Listen to where the writing wants to take you. Understand that the writing itself will often provide far richer material than your logical, predictable mind. Even more “intellect-driven” writing—for instance, a dissertation—can benefit from the cognitive leaps that occur when you stand back from the manuscript a moment and listen to your intuition.—Dinty W. Moore
The Mindful Writer by Dinty W. Moore. Wisdom Publications, 152 pp.
A popular image of the writer is of someone with heavy baggage and a disturbed ego. This stereotype does not fit Dinty W. Moore, though it would slight him, and ignore the dark notes in his memoirs, to paint him as blessedly free of background noise, as naturally ebullient.
Having gotten to know him at Ohio University, where he is now head of creative writing, I can say that, while Dinty doesn’t levitate—to my knowledge—he can bring the balm of a light touch—technically known as a nonreactive ego—to an English department’s creative writing unit.
And that’s really something to see. Because anyone can write a book, but leading a bunch of writers? That’s herding cats.
The Mindful Writer, his latest book—short, sweet meditations on writing—explains, as much as anything can, the source of his powers: an effort at spiritual discipline, an approach to writing that emphasizes exploration and discovery, a love of revision.
The book is divided into four parts: The Writer’s Mind; The Writer’s Desk; The Writer’s Vision; The Writer’s Life. Within each are brief chapters, each headed by a quote that Dinty loves about writing and which he then writes a few pages reflecting upon. For instance, this classic bon mot by Thomas Mann: “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” Writers, Dinty reflects, care about finding “the precise word, the clearest expression, and we understand that sometimes a thought needs to be revised tens or hundreds of times.”
The Mindful Writer proceeds on two tracks at once by also inquiring into the challenges of being human. This is from the Introduction:
Life is full of discontent, the Buddha told us, and that discontent (sometimes translated as suffering) comes about due to our grasping at things, our craving and clinging—the desire to make permanent what will always be fleeting. There is, however, a way to make the inescapability of discontent less problematic in our lives. The Way, the Path, is through right action, right speech, right livelihood; through living a deliberate and intentional life.
As a writer, I had learned the power of releasing my control of a story, of letting the words, the characters, the images, the mysterious underpinnings of a piece of prose take me in unexpected directions. The less I grasped at and choked my writing, the more it seemed to expand into areas that surprised and pleased not just me but the reader as well. Even my “noncreative” writing—business memos, application letters, proposals, and reports—were strengthened by this realization.
From the other end, I had seen how my ego and desires would inevitably lead me toward writer’s block and self-loathing, how worrying about critical responses or negative reactions would eventually dry up whatever creative flow I had managed to bring forth.
Dinty makes all that he does look so effortless—get an idea, write a book, move on; edit Brevity, the online journal of concise nonfiction; teach and mentor and lead workshops around the world—that it’s salutary to hear of his struggles. He tells about the time he worked on a book for four years and then abandoned it because it posed a storytelling problem he couldn’t solve. He was confused and angry, but then realized that the project had been making him miserable and he should move on. He shelved it and soon published his favorite book (which he doesn’t name but which sounds like The Accidental Buddhist).
The Mindful Writer offers these core principles, based on Buddhism’s four major precepts, for lessening angst by admitting difficulties and letting them go:
The Four Noble Truths For Writers
• The writing life is difficult, full of disappointment and dissatisfaction.
• Much of the dissatisfaction comes from the ego, from our insistence on controlling both the process of writing and how the world reacts to what we have written.
• There is a way to lessen the disappointment and dissatisfaction and to live a more fruitful writing life.
• The way to accomplish this is to make both the practice of writing and the work itself less about ourselves. To thrive, we must be mindful of our motives and our attachment to desired outcomes.
Despite this list’s surface astringency, The Mindful Writer emphasizes the writer’s joy of creating and discovering at least as much as it does the writer’s struggle and pain. But admitting that a task is hard, like admitting one’s deeper pain, is, after all, one way to stop struggling against what is and to move forward. I’ll reread this little red book many times, I’m sure, for inspiration and solace.
Dinty answered some questions for Narrative:
You were Catholic, born and bred, according to The Accidental Buddhist. Yet Buddhism seems to have given you the spiritual tools you needed, as it has so many westerners. Why?
For me, Catholicism was all about the negative—you are bad, you were born bad, you are not grateful enough for the death of Jesus, you will always be bad, you are being bad right now. This has much to do with having gone through Catholic school in the 1960s and 1970s, however, and is not necessarily an accurate reflection of the Catholic experience. I speak to contemporary Catholics and hear stories of a church which seems entirely foreign to me, and one much more open to the beautiful teachings of Jesus, rather than just the stern warnings of the Pope. But for me, there was nothing spiritual in the Catholic faith of my childhood, and nothing to guide me in any positive way. I’m not arguing that Buddhism is a better spiritual path, just that it was open to me at the right time in my life, and thank goodness for it.
If someone wants to begin a Buddhist practice, or one based upon its proven methods, such as meditation and mindfulness, what’s a good way to learn enough to go about it? In your experience, would it be best seek out teachers, or can books be sufficient?
Books are a good start—the works of Thich Nhat Hanh are wonderful and accessible, as are the books and tapes of Pema Chodron. There is also a wonderful book called Mindfulness in Plain English, by Bhanta Gunaratana. These are good places to start, but eventually I recommend finding a group to sit with, folks to talk to, and, if possible, a teacher.
Beware of any teacher that begins by over-complicating the practice, however. There are thousands of years of Asian culture wrapped up in Buddhism—Japanese or Tibetan or Sri Lankan, depending in which school of Buddhism you encounter—but cultural trappings are not the heart of Buddhism. The teaching of the man we call the Buddha, and what others have discovered through that teaching over the centuries, is what matters. There is nothing wrong with the ritual of Zen or of Tibetan Buddhism, but don’t mistake it for the spiritual message.
How has your Buddhist practice helped you live with yourself and others in more harmony?
Dinty W. Moore, in black and white
The most powerful lesson for me is that I—not others—create my own anger and annoyance, and I—not outside forces—create most of my reality. So if these phenomena are of my own creation, I have much more control over them than I previously thought.
If a co-worker is driving me up a wall, as the saying goes, it is my wall, I have assembled the wall, and I can take that wall down, brick by brick, if I choose to. Or to put it another way, I can’t expect to have any control over how my co-worker acts or what annoying remarks he repeats time and again in meetings, but what I can control is my own reaction. So instead of choosing to get all tied up in knots over certain things, that knot-tying being much of what makes me miserable and frustrated, I just shrug, literally or figuratively, and move on to the next thing. This seems so simple, but it is powerful once you internalize it, and see how easily it works to dissipate many—not all, but many—daily annoyances.
The second step—compassion—is trying to understand why the other person is acting in the way he or she acts. This person does not wake up in the morning thinking, “Gee, I’m going to annoy Dinty today and make him miserable.” The reality is something very different. Being open to hearing what the person is really asking, or what the person is really worried about, or why the person repeatedly misreads the situation, makes you open to finding a solution, and that solution may alleviate suffering for both of you, which is a good thing indeed.
I’ve been impressed by your creativity, meaning not just by your published books or their diversity but by the range of your essays—even in cutting-edge noncommercial forms like your Google Maps essay and your video essay on your genetic roots in Scotland—and by your photography. Once you even showed me a neat graphic essay about your father and grandfather. Can you speak to your efforts to be an artist in the larger sense, as someone who creates, as opposed to being someone who is a “writer” and who wants to “get published?”
I tried to be a filmmaker once, and did make a handful of small, experimental movies, and then dabbled in acting and modern dance, even performed with a small experimental dance troupe for four years. I still want to be a painter. I’d love to be a stand-up comic.
Writing seems to be the one art form I have any real talent for, however, or maybe it is just the one that I put most of my discipline and effort into. I regularly daydream about making a life in one of the other art forms. I don’t know what that means, or if it even addresses your question. But to me creativity is the asking of questions, and trying to find answers to those questions in some manner other than the purely cognitive or logical. Sure, getting published feels darn good, especially because it means more and more eyeballs are looking at what you do, but there is actually more joy in the creative process—on the good day—then there is on the publishing end of the activity.
You’ve mentioned that you write for a few hours each morning. What role does reading play in your writing practice?
Not enough lately: a common complaint of those of us who teach regularly and rigorously. I read a lot of student work, which I’m happy to do, privileged really, but my eyes aren’t getting any younger, and it is more and more difficult to keep up with all of the great writing that is out there, and the great writing that will be coming out next week. But I try. That’s all I can do. I try to read writers who don’t write like me. I try to expand my taste, to create as wide a net as possible.
My previous interview with Dinty Moore about his book on essay writing is here.
Hi! Thanks for sharing! The animal in the photo look really suffering!
Richard, once again, a beautiful and lasting entry. Dinty is indeed a wonderful and wise writer and man.
Richard, thanks for sharing this wonderful interview. I’m looking forward to reading Dinty Moore’s books and essays.
[…] came across this interesting interview with Dinty W. Moore and am looking forward to reading his new book, The Mindful Writer, as well as […]
Because of you,Richard, I found Dinty W. Moore on line and Brevity journal.Thank you. I’ve learned to pay attention to any writer you single out of the chatter of the internet. I loved the links also and watched the video and read the Google Map story with delight.
I need to get up from this table and this laptop and go meditate now. Inspired by this fine example, I will then finish a blog post. I hope to ask a few good questions today.
I love how Dinty brings the lessons of Buddhism to writing and explains it in such a clear (dare I say, Zen?) way. It’s also instructive to see how his practice is more off the cushion than on. As a Buddhist and writer, I find his insights make so much sense. I was especially struck with the connection between ego and desires and writer’s block (and self-loathing, how worrying about critical responses or negative reactions would eventually dry up whatever creative flow I had managed to bring forth).
Thanks Dinty and Richard for a great interview.
Thank you so much for posting this interview with Dinty. I follow his blog, but it was particularly nice to read his responses to questions more personal to him. Especially interesting to read his thoughts on the role of Buddhism in his life.
Great blog!
Thank you, Edith. I love the name of your blog!
Thank you Richard. I’m only a new blogger, though long-time writer, of sorts. My preference is for book reviews and creative non-fiction, the former I have written for years, the latter only a recent discovery. Still finding my way, but blogs like yours, and Dinty’s too, help me see the path I wish to follow. I have just signed up as a subscriber to your blog and feel like today is a good day! :-)