Writing and History

Last night at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, author and historian David McCullough addressed a gathering of the National Genealogical Society. I went to the event, not because I have a huge fascination with family history (I don’t), but because my dad had an extra ticket. So my options for Thursday night were to go listen to a historian talk about genealogy or vacuum my apartment. It was close, but I decided the family history thing would be SLIGHTLY more interesting.


I kid (a little). Actually, I’ve had my eye on David McCullough’s books for a long time. They’re on my perpetually growing list of “Things I Will Read Once I Start Taking Time to Read Again.” I’ve never actually picked the books up, though, because reading history texts is HARD. History’s a pretty broad subject (or so I’m told), and the author’s goal generally seems to be to get as much information across as possible, making the actual chore of reading a history text the equivalent of chopping your way through an Amazonian jungle with a Barbie Dream Kitchen© plastic knife.

Now, the Family History portion of the presentation was adequately engaging. I heard some great stories about what some people have found in their past (specifically, I was struck most by a woman whose grandmother or something gave birth to six children while under quarantine on a leper colony), but not a whole lot of… anything… to inspire me to change my life. Then, after about 45 minutes of other presentations, David McCullough got up to speak…

… and I’ve never regretted not having a pen and paper as much as I did right then.

I went in to the whole McCullough presentation with a completely different lens than most. I really don’t care much about family history work. I mean, I KNOW it’s important work, but I’m pretty sure it’s important work that “someone else can take care of just fine without my help, thank you.” I went to the presentation as a writer, a composer of narratives… a storyteller. And that’s where they got me.

McCullough spent a bit of time discussing the process that goes into his writing – and that little aside was probably more valuable than anything else I’ve learned in the past couple of years. At the start of every project, he says, he knows very little/nothing about the subject he wants to write about. Everything he writes, he learns pretty much as he writes it. The man wasn’t really an expert on John Adams, then, until AFTER he wrote his biography.

Writing is all about discovery. “Curiosity is what distinguishes us from cabbages,” McCullough said. (Well, that may not be what he ACTUALLY said, but I didn’t have a notepad with me then, so I didn’t write it down). The creative act is an act of learning and growing. It cannot come from what the artist already knows, but what the artist is LEARNING, and what he is excited to be learning.

I’ve heard similar sentiments expressed before, especially in the composition of poetry. Last weekend, at the Utah State Poetry Society’s Spring Festival, I heard poet Lance Larsen speak about the act of writing poetry. He said (and I’m paraphrasing again), “If you set out to write a poem with the entire piece already in mind, you will fail. When writing poetry, you have to be surprised by what you write.” A poem is discovered in the writing of it and not a moment sooner.

Part of the reason I’m writing this blog now is to unpack what I learned last night about the importance of research – or, to phrase it a bit less dryly, the thrill of discovery. I try to be one of these “artsy creative types” – mostly through poetry and drawing right now. I feel, however, that I’m stagnating – especially when it comes to writing.

Now I feel like I’ve got some direction, and that direction is backwards. I’ve always had an interest in history (I minored in history in college), but I almost never take the initiative to learn about history on my own. I plan on changing that – get some research done, not so I can passively “be smarter,” but so I can feel the excitement that comes from finding something hidden, something I’d never seen before.

And the first book I pick up will probably have McCullough’s name on the spine.