Notes on Nonfiction
How Our Subjects Choose Us
When I was in graduate school, someone of us put forward the bizarre proposition that whatever our subjects were for our thesis, it told about our personalities. We greeted the idea with wistful dismissal, saying, “If only it were true, it would make things more fun.” But we couldn’t see it.
We were looking in the wrong place. The lives of nineteenth-century Protestant weavers in Europe don’t have anything to do with David, a Jewish whiz kid from Toronto. But the weavers are losing to new looms that do their once skilled labor better and faster and, not too long ago, David’s father lost his job to the robots. David knows about this emotional link but accords it no significance. He can remember when his advisor pressed this topic upon him. He has forgotten the topics that were pressed but didn’t stick.
How do we choose our nonfiction projects, or do they choose us? With memoir we know what the personal connection is, but I’m talking about all the millions of straight nonfiction subjects that people get into and write books about. And what I’m saying here is that even they are a kind of psychological memoir.
Surely some people are just curious about some subject, with no subtextual personal connection? I don’t know. I think curiosity comes from personal interest, so maybe not.
Like the woman working on sixteenth century family law. She keenly remembers her father embarrassing her in front of a crowd of family. She’d talked back and he’d told her that in Ancient Rome he could kill her if he wanted. For her the two things have nothing to do with each other.
Once you do start thinking this way about other people, you have to ask yourself why you want to study what you want to study. Then again, you can just wait, since time seems to tell people what their subject really was all along. I like to think that the imaginary David above is by middle age actually writing about the job-thieving robots, and by older age is just writing about his dad.
Still, even if you are sure that you just find your topic interesting, you can ask what your interest is. That is to say, the very word “interest” means both attraction and stake. So what’s your stake in your subject?
I’m being fanciful. I’ve so disguised my examples that we’d have to say I invented them whole cloth. This is poetry not science.
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My Notes on Nonfiction Class, Two Sundays, Feb 1 and 8, 2:00-3:30. On zoom.
I’ve got so many practical and conceptual things to talk about regarding Nonfiction projects that the above musing on why we choose what we choose is actually encore material, stuff I probably won’t get to (unless someone brings up something to do with the question). But it’s interesting, right?
So yes, come take my Notes on Nonfiction and we’ll think about everything from how to make your thesis more original, to how to approach an agent, pitfalls to avoid in writing, and how to get the project finished.
Also you can ask me anything about my own books and my experience writing them. And the special feature is that you are invited to send me a short piece of writing about your project and I’ll respond with individual feedback by the following Sunday.
So come join us! All levels welcome including “just curious”; no need to have a project to attend, sending me something to read is totally optional.
About the vile slithering fraud presently running the country, grabbing at Greenland like a deranged toddler, I keep being further horrified, ICE is inexpressible evil, we are in one of history’s dark holes and… I sputter and digress. Making art in times like this becomes essential, the fiery artist heart a little campfire in the dark.
Okay then my ducks and drakes, drunks and fakers, givers and takers, hunks and he-men, kooks and their keepers, grand dames and minor demons, I have to say I’m super impressed we’re all keeping it together as much as we are. Historians will look back to this time and see us as living under enormous political pressures and they will look for ways that we collectively buckle. So if life is feeling a bit crush-y, give yourself a break. The barometer broke a while ago and everybody’s got the world on their shoulders. Stay with it, stay with us, stay with me, and I shall return to encourage us again.
love,
Jennifer