Musings on Salinger
During my final semester at the Missouri School of Journalism, I took a chance and signed up for Mary Kay Blakely’s Advanced Writing course. On our last day of class (my last undergraduate class), she read us a Salinger piece. While he’s one of my favorite writers, it’s one I’d overlooked. But the message is strong, and I think it says a lot about journalism, and even more about life.
You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It’s never been anything but your religion. …Since it is your religion, do you know what you’ll be asked when you die? But let me tell you first what you won’t be asked. You won’t be asked if you were working on a wonderful, moving piece of writing when you died. You won’t be asked if it’s long or short, sad or funny, published or unpublished. You won’t be asked if you were in good or bad form while you were working on it. You won’t even be asked if it was the one piece of writing you would have been working on if you had known your time would be up when it was finished…I’m so sure you’ll get asked only two questions. Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out? If only you knew how easy it would be for you to say yes to both questions. If only you’d remember before ever you sit down to write that you’ve been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart’s choice. … You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself. …Trust your heart. You’re a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you.
-From Seymour, An Introduction by JD Salinger
When she finished reading the piece, I had to stop and ask myself an important question: When was the last time I’d created a piece of writing that I would have wanted to read? Better yet, when was the last time I’d allowed myself the opportunity to write from my gut or my heart, instead of something formulaic?
Two pieces came to mind. One was a story I wrote for the Austin American-Statesman about the Women Airforce Service Pilots still living in Central Texas. The second one was my final project for Mary Kay’s class, a story I recently submitted to the New York Times’ Modern Love column.
That’s two stories out of nearly 100 written in the course of a year. Only two would I actually pick up and read myself. Coincidentally, they’re also the two that had the power to keep me awake at night and drive me to tears.
What I realized then, and am reminded of today after hearing about Salinger’s death, is that life is short, and it’s also very long. No matter which way you decide to look at it, there’s little point in wasting time half-assing things. I want to write stories that gives me the chills equally as much as I want to live a life that’s exploding with passion. For me, they’re almost one in the same.
I say all of that to say this: do what you love, love what you do, and everything else will fall into place. Tackle a passion project. Write a good story just because it needs to be written, even without knowing who you’re going to pitch it to. Volunteer your time to a good cause or two. See how the other half lives.
Live beautifully.
Salinger certainly did.