What’s Your Story?

I’m reading the new Nick Hornby book, Juliet, Naked. I’m only about half through, so I’ll hold my impressions. But, if you’ve read anything by him (or seen any of the movie adaptations, which are pretty close in spirit to his work), then the book will feel familiar.

A man obsessed (Fever Pitch) with music (High Fidelity), specifically the music of a hermetic, screwed up man – child (About a Boy), comes to disagree with a strong, smart woman in his life (all Hornby) about the artistic merits of a newly – released CD by the aforementioned hermetic, screwed – up man child, his first new work in twenty years.

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This week, I also read a rather amateur piece of critical study called “Bat Signals“.

It’s a college paper. Of mine. In it, I analyzed the graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns. Yes. There was a class for this. It was, I believe, one of the last papers I ever had to write for school, a dive into a piece of pop culture to see what conventions were at play in the art form or our choice. That sounds pretentious, I know.

The only thing I really remember from that class is that our teacher had floppy blonde hair and kind of looked like a younger Howard Jones.

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Among my outside – of – work writing projects, one of them is a novel dealing with superheroes. So, reading Bat Signals and Hornby in the same week, I started wondering if writers only have one idea. Or rather, if this specific writer only has one idea.

A couple years back, I saw this Jasper Johns exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago called Gray. It was just that. A selection of works all done in, well, gray. (Truth in advertising. It was remarkably refreshing.)

The exhibit was fascinating, to see the different ways Johns used grayscale and washes and techniques, all confined by this grab color that surrounds me during endless Chicago winters. Maybe that was what made it sadly beautiful. To only work in gray — to only write about a small set of personal interests — maybe that allows artists to see things that other people don’t seem to notice.

Superheroes are a part of my childhood I just can’t seem to quit. But as I’ve gotten older, I can see them differently. They symbolize some of my deepest-held beliefs. That one man can make a difference. That we all have dual natures, different faces we present to different people. That abilities are one thing, but how you use them matters more.

It’s been kind of endless, me working on this book. Seven or eight years of on and off-again writing. Maybe I’ve drawn out this work because I worry that this is it. My only idea. Maybe I’m hesitant to share it with anyone but the wife. Maybe it’s easier to talk about being a writer than actually writing. (This last one is almost certainly true.)

But maybe, just maybe, thinking about it as an expression of a theme will free me up a little bit, to commit, work through it, finish it off and let it go.

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What do you think? Do you prefer writers who focus on a few main themes? Or do you like writers who tackle new ideas with every new work? And if you’re a writer, how would you categorize your own work?