I have been reading Brenda Ueland again.
Over the last couple of days, Allen and I have noticed that store cashiers have been exceptionally "nice" to us--just before they ask us if we want to belong to the store's "club" or if we want to donate a dollar to this or that charity.
Those recent experiences and Ueland's book got me to thinking about a common writing problem, willed cheerfulness. It's something I sometimes have to fight when I respond to people's journals or to student work. I even have to fight the impulse toward willed cheerfulness in my own journaling and my own fiction sometimes.
To illustrate: In If You Want To Write Brenda Ueland tells of a student who created a fantastic description of an old house. When Ueland told the student how good the writing was, the student said, "But it is so gloomy!" The student said she didn't like to write depressingly.
Ueland then reveals:
"I could see then that a lifetime of a kind of willed cheerfulness ... kept her from writing from her true self."
Willed cheerfulness is a layer of our being--a kind of automatic response--that must be penetrated in order to get to what we need to say. All our lives, we're taught to be polite or (ugh) "Politically Correct." Or we're admonished: If you can't say something nice then don't say anything at all. But always looking on the sunny side of life can make for dull writing. Ueland says that if you want to write about:
"true cheerfulness,fine. But if it is willed cheerfulness, and you always describe things as you think you ought to, --well, it will not be effective, that is all. Nobody will be interested or believe you."
Then, in a passage of pure genius, Ueland writes:
"Some people write very solemnly with long words like 'co-operation and co-ordination' when their true self is a jolly, vulgar cut-up, full of antics and wise-cracks. In this case if they wrote from the cut-up it would be wonderfully good."
The point she is making is that you shouldn't try to hide yourself. I think, perhaps, this kind of hiding is a problem for women in particular, because there is still the expectation for women to be "nice."
Writing that springs from willed cheerfulness is a kind of automatic writing; and you know it when you read it--it is like being greeted at the door at Wal*Mart or some other public place. It is like receiving that smile just before you're asked to donate a dollar to a worthy cause. It is friendly on the surface, but it doesn't mean much.
If you write that way, you're only passing along a fake smile, in other words.
Do people really want to read something depressing? You bet. If it feels true, they do.
From Writer's Almanac--
Samuel Beckett wrote, "I didn't invent this buzzing confusion. It's all around us...the only chance of renewal is to open our eyes and see the mess."
13 comments:
Willed cheerfulness -- I needed to hear that phrase. It's so reflective of my life, and it's something that I have to fight in my writing all the time. I think you're dead on target in that this is a particular problem for women, and I think it's even more so for southern women. When I was a teenager,I once had a friend tell me how sick I was when I had fallen and badly sprained my ankle. I was still on the ground, unable to get up and was smiling. That smile was what made me sick. It was a forced, learned reflex, and one I still carry. When I was in a car wreck a couple of years ago, strapped to the stretcher, a brace around my neck, I was cracking jokes with the paramedics. Honesty just takes so much courage.
Willed cheerfulness, good subject. Not only does it come across in someone's writing, but also in their speech. It also effects one's credibility at times, too. As the last entry explained about smiling even thought she hurt herself. Who'd believe that she really needed help if she had that big of a smile on her face? I've been as guilty as anyone else who wants to be 'politically correct,' or just nice. Women want to be nice to everyone, not hurt feelings. Thank God for menopause. I can speak now, and boy do I have an excuse, and truly express my feelings.
Willed cheerfulness is like make-up: it's a facade to make us think we look better and are more acceptable. It fits right in with others who are wildly willed cheerful.
Willed cheerfulness is most often a defensive wall that people have built around themselves. In my case it was fear. I still find that sometimes the wall is still there but I have broken gaps in it now.
I love your latest two entries ... these are issues that I am dealing with on a personal level! My writing, my art, my interaction with those around me is noticeably (at least to me) consistently upbeat, positive and supportive.
Even throughout the 7 year divorce from hell, and we are talking the stuff lifetime movies are made of, my responsibilities as a mother, a manager, a trainer of mass numbers of people in the art of customer service, have required me to remain the ever cheerful, pillar of strength.
I don't have a big problem with cheerful, it is so much a part of who I am, but I am trying to come to terms with the fact that I have not allowed myself the opportunity to slip off into dark sad place, a place where I would be free to surrender to the pain, a place where healing begins.
I am searching for new ways to cast light on my darker side, my shadows that I rarely allow others or even myself to see. Working 6 day's a week ... this is not as easy as one would think!
*** Coy ***
Example:
Can't decide what to plead: guilty as charged, should I take the Fifth?
On the money, Theresa,
Vicky x
Funny...odd really. Perhaps serendipitous. I addressed the issue in my own journal today about being so depressive. But it is a large part of who I am. What a great comparison of willed cheerfulness to Wal-Mart greeters...very good.
KAthy
What if you are genuinely happy? LOL I don't write happy all the time...just read my very first journal entry, and that will become evident. ;-) But I am guilty of painting on a happy face when I would rather kick and scream.
Very interesting! Personally, I do not suffer from willed cheerfulness but have been the victum of some willed comments....lOL
Thanks for the lesson.
What if you are genuinely happy?
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Genuine happiness can yield good writing!
To anyone whose prose is suffering from willed cheerfulness, I am offering weekend rentals of my mother, the Grammy. More depressing than any barbiturate, more guilt-inducing than any religion, more angst-able than the entire Sturm und Drang movement. Step right up.
When I was younger, a friend and I used to run Marathon groups, all the rage back then. 18 hour group sessions, positively oriented. Yet, there were some who were living "willed cheerfulness", unable to see a grey spot in their experience. I felt so sorry for them....we all have an artist in us.
V
I try to avoid willed cheerfullness when I jot in my journal. Then if I manage to say what's really on my mind, good or bad, I worry what people will think. How silly is that? It's my journal after all. I enjoyed the entry. And while I think my posts are genuine....I'm going to work extra hard at remembering this lesson. Thanks!
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