Whether it is the face that launched a thousand ships or a hero's journey destined for dramatic trials and epic conclusions, Greek myths prevail, and we return to them over and over. It takes an extraordinary mind to polish them off and gild them anew. Madeline Miller is an author and essayist. Having earned both an undergraduate and master's degree in the Classics at Brown University, the subjects of her works are often Greek myths. Miller breathes life into her characters' creating devastating, insightful, and inspiring arcs that fit into her beautiful recreations of and additions to classical Greek myths. Miller has also attended the Dramaturgy Department at Yale School of Drama and the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought. Her works include The Song of Achilles, which was a New York Times Best Seller and was awarded the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction and was a New York Times Bestseller. Circe, her second major work, was a number 1 New York Times bestseller, winning also the Indies Choice Best Adult Fiction of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction. To say less, Madeline Miller is an extraordinary creative and brilliant author.
Absolute dedication - a mythic trial in and of itself - is the cornerstone of creatives Madeline Miller and Faith Ringgold's creative processes. Biographically, the two women share similar steps on the footpath to creative greatness. Miller describes honing her craft early on, much like the legendary artist and author Faith Ringgold, who would sew scraps of fabric into patchwork quilts, which laid the formula for some of her later pieces. Miller writes that she, too, began to show a propensity for creativity early in life, having spent much of her childhood indoors because "that was where the books were." She also describes being entirely dedicated to this task, preferring her reading posture to be "the prone position" rather than the upright one "because it seemed to signal a longer commitment." Writing came next as a natural progression; according to Miller, this "simple extension" of reading just happened; "if you sat long enough if you held still, the story would tell itself." However, like Ringgold, she struggled. Her journey to skill began by patching words together in works less than five pages long and, as she says in her original essay, "usually featured at least one tyrannosaurus." The older she got, the more ambitious her ideas. Much like Ringgold, who learned about texture, style, and form from her college art classes, Miller experimented with storylines, plots, and characters but lacked the attention span to finish the work, saying her words would "peter out." So, she attempted a new process, experimenting with her creative experimentations to develop a new way to write. To write, Miller ran. Before she sat down at her computer, she usually exercised and found the ideas that came easier afterward. This process at first resulted in a work that had to be thrown away due to confusion, but two years later, Miller crafted The Song of Achilles. She balanced her post-running/walking ideas and drafts that came to her at a million miles an hour with sedentary hours of correction and rewriting. The process was incredibly successful, but trial and error were necessary to get the process done and create the piece.
Devout commitment to the craft led Miller to painstakingly write her novels; Faith, too, developed a complete dedication to her work. Faith Ringgold, throughout motherhood, pursued her art. She created her own studios in the homes she lived in, carving out her own space amongst the lives of and spaces for her daughters. She traveled through Europe, viewing and learning about art to hone her own skills. She often took her girls to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She did creative work while being a mother and made it the way she created a living. Ringgold lived her craft just like Miller. Both women have personalities that allow them to live and breathe artistry.
Both creatives strikingly describe a creative process of maturation. One's work shifts throughout one's lifetime from something novel, clunky, and unrefined to pieces that speak volumes and elicit pride from the artist. Ringgold describes a transition process from her early work. She calls her later art her "mature work," in the style labeled "Super Realism." She wanted to depict art that told stories about black people in Civil Rights Era America, in this movement that was "super-real." These works were a collection of stories or moments told by Ringgold. Some were just mere moments she crafted between two individuals meeting, and others were based on or fueled by stories she collected or experienced herself. Miller, too, found her process and her style of writing through practice. She says her early works were littered (or embellished) with dinosaurs. She describes having to scrap certain pieces but that her ideas developed and became "more ambitious." The creative process is one of change and growth. These women grew with their art and created art that kept progressing. Often, we forget the failure involved in the creative process and only view and praise the works that worked, but there were a lot of dinosaurs roaming unpublished pages before the Trojan retelling could be crafted as beautifully as it was.
Failure is paramount to producing a successful piece, and dedication is as an essential ingredient to that end result as inspiration. Both Ringgold and Miller creatives are collectors of stories; they gather then use them like inspirational recipes to create their pieces. These collected stories are either lived experiences, experiences shared by others, or legends told for thousands of years. Ringgold describes her work For Members Only as "recall[ing]" racial hostility she encountered as a child. There was a school field trip that brought students to Tibbetts Brook in Upper New York State. The white men carrying sticks surrounded the children and told them to get out and go back to their bus. Ringgold's collection based on her style of "Super Realism" all hold a piece of reality, communicating the black experience during the Civil Rights Era, portraying stories collected by Ringgold from members of her community. Miller's work is based on myths she collected throughout her time at university learning the Classics. These myths have been shared thousands if not millions of times in countless ways, and yet she uses them and their retellings to create round, real, and relatable characters, experiencing mythical moments in a fluid storyline. It's extraordinary what these artists have done with these short snippets of memory or myth, shaping them into influential and vast pieces that span time and speak their own message.
Processes change, but to be great, one must dedicate themselves, they must fail, and they must grow. Ringgold and Miller's creative development has manifested magnificent masterpieces.
References:
https://madelinemiller.com/writing-at-six-miles-an-hour/
https://www.powells.com/post/original-essays/writing-at-six-miles-an-hour
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I immediately knew I wanted to read this post because I love Madeline Miller's work, especially The Song of Achilles. I think that her creativity is so impressive because, like you mentioned, she is able to weave a new and modern story that aligns with ancient Greek myths that have been told thousands of times. I have never really been drawn to history, but I remember reading her books and being so sucked into the Greek legends. I find it really interesting that she often exercises before trying to work on her writing because I think that this is a tactic that many people don't realize works! Sometimes during my busiest weeks as a student is when it is most important for me to exercise before trying to think. I also found it interesting that her first "drafts" consisted of about 5 pages of jumbled words, something rather unimpressive compared to her finished works. However, starting with those 5 pages and building off of that skill was so necessary for her later success.
ReplyDeleteI've never read Madeline Miller's works but this post made me want to pick up Song of Achilles and start. Some people online have complained of Miller profiting off of the same stories that have been told for millennia, but an fresh take on characters old as time is the very foundation of Greek myths and heroes. I liked the connection between Miller's work and Ringgold's process. Both artists being collectors and using their deep knowledge (and pain) to make beautiful and creative art is a really cool throughline. The maturation of Ringgold's stories connecting to the maturation of the Greek tales is also cool to see.
ReplyDeleteI've never read Miller's work, but I know they're very popular. I've always been hesitant to pick one up because I've heard they're just retellings of myths I already know. I'm glad I read your post because it gave me a new perspective on her work! It was interesting to learn that exercise plays such a large role in her creative process. That immediately reminded me of the presentation on Miyazaki; it's cool to see what habits are common among creatives especially across different forms of art.
ReplyDeleteI have not read any of Madeline Miller's books, but I've been recommended them in the past. It's amazing to see her clear dedication and passion to her writing, as well as the ways she finds inspiration for her work. I thought it was interesting how she incorporated walking and running into her creative process and how she developed ideas quickly this way, contrasted with the somewhat long editing process.
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I haven't read any of Miller's works, but she's well known in any fiction that has to do with Greek mythology. Reinterpretations of mythos are often difficult to get right, since at times, prior cultural norms either have to be carried on or reinterpretated from the myth's original culture. If you're not careful, this can end up disastrously messy with some rather poor implications (Lore Olympus comes to mind, specifically with the age gap between Hades and Peresphone being of hot debate within the community). But from what I've heard, Miller's works are faithful and well adapted to be relatable and understandable for the modern reader, which is a difficult middle ground to land. She occupies a different space than Riordan-- while Riordan works with mythos as well, his works carry on the worldbuilding elements and functions of the setting into a modern world with modern characters, whereas Miller's works deal entirely with the ancient setting and characters. The popularity of her works speaks to how well she must have pulled this off-- I really ought to read her works sometime.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who has dreamed of writing since I was little, there was something extremely cathartic in reading about Miller's creative process. Knowing that she was able to reach such levels of success from a jumbled outline of 5 pages makes it clear that there are so many ways that one can get from point A to point B. Additionally, this post has made me want to move up Circe on my TBR, as it I have been meaning to read it for sometime.
ReplyDeleteMiller is a fascinating figure. The way she can play with classic stories is so interesting. Her use of characters and plots that everyone knows allows her to make allegorical points almost effortlessly. She seems to surmount a major constraint in literature, namely the creation of characters that are engaging. Without this fetter, she is free to experiment with all other aspects of writing.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved Greek mythology when I was younger, and have always enjoyed the variations of the traditional myths. I have been meaning to read Circe for a while now, and this reminded me to actually buy the book, so thanks. It's interesting how she views her sitting posture as an indicator of her dedication to the project. This is kind of an interesting way to view it but makes a lot of sense to me who is currently hunched over my laptop. I love that she views writing as just waiting for the stories to come to you and as an extension of reading. It reminds me of the theory that ideas are already made, they're just waiting in the air for someone to grab them and I think that's exactly what Miller does.
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