{"id":415,"date":"2007-02-10T09:20:45","date_gmt":"2007-02-10T17:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/?p=415"},"modified":"2007-02-10T09:20:45","modified_gmt":"2007-02-10T17:20:45","slug":"thoughts-upon-awaking-this-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/?p=415","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts upon awaking this morning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did I choose the wrong metier? — I am a writer and as such my medium is the printed word. I am a biographer, charged with bringing people to life on the printed page. But even as I am in the midst of researching the Luther Henderson<\/strong><\/a> biography and writing People On The Page<\/strong><\/a>, a book about the process and nature of writing biographies, I have become mesmerized by multimedia, intrigued by video podcasts. Indeed I am becoming jealous of those whose have what I perceive to be the luxury of using audio and visual components in crafting their pieces.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I watched online a new podcast<\/strong><\/a> created by Bret Primack for Sonny Rollins’ website. Bret does not have to struggle to find the words with which to describe Sonny’s intensity, or his warmth, or his prowess, when you can see and hear and feel it for yourself. Now don’t get me wrong — I know that what Bret does is not easy. Scripting, shooting, directing, producing films of any length is its own art form with it’s own dilemmas and challenges…I wish I knew how to do what he does so well! I remember too my reaction to the NPR radio piece<\/strong><\/a> that Sara Fishko did about John in January of last year — it was so good that it brought tears to my eyes and I told Sara then that I was in awe of her ability to distill someone’s very essence into the space of only several minutes. Her audio-only segment had, in my opinion, more emotional depth than the NEA’s very excellent biographical video clip about John<\/strong><\/a>, so clearly it’s not the added media component alone that makes the difference.<\/p>\n

I am what I am, and will comfort myself with the thought that perhaps, on occasion, one of my finely-crafted sentences will evoke the envy of a videographer…the grass IS always greener, isn’t it?<\/p>\n

I also awoke thinking about ways in which I can explore and incorporate the parallels between the work of a psychotherapist and that of a biographer — not only the reconstruction of a life, but also the nature of the relationship between biographer and subjects\/sources and the complexities of transference and counter-transference. While in NY earlier this month I was telling a psychoanalyst friend about People On The Page<\/em> and she said “hmmm, that’s a lot like the work that I do.” Then a few nights ago I had a conversation with a writer friend who is also a therapist and he agreed that there were similarities between the work of therapist and biographer. Okay, this is not a giant revelation; apparently it was not even a new thought to me, but one that had slipped my mind. So, just to be sure I was paying attention, the universe sent me another reminder message yesterday. While reviewing my note files, I came across an excerpted quote taken from an August 2000 newspaper article, “Writing from the Heart but Drawing on the Mind,” about novelist Amy Bloom. She said, “Some of the traits that led me to be a psychotherapist are the ones I find in myself as a writer. I’ve spent a lot of time listening to people, and I’m endlessly intrigued by relationships, particularly the gap between what people say and what they truly feel, and the gap between what they do and what they really want.” One might be able to ignore a one-two punch, but this thought has now come up three times in ten days, so I had best pay attention.<\/p>\n

Another related thought has also reached my consciousness — with my mother being an analyst and my father a jazz musician, I am following in my parents’ footsteps as a biographer of jazz artists. Hmmmm….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Did I choose the wrong metier? — I am a writer and as such my medium is the printed word. I am a biographer, charged with bringing people to life on the printed page. But even as I am in the midst of researching the Luther Henderson biography and writing People On The Page, a … Continue reading “Thoughts upon awaking this morning”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-n-that"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}