Sonya Chung has a nicely straightforward and—I want to say “warm and sane,” can I say that? Often sanity seems cold and bitter these days, or at least my attempts at it—essay over at the Millions on teaching writing:
“I think the single most defining characteristic of a writer” – I found myself saying to a friend the other day, when she asked my thoughts on the teaching of writing – “I mean the difference between a writer and someone who ‘wants to be a writer,’ is a high tolerance for uncertainty.”
I’m teaching my first undergraduate creative writing class this semester, and this week was thinking much about something like this issue, instead of “uncertainty” thinking of “curiosity & humility.” These virtues that perhaps describe all of our, and our students’, better instincts as students, as writers—when are we humble, curious, thrilled and inspired to discover ourselves uncertain; when are we merely defensive or worse, only seeking affirmation. I thought of this as I taught Kassandra and the Wolf a few weeks ago, and considered that book again, and how I never feel I’m done coming to terms with it. That novel is a gorgeous, all-in affair with uncertainty—its mysteries varied and many: like the dark breath in the back of the monster’s cave; like your mother’s locked jewelry box, where you know she keeps her letters. When we discussed the novel in class, I found what I most wanted to discuss was its power to create uncertainty in us, to keep shifting, suggesting conflicting and multiple and difficult readings, even as it can feel in us that we want to just know. What a brave book, to live so fully amid uncertainty for 140 pages, and bring so much back. To uncertainty, then—
—Hilary