Writers pour so much energy into their craft that sometimes we forget that creative pursuits other than writing can fill us up in other important ways. Here, we’ll look at what writers do when they aren’t writing, and how those pursuits affect the return to the page. This month, we hear from two writers—Joseph R. Goodall and Hector Dominguez —who are on opposite ends of the hobby spectrum.
What fills you up creatively when you’re not writing? If you’d like to contribute to the Writers on Not Writing series, email jen@mastersreview.com. We can’t wait to hear from you!
Recently I crossed a laughable threshold in my complicated relationship with hobbies. On the evening in question, I was watching Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film, High and Low, in which a gruff Japanese shoe executive is on the phone with his son’s alleged kidnapper. It was an intense, expertly blocked, black-and-white scene, captioned below with English subtitles. But my attention was split between the midcentury thriller and a colorful crochet project on my lap, my hands busy weaving wool yarn with a golden hook into a multi-layered wall hanging. When I fished for the remote to rewind the movie, my wife surveyed me with a smile and shook her head. I shrugged with feigned exasperation, continuing to twist double crochet stitches as I craned my neck to read the next line of dialogue.
For me, enjoyable pastimes can sometimes become muddled and overwhelming as I juggle many interrelated interests with a strong desire to contribute toward a larger community. As a writer with an analytical mind and a full-time engineering job, making things “for fun” requires research, immersion, and consideration of how to involve others in my “side projects.” In this way, watching movies, crafting crochet pieces, exploring urban spaces, gardening with native plants or studying history can take on dimensions that to others (and sometimes myself) seem like “unnecessary work.” Yet as I’ve wrestled with this tension of rest and enrichment, I’ve come to recognize my intertwining, involved hobbies as means of expressive exploration—passion projects closely tied to my multi-hyphenate personhood.
As a kid I loved watching movies borrowed from the library, rented from Movie Gallery, or re-runs my parents recorded on VHS. Characters like Indiana Jones, Rocky Balboa and Ellen Ripley captured my imagination, while shark-infested waters, runaway train cars and distant galaxies kept me up past my bedtime. Movies introduced me to a wide range of people, cultures, and visions of the past and future. More recently, I’ve begun logging my watching habits on the Letterboxd app as a way to find recommendations and track how movies continue to shape me. My watchlist is not just influenced by popular culture but also by what I’m reading, places I visit, history I’m learning and people I meet.
Several years ago, an architect friend taught me the basics of crocheting, which has become a way to keep both my hands and imagination engaged while watching movies. The cinematic drama and imagery in turn weaves into my crafts, both textile and literary. Scores of movies later, I’ve made scarves, potholders, hats, bookmarks, and even a stuffed whale. Last year, I ventured beyond practical creations to freehand pieces, inspired by the landscape paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner and earth-tone discount yarn.
Similar to the cinephile exchanges on Letterboxd, I started looking for ways to share my crochet art and came across an advertisement for a local textile art show. I was in the middle of a wall hanging project, attaching tassels while watching the late James Earl Jones in the delightful, lesser-known romantic comedy, The Annihilation of Fish. As I read the fine print on the application, I started worrying if my tapestry was worthy of display, if I was “legitimate enough,” with this being only my second crochet art project. What’s more, didn’t I have writing to do?
On the TV in the background, Jones was literally battling a demon, rolling around in his apartment, wrestling the invisible specter while his neighbor acted as referee. The Letterboxd reviews largely praised the film, but there were a few critics who didn’t understand Jones’s quirky late-career turn. That night I realized: It’s all subjective. Instead of being swayed by the assessment of others, why not experience it for myself? Why not complete this personally enriching, lumpy, woolen tapestry, inspired by research on agrarian practices and movie marathons, then see if a larger audience gleans anything from it?
I want people to experience a taste of this from my work—not just acquiring a “cultural commodity,” but finding a pathway to awareness, appreciation and examined living. Film critic Josh Larsen compares watching movies to praying. Cinema gives shape to our truest imagination and deepest yearning, offering room for contemplation. In a similar way, crocheting is like prayer for me. Sometimes the forms are utilitarian and plain, others are bold and aspirational, but always they are tactile, personal and formative.
At times, my hobbies can lead me into a spiral, clinging to needless productivity and anxiety-ridden over whether I’ve missed my “true calling.” When I’m flailing and over-analyzing, that’s when I ought to take a step back—pausing one interest and focusing on another, hopefully rediscovering the joy in both. I can let another’s multi-media artwork wash over me as I continue moving my fingers, recognizing my limits, participating in the experience with renewed curiosity.
Joseph R. Goodall
I rarely partake in creative pursuits when I am not writing. Saying this comes as a shock to me because it runs in total contradiction to my teenage and twenty-year-old self who was drawn to so many creative pursuits, particularly in music, that it seemed every few months I’d be braving it through a self-instructive book or taking lessons for a trumpet or violin I’d bought on Craigslist. I blame it squarely on the hustle of graduate school. When I got the writing bug, I bet all my chips on the study of writing and inadvertently pushed away other hobbies. While I wish I had stuck it out and became proficient in a different creative capacity (I imagine singing and strumming along to a Veracruzan jarana when the drafting’s a real slog), I have come to find enjoyment, even inspiration in the mindless task that is long-distance driving.
Normally, I associate driving with the chore of urban commuting and all the stressors it entails (rush hour traffic, collisions, rubbernecking, perpetual construction zones). Long-distance driving, though, is different. Dashing into service roads to evade congested zones is nearly impossible. Speeding to shave mere minutes off a ten-hour trip is impractical. On road trips, my mind isn’t on high alert as it is when commuting. Perhaps by downloading audiobooks, by laying out the snacks and cooler within arm’s length, or by kicking off the shoes before pulling out the driveway, my mind inadvertently accepts it is in for the long haul, dials itself into cruise control.
In my seven years of graduate school, I have done much driving. On holidays, I typically ride from Dallas to Chicago to visit family. During winter and summer breaks, road trips to the parks and forests of the Southwest bring a celebratory end to my semester. The ten, twelve, even fifteen-hour hauls bring stiffness of the lower back, numbness of the thighs and butt, and endless stretching at rest stops, but the upside outweighs the cons: a mental respite from teaching, writing, and endless academic reading. I fill these hours with investigative journalism podcasts, concept albums, and sprawling conversations, all activities that stimulate the mind in a slow-burn, Crockpot-type way it’s rarely engaged in. These are all great, but surprisingly, the more stimulating moments are the quieter ones when the radio’s off, the tires hum over the blacktop, and the road stretches endlessly. That’s when the hamster wheel upstairs really starts spinning.
Visually, the landscape in the periphery is soothing, always changing in light, shadows, and detail. The sun moving from east to west, the horizon from flat to jagged, the wide interstates turning to the slaloming state routes, I imagine myself sitting on a museum bench, meditating a moving canvas through my windshield, the odd bug splattering itself needing wipering. I romanticize these views, perhaps because I have a fascination with the wilderness and the natural landscapes (photography, after all, was the last hobby I surrendered to grad school). At some point the awe pivots to a creative simmer. Characters, new and old, emerge. Opening situations crystallize. Hopes, obstacles, and possibilities are unveiled. It makes sense to conceive stories while driving, after all what is writing fiction but finding ways to get from one point to another until the very end, the final destination.
I retract my earlier statement: There is nothing mindless about long-distance driving. On these drives, I sit with myself, daydream, knead the mental playdough, and shape it into story elements. The only downside I’ve found is that maybe my fiction always involves driving of some sort. But there’s never any pressure or expectation to walk away from a trip with a story. It’s all play, an activity to pass the time while crossing over limbo. Or perhaps, a way of forgetting that traveling seventy miles an hour inside an aluminum box for days is confining and frankly, a little crazy.
Hector Dominguez
Joseph R. Goodall is a writer and civil engineer whose fiction, essays, and poetry explore the intersection of human communities and natural landscapes. His short story collection, What the Bird Sees in Flight, examines the unraveling and reunion of a strong-willed farming family. Born in New Zealand and now based in Atlanta, he draws inspiration from watersheds, local history and a diverse range of storytellers. His work has appeared in publications such as Flora Fiction, Litro USA, and Lostintheletters.
Hector Dominguez teaches creative writing and English at the University of North Texas where he is currently a doctoral candidate. He is working on a historical novel that follows the Yucatec Mayans living along the Tren Maya route. When not teaching or writing, he wanders the national parks and forests of the Southwest, straying away from the concrete sprawl that engulfs his home in Dallas.