How much of life do I need to experience in order to write?
I often worry that I haven’t lived enough and seen enough to be able to competently write a novel of appreciable depth. I also worry that I have lived too sheltered an existence to be able to understand the human condition and render it on paper with any degree of fidelity.
Then I remember that Jane Austen managed to write beautiful pieces of literature that were both inspired and inspiring in their sophistication and directness. She manged this in spite of being extremely sheltered, closeted and effectively contained in a rather small world, much more so than I ever was (The smallness of her world is apparent in her writing but it takes nothing away from the power of her perception and insights).
I also think of Proust who late in life (and also in his thirties?) avoided most contact with people and lived in a sterile room lined with cork-board. It was in that room, I believe, that he completed “À la recherche du temps perdu”, a book that I am willing to wager may well be the greatest novel written in the last century.
Experiencing life seems much less important than being able to think about it. Also, life is rich with experiences anyway, no matter how closeted an individual is. We perhaps imagine that we need to have sensational experiences in order to have something to write about. But if we look carefully, every day is sensational and incredible, and has gems aplenty scattered in his monotonous folds.
