Annie Dillard

“You cannot fill in the vision. You cannot even bring the vision to light. You are wrong if you think that you can in any way take the vision and tame it to the page. The page is jealous and tyrannical; the page is made of time and matter; the page always wins. The vision is not so much destroyed, exactly, as it is, by the time you have finished, forgotten. It has been replaced by this changeling, this bastard, this opaque lightless chunky ruinous work."

- Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

I feel embarrassed to admit I was not familiar with Annie Dillard until just recently. And now, I feel a pull to obsess over her until I know her work inside and out. This quote above is everything. It demonstrates perfectly the idea in one of my earlier posts that a creator is largely unable to produce a perfect image (whether that be in written form, a painting, a drawing, a piece of music) of the initial idea or inspiration that had been in their mind. Perhaps there are experts who are so fluent in their craft that their art does flow through them and exists in the world as a perfect fabrication they had intended. But, I tend to believe that perfection does not truly exist, so even with the slightest change this becomes moot. And, are the details so vivid and complete within one’s mind that this can even be a conscious or fruitful endeavor? Such a juicy concept to sink one’s teeth into.

Particularly with writing, I find, that a story moves and changes as we do during the time it takes to write. From one day to the next we are ever-evolving so our perspectives shift; if we are not too stubborn to allow this process to unfold. Emotions and thoughts process and new realizations are made. This undoubtedly comes through in our work. Perhaps this is why it often feels ‘cringy’ to look back at old work. It reminds us of our naivety - where we had once been in our growth process.

I adore the word “bastard” in Dillard’s quote. It denotes anger directed at the lack of control she had over the externalization of her original vision. The life work can take on of its own accord. It makes me giggle to myself thinking of a writer being so annoyed with the idea that a piece of their writing had been rebellious. As though the writer had not been at the helm throughout.

Lately I’ve been working on my novel and though I have a structure of where I know I want the story to go I sit down and let the details come to me. It often feels like it does have a life of its own but I appreciate that. It’s as though the characters have the life I’ve developed for them and they are letting me know what decisions they are making within that context. Sometimes I’m surprised by the choices they seem to make and even as the writer I’m thinking, “that won’t end well.” It’s curious and fantastic that a character can be rebellious of its own creator.

It reminds me also of a talk Elizabeth Gilbert gave during which she referenced Greek and Roman beliefs that either “daemons” (as referenced by Socrates) or “genius” were behind the creativity that flowed through humans and into their work. Little magical creatures to whom the credit of imagination went. If a human’s creative work had success the genius had risen to the challenge. If the work failed…well then, the genius just hadn’t been up to the task.

Elizabeth Gilbert had been trying to find a more productive way to create distance between herself and her work as a means of self-preservation. But, I think this concept applies to the idea that inspired work takes on a life of its own. And, what a fun dynamic to play with in whatever way creativity shows up in our lives.