I finished reading Susan Orlean’s memoir Joyride this week. The book was a breeze to get through (evidently because of Orlean’s engrossing prose and stories), but I kept finding myself taking long pauses to soak in all the insights she dispensed through her stories, like freebies at an amusement park. I have a tendency to idolize writers, especially those who project a certain glamorous aura. Susan Orlean is perhaps best known in the mainstream for publishing a book called The Orchid Thief, which was later generously adapted into a Hollywood production titled Adaptation. And of course, Orlean’s namesake character is played by none other than Meryl Streep. Imagine having an acting legend play you in a movie. How much cooler can it get?
Anyway, Orlean’s newly released memoir Joyride was indeed a joyride for me as a reader. There were plenty of details in the book that gave me much to mull over for days. I want to note these details and thoughts down for future reference. This blog entry is basically a collection of scattered thoughts, written in haste, that I had while reading the book.
On journalistic instincts
Given Orlean’s background in journalism, within which she found a path in literary journalism, her instinct to view the world through a journalistic lens was interesting yet somewhat foreign to me. She admitted that even in preparing to write this memoir, her immediate questions were along the lines of “who to interview?” and “what details to document and verify?”, rather than adopting the introspective lens many memoirists and autobiographers turn to. Journalists are extremely attuned to factual details—the who, what, when, where, and how of things. Their job is to provide framing, context, and usually the information readers need to build their understanding of what has transpired in reality. They are storytellers who anchor readers in concrete details. Their job is not necessarily to interpret or explain events (though they can, that is not their primary duty).
I’ve realized that in my own writing, I have very little interest in capturing factual details of what goes on in my life or others’. I’d rather ask existential and philosophical questions and trace lines of reasoning than concern myself with the tangible, observable facts of life. As a reader, I’m also rather biased against descriptive writing. If I have to skim through a text, my eyes will immediately skip the descriptive parts filled with adjectives. It’s simply something I do, often against my better judgment. My default mode of interpreting the world usually involves asking why and trying to get behind surface-level facts. Even in debates, my instinct is not necessarily to cite facts and figures. I’m more drawn to reasoning founded in logic, which I sometimes deem sufficient for making a legitimate argument (it is not). I get lazy with numbers, figures, and sometimes descriptive language that does not get to the underlying principles of things.
Reading about Orlean’s mode of operation gave me a refreshing urge to view the world slightly differently. There is merit in the kind of journalistic observation she practices. It has certainly built her career as a shrewd observer of both extraordinary and ordinary subjects. Seeing how she comes up with ideas for her pieces and books, strings together clues about real subjects, and builds visual worlds around concrete details has ignited in me a desire to develop greater attention to observable reality. I’m probably going to always favor mental reasoning over raw observations and facts, but Orlean has reminded me that there is another essential dimension to being a writer that I may be missing out on.
On choosing subjects of long writing projects
I have only read two of Orlean’s books, the second being this memoir. The first book I read was conveniently about a library itself. The Library Book, which I considered one of my favorite nonfiction works in recent years, is a “true crime” account of the unspeakable sin (my interpretation) of library arson. I wasn’t familiar with her writing prior to reading The Library Book, but ever since then, I’ve come to know more about her previous work, both in famous literary magazines and in her own published books. This memoir spotlights both areas of work, but I was especially drawn to her experience and process of drafting and publishing her full-length books.
Orlean seems to have a love-hate relationship with book writing. She struggled just like most book authors. Some of her books took a decade to finish. It doesn’t help that she often juggled these long-term mammoth projects with her work as a reporter and writer for magazines, which operates on a much shorter publication timeline. Reading about how even someone with recognized writing talents like Susan Orlean still labors through book writing got me to think about my own expectation for my long writing projects in the future.
Despite a fantasy of me one day publishing a book (you know, with actual readers), I suspect this will remain exactly just that—a fantasy. However, I’m preparing for a path that will, in some way, lead the a certain form of “publication”: the completion of a doctoral dissertation (which by definition has significantly less readership I presume). Learning about the journey of Orlean’s book writing has helped me navigate this decision and how I want to set myself up for less pain and overall more joy in this process.
What her memoir has got me to think about is how I should choose a research topic that genuinely excites me, but not just momentarily at the outset as I embark on this new exciting “pet project”. I need to be connected to and gripped by it enough that I can sustain this motivation to sit on it even over timespans of months and years. In other words, the research needs to pose questions which I cannot settle before finding the satisfactory answers to. And I should care enough about what comes out of this research, otherwise I might surrender to doubt and disinterest before I know it. And though it’s of secondary importance, I also think an objectively interesting subject gives a boost of motivation because I know that others will tune in to read it when it’s complete. I wouldn’t complain if my hypothetical doctoral dissertation had a few more readers besides my own committee.
Just like the onset of most of Orlean’s book writing endeavors, I’m in the exact phase of having lots of excitement to nurture my own intellectual pursuit, while others around me might have a bit more doubt about the practicalities and logistical alignment of this vision with my life plans (Orlean started at least two of her books when friends and loved ones were still asking why she would even do this to herself). I don’t anticipate the journey to be smooth and seamless, even if I somehow manage to choose a topic which I’m a diehard fan of, or fuel my research with only feel-good elements. Heck, Orlean was writing books about genuinely fun, joyful subjects like what people normally do on Saturday nights, or the German Shepherd celebrity dog Rin Tin Tin, and still she wasn’t having fun. But at least I’m tempted now to ask myself, “Can I realistically (and spiritually) commit to writing a book about this subject?” I can then know whether the research subject excites me and my hypothetical readers enough.
On actually completing long writing projects
Well, now we get to the more substantial bit about the actual writing. Orlean’s memoir isn’t a writing guide, but she does shed some valuable advice regarding her process of writing. One piece of advice which I’ve seen many other authors and writing guides share before: to make consistent progress and overcome procrastination, aim to set a daily word count to surpass. Orlean applied this rule during a particularly challenging period when she struggled to make progress against a looming deadline. She first set the threshold to 800 words per day, then raised it to 1000 as she grew more consistent. The simple mechanic of crossing this arbitrary line has high returns both for her emotional fulfillment (because she knew she did a good job for the day) and of course for steadily accumulating words and content for the book.
Another piece of advice which seems obvious but might be neglected by many writers committed to ambitious, daunting projects: learn to step back from certain commitments and leave room for just a few things at a time. Orlean has been a pro at balancing several writing jobs at once (working on a book which requires high self-discipline and self-motivation over long stretches of time and drafting essays and articles for magazines which requires quick turnaround and tight deadlines). It would be wise to consider when one might need to step back from certain commitments which have short-term rewards but compromise progress for the longer-term pursuits. This is especially true when all of these projects aren’t exactly aligned—all the subjects scatter across different geographies, demographics, and even forms. I think there’s only so much intellectual energy one can sustain, no matter how interesting things are. Overcommitting can easily turn into a disservice to your subjects, which is also unfortunate for a writer/creative.
I also learn a valuable perspective from Orlean which had helped her recover motivation to complete a book: the idea that as an author, she is the designated storyteller to bring a story to life for a particular audience. A nonfiction writer may sometimes come under the suspicion of stating the obvious and bringing minimal value to collective knowledge. Let’s say the records and facts that Orlean used as her sources could have been accessed by anyone. Anyone can look it up, but perhaps most won’t. She is putting together a narrative that’s coherent and engrossing about the subject so that all these people, who otherwise would not spare a moment to learn about this subject, now come to know and understand the story of what has happened, and that’s valuable.
The last tidbit I want to document here is Orlean’s brilliant advice of using index cards as a tool for planning and structuring a long writing project. I’m sure she isn’t the first to use this technique, but I have not seen how an author actually applies this technique until now. For each book, Orlean would use close to 800 index cards, each with a discreet piece of information, grouped by theme, category, or narrative function, and laid out on the table. I find that this would even help with shorter writing like a blog post which might deal with various topics at once. I can’t wait to try this out for a more ambitious writing project I have down the road, because I know the mere practice of writing things down on paper and sorting through these cards will give me more will to interact with the ideas they hold.
This post has been just me pouring out my thoughts, reactions, and takeaways from what I’ve read in Susan Orlean’s memoir. It’s not the tidiest writing nor something remotely well-written and unique like her compositions. Still, I’ve become quite a fan and I want to keep some of these lessons with me, perhaps as I navigate similar moments to what she experienced in her writing career. I’m closing with a quote from the book that also happens to capture Orlean’s main drive for continuing to write as she does: “Each of us contains an unimaginably rich world, a full universe of thoughts and knowledge and aspirations and reveries, of stories and memories and perceptions and emotions; that the sum of each person is an entire galaxy, unique and whole.”