{"id":388,"date":"2011-01-07T21:57:18","date_gmt":"2011-01-08T04:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=388"},"modified":"2011-01-07T21:57:18","modified_gmt":"2011-01-08T04:57:18","slug":"all-or-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/388","title":{"rendered":"All Or Nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day: meditation, chocolate, a glass of port wine, and flirting with young men.\u201d Beatrice Wood at age 98 on her secret to longevity<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m never drinking coffee again,\u201d said my friend, reciting his New Year\u2019s resolutions. \u201cAnd no more alcohol. And I\u2019m off all sugar. And I\u2019m joining a health club and I\u2019m gonna work out for at least an hour a day, every day. Without fail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWow,\u201d I said, having heard similar declarations from this fellow before. \u201cSounds draconian.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook,\u201d he said, piqued by my hint of sarcasm, \u201cit\u2019s all or nothing with me. One cup of coffee, I\u2019m hooked again. One piece of chocolate, I\u2019m a goner.\u201d He glared at his big round tummy. \u201cModeration doesn\u2019t work for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere can only be one winner, but isn\u2019t that the American way?\u201d Gig Young<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve often thought ALL OR NOTHING could be our national motto, for the concept infects virtually every aspect of our political, economic, social, and emotional lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way I can figure out what I really think about anything is to write about it.\u201d Norman Mailer<\/em><\/p>\n

Throughout the 1990\u2019s I worked with hundreds of writers to help them improve their writing. Some were beginners, some were advanced, and several were published authors, but they all began their time with me by confiding that they felt like failures because they did not write for at least two hours every day and produce piles of inspired prose as prescribed by those iconic books about how to be a writer. I will not name these bestsellers, for you may own one or two of them and believe they possess some value. I will only testify that these tomes have dampened the spirits and aspirations of countless writers rather than helping them in any meaningful way.<\/p>\n

To those who have been wounded by such knuckleheaded all-or-nothing strategies, I offer the following insight. The most straightforward way I know of to establish a writing practice is to make writing your habit. There are many ways to become habituated to writing, but the underlying mechanism for developing any habit is to do the thing, the would-be habit, on a regular basis. For instance, I have a habit of making a cup of herb tea every morning after I get the fire going, and then I drink the tea whilst considering what lies ahead. This making and having a cup of tea every morning became my habit because I did it almost every day until the making and drinking became routine. The same holds true for establishing a writing practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most beautiful words in the English language are \u201cYou\u2019ve lost weight.\u201d Christopher Buckley<\/em><\/p>\n

My father helped establish a clinic at Stanford Children\u2019s Hospital for psychosomatically ill children and adolescents. These kids are so ill they have to be hospitalized or they might die. The vast majority of the patients in this clinic are starving themselves to death for fear of being fat; or as one psychotherapist put it, for fear of not being skinny enough.<\/p>\n

What I found most interesting in learning about these anorexics was that nearly all of them quickly improved once they got away from their families and schools and television, and many of them just as quickly relapsed when they returned to the outside world. What could be going on in our society to make so many young people feel they cannot be skinny enough, while so many other people are eating themselves into morbid obesity? I see the twin epidemics of anorexia and obesity as symptoms of the all or nothing nature of our society.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart\u2019s desire. The other is to get it.\u201d George Bernard Shaw<\/em><\/p>\n

There is a movie by Cameron Crowe called Singles<\/em>. I haven\u2019t watched the film since it came out in 1992, but the scene I remember most vividly (and my memory may have rewritten the scene somewhat) involves a character played by Bridget Fonda who wants to have her breasts enlarged because she believes her boyfriend played by Matt Dillon will love her more and not be interested in other women if she, Bridget\u2019s character, has much larger breasts.<\/p>\n

So she goes to a doctor who specializes in breast enhancement and the doctor falls in love with her at first sight and thinks she\u2019s perfect just as she is. Oblivious to the doctor\u2019s romantic interest in her, Bridget and the doctor stand shoulder-to-shoulder staring into a computer screen where a drawing of a woman\u2019s torso and head can be manipulated with a dial to make the breasts grow larger or smaller. At first the drawing displays girlish breasts the size of Bridget\u2019s breasts, and Bridget turns the knob to make the breasts grow larger and larger until each breast is nearly as big as the head of the woman in the drawing. Then the doctor spins the knob the other way and the breasts shrink to the size of Bridget\u2019s breasts, and then Bridget commandeers the knob and makes the breasts bigger. Back and forth. All or nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.\u201d Saul Bellow<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cTodd is a writer,\u201d said a hostess introducing me to a well-heeled couple at her party. And then, winking ironically, our hostess fled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWritten any bestsellers?\u201d smirked the man.<\/p>\n

\u201cHoney,\u201d said his wife, nudging him. \u201cDon\u2019t be rude.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s rude? Maybe he has. Have you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I said, feeling a strange admixture of shame and a desire to punch the guy in the nose. \u201cNot yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGet on Oprah,\u201d said the man, nodding authoritatively. \u201cThat\u2019s the way to do it. She tells the world she loves your stuff, you\u2019re a made man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll give her a call,\u201d I said, looking for the nearest exit.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wish,\u201d said the man, snorting.<\/p>\n

A silence fell and the chasm of all or nothing opened between us.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.\u201d John Emerich Dalberg-Acton<\/em><\/p>\n

I will never forget a long ago conversation I had with two writers, a woman from France and a man from Germany. This was in 1982, but the scene is still vivid in my mind. We were sitting in a modest caf\u00e9 in Santa Monica, sipping wine and discussing our shared passion: movies. The next thing I knew, these charming people were sincerely trying to convince me to move to Europe because, as the woman put it, \u201cYour government is doomed to fascism, and as your government goes, so goes your culture. Can\u2019t you see? If you have only these two identical parties, there can be no voice for socialism. This is why the big corporations are buying the movie studios. To promote their agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBesides,\u201d said the man, who admired my stories and plays, \u201cthere is no place for your writing here. You will have an audience in Europe. Your work is character-driven, as the agents like to call anything even slightly nuanced, which is the kiss of death in Hollywood. But in Germany we love stories about real people. Everything here is a cartoon now. You should come to Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour work is too subtle,\u201d said the woman, sighing. \u201cAnd your characters are not predictable. They hate us to be unpredictable here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will be ignored. Come to Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOr France,\u201d said the woman, smiling assuredly. \u201cWe will sponsor you, and within a year you will have a play produced, I\u2019m sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can make a living as a writer in Europe,\u201d said the man, nodding. \u201cYou might not get rich, but you can make a living with your craft. Isn\u2019t that what you want?\u201d<\/p>\n

But I was too enamored of the vision of rising from nothing and getting it all\u2014uncompromising art and<\/em> riches; so I stayed in America and rode the rollercoaster of my career up and down, mostly down, to this roughly level ground where I stand today, a habitu\u00e9 of these hinterlands, writing because it is my habit and my passion, sharing these words with you through the auspices of our instantaneously reactive Universe that loves everything from the tiniest Nothing to the grandest of Alls. Or so I like to think.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice\u2014there are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.\u201d Frank Zappa<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cEvery day: meditation, chocolate, a glass of port wine, and flirting with young men.\u201d Beatrice Wood at age 98 on her secret to longevity \u201cI\u2019m never drinking coffee again,\u201d said my friend, reciting his New Year\u2019s resolutions. \u201cAnd no more alcohol. And I\u2019m off all sugar. And I\u2019m joining a health club and I\u2019m gonna […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[757,752,761,759,758,756,63,604,603,754,764,760,755,763,753,762],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":391,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions\/391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}