/karen/

Mr Holland’s Opus

Friday, 19 May, 2006

I worry sometimes that I depress my boss. Yesterday in the kitchenette we were having a conversation about writing fiction and Mr Holland's Opus which we both agreed was extremely schmaultzy and clichéd but which still had a bit of an impact on us anyway because we knew that we could both end up like that.

“And then I think of Elizabeth Jolley,” I said, “who didn't start writing books 'til she was, what, 60?” Maybe she had more time after the kids left home? That's one of the good things about writing: unlike modelling or ballet, you do it even when your joints creak and your teeth are falling out.

He pointed out that she probably started earlier but didn't get published 'til then. And then we started talking about all the projects that we're like to do, resigning in Lucien's libary (Lucien, for non-Sandman readers, was the King of Dreams librarian. His library contains all the books that ever were—published and unpublished. There is quite a nice scene in one of the books [except I've forgotten which] where he sits reading a novel that a little old lady used to enjoy writing in her head as she drank her cup of tea by the fire of an evening.)

Here are some of mine (mostly half-germinated):

• An allegory of Beauty and the Beast;
• A fantasy novel in a world resembling the age in which the Book of Revelation was written;
• A series of short science fiction stories about the church in the future (possibly in graphic novel form);
• Bridget James' Diary;
• children's books;
• a book on love and relationships for teenagers using Al Stewart's talks.

Talking to my boss raised the question of priorities. Is it better to spend time writing a novel which seeks to tell people the gospel indirectly to introduce them to Christianity when a book like John Dickson's Hanging in There would sell far more copies world-wide and explains Christianity so much more clearly? But it shouldn't be a question of pragmatics, should it? Should it?

I went home that afternoon feeling like I'd end up like Mr Holland—sacrificing my dreams of what I'd like to do with my time for the greater good—the good of other people. It's not that writing was ever a tightly-held dream anyway. Writing is something I've just been doing for years. When I was in Year 5, I wrote my first “book” (which should never be read by anyone). I wrote my second in Year 8 which was a fantasy novel set under the sea and reads like a badly-drawn cartoon. I wrote my third at the beginning of Year 9? Year 10? which was a gift for a friend I am no longer in touch with (it was teen fiction and it was completely unrealistic but I had fun doing it). And when I graduated from high school, none of the other courses at Uni really interested me except writing (with English as a complement. Although at one point I considered being an architect—how funny!)

And I never pushed myself very hard to write stuff. I wasn't like my friend from Uni who did writing with me—she wrote poetry for her Honours, went on to do her Masters (and now a PhD and she got herself a scholarship as well), she persistently sent her stuff off to literary magazines with names like Heat and Meanjin and got herself published, she got a mentorship with the Australian Society of Authors who paid for 20 hours of editorial work for her, and her first novel is due out some time in the next 12 months from Penguin. I never sent anything to anyone (except for the odd piece to The Briefing) and I certainly didn't work as hard as she did to draft and re-draft my stuff. In fact, post-Uni, I pretty much gave it up apart from Hippocampus stuff (which taught me to write non-fiction at a more popular level) and the occasional Salt article.

And doing writing at Uni and working in a bookstore also made me quite disillusioned with the whole publishing industry anyway—why do they publish so much crap? And why try to compete with a market where every cover is screaming out for attention and where half your print run could end up getting pulped? I know at one stage I was vowing never to charge anyone for anything I wrote.

And then I started going to Word by Word which Greg and Tony used to run, and they started talking about writing as ministry, and I started thinking about how I could serve God with it.

And now, thinking about what Andrew Lansdown said, I wonder whether I could serve God in writing fiction, a genre which feels more like home to me than editing long theological treatises like DBK III. Or whether it is isn't the best of my use of my time, right here, right now, when there are so many other competing priorities for my time.

As Ben and I were preparing dinner (sweet potato, pumpkin and carrot soup), I had a thought about something else that Andrew Lansdown said—that perhaps in heaven he would be allowed to still write fantasy stories. And I know there is no way of knowing what we'll be doing in heaven besides being in God's presence and enjoying him forever along with the rest of his people, but part of me hopes that what Andrew said might be true—that worshipping God in the new creation might also involve doing something which I never really got to on earth because I decided to order my priorities alongside the priorities of God's kingdom, this side of Christ's return. Is it possible that I might have an eternity to write (without the selfishness that often engulfs writers when they are obsessing over their current project)? Is it possible that Ben will one day get a chance to write all the wonderful songs he never had the time to write on earth (free from self-doubt and censorship and thoughts of this-is-so-boring-because-it-sounds-like-every-other-song-ever-written)? Surely our gifts and talents are not finite.

But I don't want to think of this in terms of a bargain—“If I do this for you now, Lord, you'll let me do what I want later.” I want to serve the Lord no matter what and keep on trusting him no matter what. After all, my ability to write comes from him, and he can take it away just as easily as he has given it. Soli deo gloria.

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