Turning Limitations into Advantages: Writing as I Go
May 29, 2020 § 38 Comments
By Barry Casey
About 15 years ago, after a divorce, mid-way through a teaching career and suddenly alone with my books, I looked at them and thought, “Alright, time to earn your keep.” All these books, many of which I had not read yet, were calling me, so I began keeping a common book, a journal for writing down quotes and ideas from the books I was reading. History, politics, theology, ethics, philosophy, social issues—I was reading up and writing down what I learned, what intrigued me.
So I began blogging.
In the evenings, after I’d finished grading my communications and philosophy courses, I’d jot down interesting sentences I’d come across. Then on Friday nights I’d choose one as an epigram and look for two or three quotes from authors in wildly disparate fields—the farther apart the better. Eric Hoffer and William Blake, Thoreau and John Stuart Mill, Emerson and Albert Camus, Thomas Merton and Nietzsche. The pleasure was in pulling together ideas from opposite ends of the spectrum and creating an essay that made sense and sparkled.
I’d start about nine p.m., write for four hours, post it, and go to bed. I rarely rewrote. The ideas were pouring out of me. It was exhilarating. I called the blog “Wretched Success” because I liked the way it sounded.
Three years later came another fracture. The president of our small college took a position at another university and a new president was imposed on us. He alienated almost everybody. Within three months he had slashed several departments and, without cause, fired two of my colleagues in our department. I resigned in protest.
Without a job, but with a wonderful woman as my fiancée, it felt like a leap and a liberation. In the next couple of years we married and I took an interim position directing a faculty development program at a local university.
When that was up, I began adjunct teaching. That meant hours of commuting and teaching five or six classes per semester at three universities. At the end of every week I was exhausted. I stopped writing. Whatever fountain of creativity I’d enjoyed had dried up.
But I knew I still had much to explore, so eventually I began again, in a herky-jerky fashion, a paragraph here and there between classes. This time around I found that the words did not flow; the ideas came laboriously. It was difficult.
Instead of splashing together ideas for the sheer joy of it, I was struggling. It felt like hearing voices through a wall, but not clearly enough to make out the words. I needed some structure, some idea of form. Perhaps what I lacked in spontaneity I could gain back by adapting within my limitations.
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means,” Joan Didion once wrote. That became my touchstone and the subtitle to my new blog, Danteswoods.com—“Writing to see what I think.”
I began reading essays voraciously, like Philip Lopate’s The Art of the Personal Essay, Samuel Johnson’s essays from The Spectator and The Rambler, and favorites from Didion, A. C. Grayling, George Orwell, and Emerson. I began to see patterns, new approaches, ways to begin and to conclude. It was exhilarating all over again.
I discovered that what I needed to start writing was a phrase, a fragment, that could serve as an evocative title. Or, more often, an epigram would set me on a trail to answer a question. I took Didion’s line seriously, asking myself what I honestly thought, felt, understood, about what I was reading, what I was experiencing. At the same time, I fostered a kind of innocence, an openness to going where my curiosity led me, to follow the path the narrative was carving through the underbrush.
Sometimes, I got stuck. I couldn’t find a finger-hold on this sheer cliff of an empty page. In those times, my fallback was Annie Dillard’s first sentence in her 1989 book, The Writing Life: “When you write, you lay out a line of words.” That was often enough to give me the jump-start that I needed. And I knew that the first few paragraphs were not the beginning of the essay—they were the warm-up act for the real one.
Almost three years ago, I was offered a weekly column, writing for an international publication on spirituality and faith. Every week I would explore something I had been wrestling with in my own experience. Often, I would imagine my way into one of the Gospel stories, trying to feel the intensity of a first-century encounter with an itinerant healer named Jesus. My essays took on a lyrical aspect as I immersed myself in Albert Camus’ Lyrical and Critical Essays, and those of his mentor, Jean Grenier. From Christian Wiman’s My Bright Abyss and Mark Oakley’s The Splash of Words, I learned the value of a singular thought amplified and collaged with other fragments into a whole. I took my time, choosing my words, cutting and rearranging paragraphs, spending time on the details.
Just over a year ago I retired from teaching after 37 years. In November 2019, my first collection of essays, Wandering, Not Lost: Essays on Faith, Doubt, and Mystery, was published by Wipf & Stock. I am finishing up a second collection and working on a book about Albert Camus with a friend in England.
I am grateful for the mentorship of a myriad of writers to whom I am unknown. And I’ve learned to adapt to my process of writing and claim it as my own. My limitations become advantages when I work with them, not against them.
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Barry Casey is retired after 37 years of teaching philosophy and communications. He writes a bi-weekly column for Spectrum Magazine and is a contributing writer for Mountain News in Colorado. His first collection of essays, Wandering, Not Lost: Essays on Faith, Doubt, and Mystery was published in 2019 by Wipf and Stock.
Congratulations on your retirement, Barry! It’s great you’re finally doing what you love. I thoroughly enjoyed your article. How’s that project on Camus going? If you ever need a proofreader…
Thank you, Lee! The Camus project is proceeding apace, through email and Zoom, with my friend in Wokingham, England. I will keep your offer in mind!
What a wonderful story. Good luck to you Barry on the next project!
Thanks, Ryder. It’s great being part of this Brevity community.
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This is so inspiring and just what I needed to read this morning. Thank you for sharing your story.
Thank you! I hope you can carry that inspiration through your day.
Excellent, Barry. You are a prophetic voice!
Thanks, Ray, for the opportunity to write.
Reblogged this on Dante's Woods.
Wonderful story and , as always, love reading your writing (love talking to you … when possible …). Keep up and good luck with everything!
Thanks, Lidija! Miss talking to you folks too . . .
Thanks for sharing your story, Barry. It is encouraging to hear about your journey. And your book sounds intriguing. The title reminds me of a Leslie Newbigin book I thoroughly appreciated.
Thanks, David. This is such a welcoming community to share such a journey. And I think you might enjoy my book.
DO i need to say that you write so beautifully? I can see you think, so Joan was right 🙂 Congratulations on your book and the new innings in your life. God Bless.
Thank you, that means a lot. And which of the Joans’ were you talking to? 😁
Fantastic–that I can read your essays and that you have the mental equipment and organization sufficient to surge beyond the 280 character limit that is so headline worthy these days. Keep thinking, Barry! Keep writing!
Thank you! I’ll do my best . . .
thanks a lot to share your story, i really like your essay, its make me feel to write again..
Ah, that’s wonderful! Go for it. We all need some inspiration along the way.
Thanks for your inspiring story, Barry. Have you read Gerald Murnane’s books? His writing deeply fascinated me.
I’m glad to have shared it. And thanks for this reference; I don’t know that author, but I’ll look him up.
Considered as one of the greatest authors of Australia. Also tipped for the Nobel Prize. He’s not an easy read as he tears up all meaning of fiction and smashes through the convention. “The Plains”, “Border Districts” and “A Million Windows” are his best books apart from his short stories.
Sounds like a good challenge. I put one of his books on my wish list so I wouldn’t forget him. So many books, so little time! Thanks for letting me know.
You’re welcome, Barry. Am waiting for your take on him. Have a nice day, and stay safe!!
Wonderful story❤🥀💫
Thank you, Noorien!
My pleasure connecting with you 🥀💯❤💫🙂
Very inspiring! I hope to use my new blog as a platform for healing myself and others ❤
Good for you!
Many parallels here to my own sojourn. I applaud your resiliency and your faith, maybe branches of the same tree. Tomorrow when I sit at my writing desk and search for my own strength I’ll draw much support from your words, and your deeds. Thank you, brother.
Wonderful! We need all the inspiration and support we can get, eh? Thanks for your comments, Dr.!
Absolutely love your story and your journey! Thank you for sharing and continuing.
Thank you, Pamela! Best wishes on your journey as well.
Awesome, life is interesting ey?
It is indeed!
I love your writing. Very easy to engage!
Sounds like the type of writing I used to do.
Would you say your best advice to a want to be writer is to find encouragement and peace?
Encouragement and peace are always welcome! But there’s no substitute for sitting down and laying out a line of words.