After the death of his mother at age eleven, my dad went to live with his aunt and uncle on Lanark Lane in Bear Lake, Idaho (his father had died of cancer five years earlier).
One of my favorite stories regarding my dad is about a pair of shoes. Although he always had clothes to wear and food to eat, he was prone to wear his old, worn out shoes. Meanwhile, his nice, new shoes sat safely in the closet.
His Aunt Margie would become so indignant when she’d hear anything along the lines of, “that poor orphan boy, Steven, doesn’t even have a nice pair of shoes to wear.”
He did have a nice pair of shoes - in the closet! But there was something about saving the good stuff until…later. And anyway, why wear the new when the old still works?
There is a generational element here. The wartime slogan "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without” is hardly (and sadly) a contemporary phrase.
My parents still have a green pot from their wedding reception fifty years ago (never mind the handle on the lid is broken so you can’t lift the lid off without using a pot holder and a knife to precariously lift the lid off that boiling pot of potatoes). Yet I have to admit that after all of this time, I have such a fondness for it; it’s probably my inheritance.
My friend Heide’s WWII-generation mother always scooped out the last of the egg from its shell with her pinkie finger (no egg left behind) before throwing the shell into the compost.
My 85-year-old father-in-law once dug through the dumpster to find his favorite very old torn coat that his wife threw out after insisting it wasn’t fit for any human to wear in public.
I’m surely far more wasteful than any of my ancestors, but I, too, am prone to some “saving” habits. How many times have I saved that dress or sweater or shoes for just the right moment until I no longer even like it that much or it’s so last season five years ago?
And sometimes that “saving the good stuff” bleeds right into manuscripts. Thrift, caution, and saving are virtues in one realm - but not in our writing life!
Put the good stuff in now. SAVE NOTHING.
Author Annie Dillard in The Writing Life
“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water.”
If you’re holding back “the good stuff” for a later time, don’t. From personal experience, this usually means you’re just holding back good stuff. Put it in right now!
And when you do, something miraculous happens: the well refills. The brain keeps coming up with GOOD and BETTER STUFF.
When we aren’t trying to be so careful and cautious, our imagination is free to answer the call to action in the biggest possible way, to fix whatever pickle your hero has gotten herself into, to combat the villain’s great act of treachery. Time and time again I’ve been astonished at how well and quickly the brain reacts when I’m trusting enough to be gutsy with words, situations, and plot points…it keeps delivering.
Another fiction writer, James Salter, wrote on the inside cover of his first notebook for A Sport and a Pastime (1967), a quote from André Gide:
“Write as if this were your only book, your last book. Into it put everything you were saving—everything precious, every scrap of capital, every penny as it were. Don’t be afraid of being left with nothing.”
Salter later emphatically reinforced this phrase in his Light Years notebook with:
“SAVE NOTHING.”
Save nothing. Put it all in, right now! Who knows? It might very well be your only book, your last essay - you don’t know. But every piece will be far better because you didn’t hoard the good stuff for a later time. You spent it, shot it, played it, lost it, all, right away, every time.
Your turn. Now swim out as fast and as far and as furiously as you can possibly swim. Leave nothing in the lungs - EXPEND. EXHAUST. Put it all out there. And just wait - deliverance will come. You’ll still be able to save yourself every time.
Amy 💜
Good News and Story Links:
Reading: Starling House by Alix E. Harrow (it’s so good)
Listening: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (it’s soooo good)
Running: my new yellow Saucony Triumphs are a triumph. I wore them immediately and did not save them for later. Great shoe if you like: lightness, stability, cushion
Drawing: with
and this year!Quit: Twitter (X) and it feels fabulous
Me and Artie: the kids are back in - and at - school (a little sad), which means Artie and I are on the writing couch again together!
I believe this too - in writing and in life. So good to be reminded of it and to hear it in your words. 🤍
In our household we call it "using the good china", having both grown up in families who saved stuff "for best". The time is now, and tomorrow someone could be putting your things in boxes for an estate sale.
I'd never thought of it in relation to writing, but I'm totally on board.
Also, as someone who lost his mum at 10, losing both parents by just a little bit older? Man, that's a tough ride.