Why Writers Write-- from Writer Friends of Mine-- Goddard Graves

I remember Goddard Graves as one of the most erudite people at my high school. 

The school had its own FM station, which broadcast from a strange room that was the only one on the fifth floor, and I occasionally found myself tuning in after school -- and often disagreeing with Goddard violently but unable to help admire his wide ranging knowledge ( for instance, he had one show on the first act Finale Ensembles of operas and he used an example how Kurt Weill handled it in "The Threepenny Opera" as opposed to something Mozart had done. It was pretty damn impressive and I listened to it resentfully because of our disagreements but also with a certain awe ).

I have been back in touch with him for a while.. like a lot of my high school classmates, he has had a rather incredibly rich and varied Life...

I have yet to read Goddard's book because he has sent it to me and it has not arrived yet. I have been warned it is of formidable length..

 So, here is Goddard about writing in his own words--

       All-right, Larry.  Since you asked with such grace, and, since I'm weather-bound and ill, I guess I had better redeem my pledge to answer your query about "inspiration".  Let me make it clear at the outset that I don't think of myself as a writer, but rather as a person who writes.  The distinction should be pretty clear, but lest there be any doubt, I regard a writer as one who puts writing at or near the top of his or her life-tasks, whether for love or money.  I have never thought I could or should write for a living, and have a pretty strong suspicion of those who do.  Neither do I have that prophetic/messianic belief that I am called to shower my golden words, like so much verbal manna, on a word-starving world.   I do, however, answer the call to write if and when it comes, and regard with at-least as much if not more seriousness as I would were I dependent on my scribbling to put bread (and wine, and candles, and fresh fruit in season) on my table.  
        There have never been professional writers in my family, though my Uncle Henry Tenney was a gifted amateur travel- and sports-writer, beyond his considerable gifts in occasional compositions for various business and fraternal purposes.  His own father, Horace Kent Tenney was likewise a gifted weekend writer whose two published books well repay investigation by those industrious enough to find them.  Between the time you and I knew first each other and now, I have written considerable political writing pro bono public, but also written ad-copy and arts reviews for money. 
       But all of that changed, qualitatively and quantitatively, in late 2003, when a priest-friend asked to work-up a Sunday school lesson based on the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel.  Given the prevailing Biblical illiteracy of our times, sadly including many of the readers of this blog, I should point-out that the actual episode in the Book of Genesis is actually very brief, and just sort-of drops-off into nowhere.  Vividly recalling my own days as a nine-year-old, I knew I'd better expand it a bit, if there were to be any hope of keeping the young'ns' interest.  The result was my kids' story "Fred and Floss at the Big Job", attempting to tell the famous tale from the point of view of the workers on that job, and offering some speculations on what actually caused the Scriptural "confusion of tongues".  Loved every minute of it, but never thought to repeat the endeavor.
       Right.  Four months later, or ten years from tomorrow as I write this, I woke-up from a sound sleep, and in my head was the plot, with complete cast of characters plus setting-details, of what I then naively thought would make a dandy 64- to 96-page novella.  Ha.  First you commit yourself, and then you see.
       And now we get to the heart of the matter.  It is obvious in retrospect that I'd had a lot on my mind, and that this was the time to deal with them.  Some happy souls may know the wonderful song by The Osborne Brothers, "These are just some things I'd like to sing about".  I understood that perfectly, and realized that I might not have my voice forever.  So I wrote, and wrote, and wrote.  What emerged  5 1/2 years later in my Harmony Junction is, then,  a kind of spiritual estate-sale -- without the painful necessity of my dying.  It is also, among many other things, a love-song to many people who richly deserve it.  My only regret is that some of those people didn't live long enough to savour the finished product.
       Will there be more?  There already is, but very different from the aforementioned 688-page visionary prose work.  I have a series of light-hearted sketches, on a variety of subjects from bird-watchers to that far-from light-hearted master-writer George Eliot (one called "Help me, Deronda").  Will I write more?  Certainly.  Even simultaneously with the writing of what became HJ, I was considering the further adventures of Harry, Colin, and their friends, and indeed have about 120 pages quietly ripening.  I have some radically different projects, including a speculative historical piece about the old Wobbly Phil Engle, also a re-write of some earlier pieces, and maybe the resurrection of some folklore-essays originally scattered like so many thistle-seeds among obscure music--journals, record-collectors, and harmless lost souls.
     Since I have never intended to make money from any of this, I am in the happy position of not worrying about editors, critics, or other marginal life-forms.  Call me -- call us -- egotistical, but Stendhal had it right when he dedicated some of his work to "the happy few".  Naturally, if my stuff finds it way into more hands than less -- and I have print-readers from Australia to Serbia -- I am happy.  But without that, I'm still happy.  When it stops being fun, or driven by inner needs, I stop.  Would that more writers did that too. 
        While it may not appear relevant, I cannot sign-off without mentioning something here.  I am pretty pessimistic about the state of the arts today, and their embattled place in a broader society which is itself in melt-down.  From time to time one hears about the need to "defend the arts".  All too soon this spins off into a shoving-match for the best teat on the grants or foundation udder.  My take is simple:  defend the arts by doing them.  I'm no Stendhal, or Goethe, or even Ed Doctorow, but by golly, I experience genuine pleasure, and I don't feel self-important reading my own stuff in preference to much that I encounter from many living writers.  Publishing is merely a way to share the love, but like "real" love itself, I would loathe that it be associated with guile, or falsity, or self-interest.  End of sermon.  Thanks for your interest, Larry and blog-congregants.  -- Goddard Graves (E-mail to harmonyjunction@live.ca)