When my daughter played for me the soundtrack for the movie Twilight (presently her favorite movie of all time), I was surprised to hear a song by one of my favorite bands, Linkin Park. The music video that the band put out for the song is one of the most imaginative I’ve seen, but it has nothing to do with high school, angsty teens or vampires. In the video the band plays the crew of a starship in the distant future. There are lots of neat special spacey effects, but I liked the sense of isolation and regret the video portrays (and if you go to Linkin Park’s web site, you can watch the whole thing by clicking on the Music Videos tab and selecting the first video.)
The older I grow, the more conscious I am of what I’m doing as my writing legacy. Not in the way you probably think, either – the profit-generating portion of my estate and potential income for my heirs is important, but that’s something over which I have little control. My books will survive me or they won’t; I won’t be around to see or worry over that. I rather doubt my work is destined to become a bunch of classics.
What I think of as my writing legacy is something that has nothing to do with Publishing or profit. It has to do with the nameless global community I joined the moment I wrote my first short story. I took my first baby step on the twenty-five year path to what would eventually become my calling, my art and my profession.
Traditionally writers make this journey alone. As a friend once told me, “There is no Us in writer, there is only I.” It is a solitary vocation, and no one holds your hand at the keyboard. Even when you collaborate with another writer, you’re still on your own in your head as well as when you produce your portion of the work. So it’s difficult to feel that you belong to a much larger group when you spend so much time working by yourself, and even harder to think outside yourself and be aware of all the other writers in the world who are doing the same. You probably never think about the writers who haven’t been born yet, or those who will join the community in fifty years, or a hundred, or a thousand. They likely won’t miss you; odds are they’ll never hear of you.
Why should you care? In a hundred years, none of this will matter, right?
Well, about a hundred years ago, a woman named Juanita took her daughter to California and started writing a journal about their lives there. She continued the journal for twenty years as they moved back and forth across the country. It wasn’t very exciting journal, but she added some of these new-fangled things called photographs and described where they went and the people they saw, as well as the birth of her youngest son. Although I don’t know for sure, some of her entries make me think she also encouraged her daughter to write.
The only thing that frustrates me about this lady is that she never wrote about the years she spent before she went to California. In her youth she served as a nurse during the last years of the Civil War, and afterward took care of soldiers at a veteran’s home. Maybe it was too traumatic for her, or maybe she didn’t think it was important. People who live in interesting times rarely do.
When Juanita passed away, she left the journal to her only daughter, Thelma, who also wrote. She wrote plays and short stories but she really loved poetry, so that was mostly what she wrote, and she was quite gifted. She published some of her poems but never tried to pursue it professionally. Her poetry was an intensely personal thing to her, so it’s understandable that she would want to keep private. She did instill a love of writing and books in her only daughter.
In time the poet passed away, but left behind the journal and the poems for her only daughter, Joan. Joan not only kept journals and wrote poetry, but she began writing humorous essays about life. She became a popular speaker at churches and went on to be published in newspapers and magazines. She tried to write one novel, but decided it wasn’t for her. She passed along the legacy of love for writing and books to all five of her kids.
Of the humorists’s five children, two began writing journals, poetry, essays and stories at young ages, and of those two, one (also a daughter) decided to pursue it professionally. It took some time, but that daughter eventually became a published novelist.
This entire legacy that began with the lady with the California journal to the professional novelist took 91 years. It’s still alive, too – the professional (that would be me) has a daughter, Kat, and she writes journals, poetry, stories, and is thinking about starting her first novel. When I’m done here, Kat will inherit the California journal, the poetry, the stories, and everything else I’ve preserved from the three generations of writers who came before me. And here we all are:
(From left to right: Juanita, Thelma, Joan, Lynn and Kat)
So yes, in a hundred years, what you write now just might matter to someone.
I miss my poet grandmother, who practically raised me, and I wish I had been old enough to talk to my journaling great-grandmother (she passed away when I was six.) My mother and I have talked about books and writing my whole life, and I’ve done the same for my daughter, who I hope will do the same for her children. That is the legacy I want to see survive me.
The tradition of writers in my family aren’t my only writing legacy. Through the internet I’ve found a much larger writing family, and talk about books and the work every day with them. I can’t take credit for all they’ve done, are doing and will do, and I wouldn’t try, but I think I’ve helped some of them with the work. Then there are the thousands of authors I read from the time I was a kid to present day, who deserve a mention. I learned to write books by reading books, so practically every author I read gave me something that contributed to my work and what will someday become my legacy.
Do I think anyone will miss me when I’m gone? Sure, my family and friends will. Will my passing matter to other writers? Probably not. All I can do is share what I know now through books and discussions, and hopefully leave enough behind to carry on the legacy to future generations of writers. The years may erase my name from the memories of those who write in years to come, and most will probably never know how what I write now will influence their work in the future, but the love and knowledge and kinship we share as writers transcends time. Through writing something of me will be passed on down the line. As long as people read and write, I and other writers will live on through them and their work. That legacy is the only torch guaranteed not to burn out.
Related link:
Stefani Evans wrote a lovely tribute to her mentor, poet and professor Peter Wild.
