As I prepare to hit the sack after another long day of work, I don’t know if it’s the exhaustion or the chaos or the stress or just the fact that I finally got to eat my supper at 9:15 tonight, but I’m feeling a bit moody at the moment. Not in a bad way; more of an introspective way. It happens from time to time.
Today, after listening to some great music and dabbling a bit with Cakewalk on my own computer (I wasn’t able to find the melody I was looking for, alas), I feel myself wondering about art in general. Perhaps nothing gets us closer to being like God than when we create artistic works. Of course, our works pale in comparison; but even so, I think that He is pleased that we imitate Him in our own little ways.
With the advent of NaNoWriMo, and my subsequent success at it this year, I’ve thought more about writing recently. And while listening to some of James Horner’s music (specifically, “The Ludlows” from Legends of the Fall) is what kicked this post off, it’s really a culmination of what I’ve been thinking about when it comes to writing, and when it comes to Christian exceptionalism as a whole.
I’ve mentioned before how I think the Christian arts industries—be it music, movies, or novels—are havens of the Second Best, since people figure “If it’s for God it can be crap and He’ll still like it.” I know in my heart that I do not want to be like that. When I write, I want to be the best author on the planet, not because I want fame and fortune (although with my work schedule the way it is, fortune would be nice about now), but because He deserves the best.
I think I have some talent writing. But I’m nowhere near the best. When I read some of my better works, I think that it’s large sections of mostly average writing punctuated by moments of brilliance. There are passages in each book that I write where, as I write the passage, it flows together and the words echo off each other almost in harmony (there’s the music metaphor again) and I think, “This is great stuff.” But so much of my writing tends to be utilitarian. It gets the job done.
But it’s not art.
There’s a time for all kinds of writing, of course. And I know that I’ll never be a flowery author, like James Fennimore Cooper, for example. My style will be closer to Hemmingway: short and staccato. Yet that aside, when I look at my writing I feel that I am on the edge of something better than what I’m currently at. I suppose that’s better than the opposite (thinking I’m past my prime).
But my heart longs to be there, looking back over a corpus that includes mostly art punctuated by a few cases of the mundane. And perhaps yet I will make it.
All I know is that I cannot stop trying. God won’t let me settle for second best.
