__________________
Z
A N S H I N
The
Nemo Drive
When I
was a senior in high school, I fancied myself to be a prodigy in
math. In a geometry class, I submitted a diagram at the end of the
year that I concluded geometrically trisected an angle. Never mind
that our teacher, when discussing this matter in class, had himself
suggested the matter was impossible. It was like computing Pi to an
even number. To trisect an angle is so impossible, he said, that to
prove it is impossible is itself impossible. Aha, I thought. I had
never believed impossibility to be an insurmoutable barrier; I was
going to be an English major.
It was
simple. You just approximate where the angle might be trisected, and
you draw a line there. Then you measure out an equal angle and draw
another line. The third line would either be just short of, or just
beyond, the original angle. So then you would know to either shrink
your trisection, or expand it. And by doing this numerous times, you
could eventually shrink your error down to a width that was smaller
than your pencil lines, and then nobody could prove you wrong. I was
certain that was how calculus worked. I'd mastered math and was
ready to write the Great American Novel. I was brilliant; I was
special.
To
some degree, I have believed this most of my life, despite the
reticence of naysayers such as my geometry teacher, who never spoke
to me again. I was certain I was on my way to becoming a great
artist, a prodigy, and eventually, an inspiration to the more
modestly endowed. I was unable to accept the idea that I was just an
ordinary guy.
This
mindset actually has a name: The Nemo Drive. It is named after the
famous literary figure of Captain Nemo in the Jules Verne classic
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,
the figure that thought of himself as the world's greatest genius,
entitled to wield an unstopable weapon in support of his conclusions
about the worthiness of other people's lives. He was, in his own
mind, utterly incapable of being wrong.
This
is a very destructive mind-set for a writer. It encourages a
tendency to believe that everything one writes is pure genius, and
even one's rough drafts need only a little “tweaking.” I have
been guilty of foisting my writing on friends, expecting high praise
and dismissing honest suggestions for improvement. I always thought
I was done before I was.
Incredibly,
best-selling masterpieces have not piled up on my writing desk, as I
had planned for them to do all through my college years. And that
was almost fifty years ago. Oh, I've had a rich and fulfilling life;
but looking back through it, the inescapable conclusion is that I'm a
pretty average guy after all. Almost everything I do needs
substantial “tweaking,” if not redoing entirely. Occasionally,
the task is daunting, and the project abandoned.
This
too is a bad mind-set for the writer. True art is never easy. It is
made up of many steps: spell checking and punctuation, pacing and
flow, verb vitality, plot plausibility, character development,
introspection, humility, tenacity, and courage. True art represents
an emanation of the artist's best efforts-- in essence, his best
self. A true artist never forgets that settling for less is
anathema.
I saw
a cartoon in the New Yorker Magazine; A wise man is sitting on a
ledge in front of his cave, talking to a dog crouched in front of
him. He says to the dog: “The bone is not the reward; digging
for the bone is the reward.”
This
is probably true. For the writer, it is both a curse, and a
salvation.
Now,
back to that manuscript I thought was done. I'll have to re-write
the whole thing from the beginning. It is the only way to respect
the idea. And myself.
