one woman asked Caudron if this graph, with its reminder that it all happens virtually the same way every time, helps her to ease into a new project, Caudron laughed; she didn’t know yet, she admitted--she had just made the poster that morning, and would have to see what happens when she put it up on her office wall. Even if Caudron doesn’t put up her monster check-mark up anytime soon, I’ll certainly keep it in mind next time I’m wallowing at the bottom tip. Ultimately, though, what I take away from the Lighthouse salon is that though such an emotional trajectory is often plotted alone, it doesn’t always have to be enjoyed and suffered through entirely by oneself--through gatherings like this one, intimate communities of writers can always get together, share war wounds and successes, commiserate, laugh, and end up at a tad more satisfied with the business of writing.
Upcoming Lit-Fest Readings and Salons
Faculty Reading, Tuesday, June 10th, 8 PM, Mercury Cafe
Mixed-Up Arts, Thursday, June 12th, 8 PM at Forest Room 5
DNC 2008, Monday, June 16th, 8 PM at Forest Room 5
A Gourmands Tale, June 20th, 6-10 PM, by the Botanic Gardens
