I'd like to comment on A MOLLUSK WITHOUT A SHELL
An anthology of essays on self-care for writers
I don’t know why the term “self-care” makes me feel squishy. Perhaps it is the residue of a culture that’s about hustle and productivity, and after years of operating under those auspices, some of the toxic philosphy still clings to me. The mindset is curious, as I’ve long believed in the worth of compassion. Doesn’t compassion extend to self-compassion?
However, one of the editors of this collection is Mary Biddinger, a poet I much admire, and so I pre-ordered the book, secure in the knowledge that any project of Biddinger’s would be worth my attention.
The collection is small but substantial, born of the pandemic and, as many things that came to us via COVID, turns out to be more essential than one might suspect. There are many books by writers on the writing life. These essays comprise a collection that speaks directly to the well-being of writers, which strikes me as a particularly important nuance. As much as I might have found some commonalities with or wisdom within a book like Richard Russo’s The Destiny Theif, his trajectory as a writer has little, if anything, in common with mine. It was a book about a writer’s life, not the writing life most of us manuever. A Mollusk Without a Shell, on the other hand, is like having conversation with a group of other writers who are more like me. I see shared struggle in these pages, which comforts.
The essays and editor’s preface all have offerings worth indulging in, and here I’ll just be showcasing a few words of wisdom that specifically spoke to me upon this reading. I see A Mollusk Without A Shell as a book that will live on my shelf, or my writing desk, as a regular go-to, and on any of those readings another essay, another fellow traveler on this journey of words, may speak to me in a way that is important and relevant (as all the essays do). As the editors, wrote, “We present this collection of ten essays as a compation for anyone who needs to protect and fortify their writer selves,” a declaration which strikes me as not only relating to me, but most writers I know.
The first essay, by Charles Jensen, articulates a concept in it that immediately resonated: time as the currency of writing. I think this express idea of currency—a medium of exchange—is critical. I’ve long thought of time as a precious resource, but this idea of exhange really hit home for me. Because we often trade our time for money, but maybe we don’t often think of our writing valued in quite the same way as our jobs (with their incomes), since writing is a notoriously difficult way to earn a living, and because many of us have writing-related and writing-adjacent jobs (and some of us jobs that allow us the work of writing). Reading Jensen, I thought currency was exactly the right metaphor I should be using. And in this line of thinking, Jensen reminds us, “Time is precious. We can’t earn more of it. And it gets spent whether we’re intentional about it or not. Therefore, be intentional.”
Another important aspect of writing self-care is the relationship between reading and writing that Jenny Sadre-Orafai writes about. In writing about the change in the level of quiet, or lack of it, in a house working with her artist husband, she writes, “The first year, I couldn’t concentrate. Not only was I not writing, but I was also unable to read.” Like Sadre-Orafai, my writing and reading are linked. Usually, before a particularly fruitful writing time, my reading increases exponentially. In a culture that tends to devalue the act of reading, it can be difficult to explain how prolific reading is the preamble to productive writing, but it shouldn’t be difficult at all. Just as later Sadre-Orafai writes about being in communion with another artist at a residency, comforted in how this other person worked and in their walks together, reading is our surest way to be in conversation with other writers, if at a distance. It all speaks to a great desire for connection as part of a creative process. Sadre-Orafai calls it “wayfinding.”
In a similar way, Suzanne Frischkorn’s essay, which draws important parallels between the natural world and the creative ones, also finds care in the conversations she has with other artists. Noting that she had strayed from her creative community, Frischkorn writes:
That I strayed so far from a creative life is a testament to how easy it is to get caught up in the mundanties of living and the many other obligations demanding our attention. It’s important for poets to recognize what nourishes their creativity, prioritize what replenshises it, and respect the time needed to implement it. It’s vital for poets to embrace wonder and to cherish their like-minded friends.
Maybe it’s because I’ve chosen to step away from academia at the end of this semester, but these words really rang true for me. And also, I will always think of Frischkorn whenever I look at a sugar maple, because it was in this essay that I also learned they can live for three hundred years. Wonder!
I often think of other people’s words as gifts to me, and in this case, each essay offered me something I needed, or something that I’ve chewed on long past the reading. To care for the creative self might not be commensurate with the hustle culture we find ourselves in, but it surely is something all creative people must do to replenish and nourish ourselves. A Mollusk Without A Shell invites us to think on these ideas with the express purpose of our writerly well-being. Finally, each author offers a prompt, some connected expressly or obliquely to the essay they’ve contributed, which can help when the creative wellspring feels a bit parched.
Odds and Ends
April is National Poetry Month, and as such, this year I’m trying to write a poem a day for every day of April. Seven days in and I’m still on course, and if not every line is a gem than at least it’s an attempt. As they say, good practice.
A lovely if audacious Washington Post opinion piece probes our contemporary context for reading: “Why is the act of reading in the daytime considered so disruptive to life’s predictable, often unnecessary routines? It’s almost as though people would rather write than read. Millions of books, including self-published titles, are issued every year. But, according to an Economist/YouGov poll, 46 percent of Americans did not read a book last year.” Yikes! So, I applaud anyone who takes up day-reading.
After listening to an engaging talk on the composer Hector Berlioz, I found myself drawn to listening to Symphonie Fantastique. The story of this work resists summary, but perhaps the story and the music resonate with those who might also be in need of creative inspiration (although maybe skip the opium delirium aspect?).