On Self-imposed Obstacles

Spending the Time

It took Brahms more than a decade to write his first symphony because he was haunted by Beethoven’s ninth (some folks unkindly called Brahms’s first, Beethoven’s tenth). In the end, Brahms was only able to complete four. Beethoven had his nine.

Mozart wrote 41 Symphonies, and Haydn wrote more than a hundred.

(A recent pre-publication review of my THE FATE OF OTHERS: STORIES called me ‘wildly prolific’--and, well I’ll say I’ve been productive, but Joyce Carol Oates, Ann Beattie, John Updike, and Saul Bellow are and were, wildly and wonderfully prolific.)

So all these people, Mozart, Haydn, Updike, Bellow, and still beautifully, the Ms.’s Joyce Carol Oates and Ann Beattie, simply and evidently consider(ed) the matter in terms of each given day’s work, the thing on which to put in the time toward accomplishment. All the days.

Let’s say, just for the fun of it, that the Beethoven/Brahms attitude is ‘Romantic,’ and that the Mozart/Haydn attitude is ‘Classic.’

And say that it might be a very good thing to try letting go all the comfortable self-indulgent notions of being thwarted by circumstance and all the romantic wrangling and torture in the search for the right word, the right mood, the grand gesture, and simply write it out and let it breath itself into being, each day. A little at a time, over time, in all the confusion.

In other words, maybe cut out the romantic fits and adjust your attitude to a more classical temperament, and get to work, like any other good citizen.