Having been interested in the craft of writing and the writing life for around five years now, I’ve set out to collect and read as many good books on the topic as I can. Some books are fairly indispensable on the subject, such as John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction, Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life, Robert Boswell’s The Half-Known World, and Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer.
There are other books that are not so good, and plenty that while helpful, tread the same territory as those that have come before them, not adding anything new or memorable to the discussion. Saying anything with originality and genuine beauty is difficult, but creating a work that instructs while also stamping itself onto the reader’s mind like good poetry is something altogether more challenging and uncommon.
L.L. Barkat’s latest book Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity and Writing achieves the latter, and with great reward to the reader. Along with Rumors of Water, Barkat is the author of the spiritual memoirs God in the Yard: Spiritual Practice for the Rest of Us, and Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places, as well as the book of poetry InsideOut, and she is the Staff Writer for The International Art Movement’s The Curator. As someone who also wants a life dedicated to art and faith, I find Barkat a kindred spirit.
Growing up in church while also attending a private Presbyterian elementary, I became well-acquainted with instruction on faith and life. There were those in the classroom and pulpit who could actually tell a story, and make God and the teachings of Jesus more tangible and applicable to the life, thus capturing my attention and influencing my perspective. And there were others who, sadly, left me bored and more inclined toward rebellion. I draw this parallel to Barkat because the essays in Rumors of Water remind me of sermons in every best sense, making the characteristics of the writing life and the discipline necessary to live one more concrete and lucid, and she does so in such a way that makes the artist want to create.
Barkat’s writing urges the reader to uncover all that is glowing in the given day, to hear “the orchestra of life” as Barry Hannah once put it. Earlier in the year, I read Marilyn Chandler McEntyre’s excellent book Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies, wherein she states that we read literature because literature gives us “equipment for living.” I can think of no better way to describe Rumors of Water than as a book that provides the hopeful creative with equipment for living, and subsequently, material for creating. Barkat underscores an important truth: the way in which the artist lives will most definitely determine the way in which the artist creates.
Like any good sermon or work of art, Rumors of Water is a lesson in paying attention. Each essay is full of sharp images, rendered with a poet’s heart and eye, but the book isn’t reduced only to how an artist’s eyes need to be wide open. Rather, the work also deals with the issues of forming right habits, finding voice, grappling with rejection, networking genuinely with other artists and editors, and even the benefits of taking such publishing routes as Print on Demand–a means that we booksellers know may be finding more traction as the industry continues to change. In each essay Barkat illustrates the many correlations between her own deliberate living and the creative process: correlations available to every artist with the patience, faith, and willpower to create. In probably my favorite piece “Watering the White Moth: Writing Takes Time”, Barkat states:
As I water the garden, I think of my dark-haired girl–Sara, who weeded and planted and worked this ground. I think of the spray from the hose, how it sometimes stirs a white moth from the grass. The moth might rise into the arc of the temporary rainbow made by my watering. But there is no moth today.
…I believe a writer can make writing happen, sit down and stir from grass or leaves or snow. But I also believe it takes time to write. Each book I’ve written, in some sense, could not have been written before its time. The white moths were not ready to rise.
There is no hurry. The things we cannot write about today, we will surely find we can write about tomorrow. We should not worry about the process, but simply trust it and move on. After all, we contain fields upon fields of stories we’ve rehearsed over time. We must recognize that these are the ready ones, the now-stories.
When I stand at the edge of the garden, I water with a certain kind of faith–that the water I am spraying now will make Sara’s basil grow, that this rainbow in my hands is beautiful and is enough for today, that somewhere between clovers and strawberries is a white moth that may yet rise. (151-153)
Passages like these are what make Barkat’s work so much better than the average book on craft. She provides careful insight to unraveling the snags that every writer encounters, providing illustrations from her own life, illustrations that not only are authentic, but genuinely hopeful, finding collation in the life of the reader: again, the stuff of good sermons. We are not only informed about craft; we are invited to find our own rising moths, to, as Frederick Buechner says, “listen to our lives,” and then with faith and determination, go and do the work.
With Rumors of Water I am pleased to discover one more indispensable book on craft. It is indispensable for its wisdom, for its understanding that good stories are crafted from a life well lived. I will return to Barkat’s work often. Even if you have no interest in the writing life or craft, I encourage you to purchase Barkat’s book simply for its ability to rustle things from the heart: awe, vision, and appreciation for creation and existence—characteristics our culture desperately needs to recover. In a world where the authentic well appears to have run dry, Barkat intrudes upon the prophetic: for those who have heard rumors of water, she points us to a river of life.
Visit L.L. Barkat’s blog here. -Ellis
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