Gabfest Reads is a monthly series from the hosts of Slate’s Political Gabfest podcast. Recently, Maggie Smith talked with John Dickerson about her new book Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life. Maggie’s first love is poetry, and they discuss how to tell when your creative endeavor is complete.
This partial transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.
John Dickerson: What does it feel like when you’ve arrived with a poem—when you think it’s “done?”
Maggie Smith: There’s almost nothing better than that feeling for me. I love the working on it when it’s kind of giving me fits. I love having little mini breakthroughs with a piece of writing, when I figure out like, “Oh, it’s supposed to look like this,” or, “Oh, the beginning is the end.” But that feeling when I’m satisfied with it finally, and it seems to be doing the work it came to do, and I’m kind of getting out of its way, it’s an egoless process, frankly. It’s really about getting out of the way and loosening my white-knuckled hold on the thing as much as possible. And for me, that’s a really thrilling feeling.
When you talked about when you’re working something that’s giving you fits, is that Type 1 fun, which is to say, it’s joyous in the moment? And I know you write about joy and the necessity of joy and as a creative act, which is to say, joy is a crucial ingredient of life. But are you having joy when it’s giving you fits or is it Type 2 fun where you have joy when you have climbed the mountain and look back down on the fit that you solved?
No, I think I’m Type 1.
Oh, no. How do you do that?
It’s alarming, isn’t it? I really love creative problem solving. And I think it comes really from confidence as self-trust, right? When I’m in the weeds in a piece of writing—I mean, it could be a poem or it could be a novel; it doesn’t matter the size—when I’m in the weeds, I’m still really energized by the feeling of being in the weeds because I trust myself to get out of the weeds. And I’m excited about how I’ll do it, even if I don’t know how I’m going to do it yet.
Right, the surprise will come. And that lets you know you’re on the right road. So, was there a moment when you got to what I think I hear you describing, which is ‘I will embark upon this journey because however difficult it is, I know I will be able to work my way through it’? And that trust then is so great because you’re building power bars for yourself to make the actual journey?
Early on, because I don’t think you keep doing it if you don’t enjoy the good trouble of it, I started writing poems when I was 13 or 14 years. I would’ve stopped very quickly because it wasn’t easy then and it’s not easy now. And I think that’s one of the things that I really wanted to talk about in this book. There’s a misconception that somehow if you start something, by the time you get 30 years into your creative practice or your job or your sport or whatever the thing is that suddenly it becomes easy. And for me, writing a poem now is just as challenging as it was 30 years ago. I’m not scared of the challenge. I’m really energized by the challenge.
And that’s why I love the fact that you started our conversation by saying you were walking the walk by revising this after three years, because it means you are still engaged in the process—And in fact, taking instruction from yourself in a book about giving instruction to people in the process. In a sense, it’s proof of concept. Do writers or do people in creative acts kind of constantly have to be reminded of this? And is that just the way it goes for these core ideas?
I think so. And I think the process is the process. And there is no point—at least I have not reached the point, maybe I’m wrong—but from my experience, there’s no point at which we become exempt from the messiness. And frankly just, it’s uncomfortable to not know how you’re going to find your way through a process. I don’t care if the process is a piece of writing or not. It’s uncomfortable and there is no amount of experience that exempts us from that discomfort. So, if you don’t enjoy that discomfort, you’re not going to keep up with a creative practice. You actually have to love making things more than you love having made them.
Say that one more time. Because it’s so important.
You have to love making the thing, the act of making the thing more than you love the feeling at the end where you look back and say, “oh, I made that thing.” You have to enjoy the process more than you enjoy patting yourself on the back about having a product that you created. I mean, the most fun is the making of the thing. Once the book is done for me, I’m so ready to send it off and just start something else. Because I want that feeling again.
