I don’t hear that much this day of the writer as an artist. We still refer to a painter or a sculptor or a pianist as an artist but the writer and the artist have been disconnected. We associate art with the creation of something beautiful that will exist either in space like a painting or in time like a musical composition. But if we, as writers of fiction, communicate a vision of ourselves as artists, as creators of beauty, we are taken as snobbish. Perhaps the problem is that beauty is so hard to define. As a writer I like this definition by John Keats: “Beauty is truth and truth is beauty.” Truly, that is all I need to know. To the extent that I am truthful in what I write, to the extent that my characters are real, to the extent that I do not over-simplify, to the extent that I do not stay on the surface but dig deep and even deeper in myself and in all life where truth resides, to that extent I am creating something that is beautiful.
A writer is like any other artist in that they both share the same impulse to create something beautiful. Say that you are fifteen and you want to be a writer. Where does this “want” come from? Do you want to write short-stories or poems or a science fiction novel because you want to impress your friends or, even worse, impress that special boy or girl you have your eye on? It’s okay if you do. If this is the only reason you want to write, you will in a few months move on to other activities that have a greater chance of impressing others and are less painful (like football or Lacrosse or cross country running, or hitting your head against a wall!). But if there is a restlessness in you, a kind of fever to create something that is beautiful (truthful) then you better get a notebook or sit at your computer and start writing. Here’s a test as to whether this restlessness you feel is truly an artistic impulse. Do you always feel a certain dissatisfaction after you finished writing even when you know you wrote your best? You tried your hardest but you still feel you missed what you wanted to say. If so, stick around and keep writing, you are the proud owner of an artistic impulse. Congratulations and I’m sorry. You have been given a gift and a burden.
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