All language subtitles for Masterclass Joyce Carol Oates Teaches the Art of the Short Story - 14.Closing

I have to have a study where I have a

window and I have to look out the window

and I spend a lot of time looking out

the window. And if I have to face a

wall, I'm not happy and I'm not feeling

that I want to sit there. In any room, I

always go to the window and I gravitate

to the window. Now, it sounds maybe a

little naive or silly, but I feel that

all those aids are part of the

imagination. There's some reason where I

need to look out the window at a

beautiful scene. I don't want to look at

the at an air shaft or the or a parking

lot. And so, I'm sitting there with my

laptop and I'm writing and I feel

that that surpassing beauty of the

physical world is helping me. If I were

facing a wall, I would feel trapped and

captive. I would feel like a rat in a

cage. I wouldn't be happy. So, in

Princeton, I have a window looking out

and a lot of green. And I put my my

garden in with color. Yellow is

important and red and some blue and

purple. And I put those colors in

deliberately so that I look at them and

I move geraniums around. So, if I'm

sitting there and some birds fly by or a

a neighbor cat walks through, sometimes

there's a fox and I'm afraid sometimes

there's a groundhog coming in the

garden. So, then I actually run down and

chase the groundhog away. But the idea

of the natural world coming into the the

window down and this the I'm on the

second floor. To me, that's part of this

whole mystery process. It's like I don't

know what I'm going to see out the

window. And that's part of the writing.

I think one of the main things to to

remember when you're writing is that

writing should be pleasurable. It should

be fun. It should be exploratory. You

should be writing about things that

surprise you. So you wake up in the

morning and before you get up actually

and o open your eyes, think very

excitedly about what you're going to be

working on and feel that something

surprising and novel and maybe a little

startling or even shocking will happen

before noon and it will happen in your

writing and nobody knows about it but

you. And that's because writing is like

a spiritual manifestation of something

deep within us we don't really know is

there. So it's like a painter painting

work that is so beautiful but in coate

and putting it out on a canvas and other

people can see it. So it's analogous to

that. Then another thing you should

remember is as you as you write that

writing is not done in one day. You're

not going to write a novel in one week.

You won't won't write a brilliant short

story in in two weeks. And it should

obviously be the case that you don't

have to be prolific. If you write one

really brilliant short story a year,

that's great. Uh, if you write one novel

at all, you know, that's really all that

one expects. I have no expectations of

of anything in my own life because I was

the first person in my whole family even

to graduate from high school. Nobody had

any expectations for me. My parents

didn't expect anything of me. And I

thought that I think that's really a

blessing. So, I wouldn't expect anything

except the pleasure of writing and the

and the excitement of sending things out

and maybe getting published and finding

an audience, which is purely positive.

Thank you for watching and spending time

and working with me. I feel really

excited about writing again and I hope

you will be also.