Judy Dearlove, writer
Creatives in Conversation: I believe that we can learn so much from each other and I am fascinated by the ways in which artists of all mediums move through the creative process. Each interview features a different local artist as we discuss the challenges and joys that come from accessing and living with their creativity.
Judy Dearlove. (Photo Credit: Donna Campbell of Minnow Media)
Judy Dearlove moved to Durham in 1976 to become a member of the Duke English Department where she taught twentieth century British literature. In 1983, she accepted a position with IBM. For the next fourteen years, she worked in Research Triangle Park doing technical writing, market intelligence, management, and corporate communications. In 2002, she returned to academia and to teaching when she accepted a position as Director of the Learning Center at Meredith College. In 2007, she received the Pauline Davis Perry FAME Award for Excellence in Teaching given to an outstanding teacher at Meredith. Currently, Dearlove lives and writes in Durham and her most recent novel Play On! Has been recognized as a finalist in the 22nd annual Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards.
What drew you to writing?
I've always wanted to write a novel, but I didn’t publish [Play On!] until November of last year. That's a very long time to wait! I majored in English in college and in graduate school, and then I taught. And teaching was a passion of mine, but at some point about twelve years ago it occurred to me that if I was ever going to write a novel, I needed to get started.
So I signed up for Lynn York's class at Table Rock Writing Workshop because I knew she was a great teacher. And even though I hadn't done any writing – I had not a scribble, not a doodle on this novel – I signed up for [a class called] Revising Your Novel.
The first assignment on the first day was to interview one of our characters. After class, I sheepishly went up to Lynn and said, I actually haven't started writing. I don't have any characters to interview. And she said, You will. And I did. And that exercise turned out to be the catalyst for my book: it gave me my characters, my setting, and even my basic plotline.
What does living a creative life mean to you?
I believe that everyone is creative. My father was an accountant – one of the professions that's traditionally not viewed as very creative – but even accounting requires both absolute accuracy and creativity.
I believe living a creative life means – and I'm not good at this – being able to accept risks. And it means play. I’m better at that. For me, play and humor are a big part of [creativity]. And of course living a creative life means participating in, and appreciating, other people's art by going to concerts, or an art exhibit, or a poetry slam.
And it means trying to pay attention to what’s around us. In early May we were supposed to go to the giant redwoods, the ones way up by the Oregon border, for my partner's birthday. With the pandemic we're obviously not going to do that now. So instead, I'm trying to pay attention to the bluets, which are the little, teeny tiny wildflowers growing through the grass in our driveway. I’m trying to teach myself to pay attention to the things that are here.
“Sometimes when I sit down to write it’s magical. It’s as if I’m just channeling the words. I can’t explain what’s going on when that happens, but it’s beautiful, wonderful, exciting. And some days I can’t write a simple English sentence. But if I don’t sit down every day, that magical moment isn’t going to come.”
Creativity is about being accepting and inclusive. I mean, I love structure, and Beckett and playing all of his intellectual games. That’s definitely part of it ... but for me there’s also this sort of looseness about creativity. It's wonderfully, inexplicably contradictory.
What do you think the role of the artist is within their community?
When I was writing my novel, my intention was to write a book that was a fast, fun read. And I was trying to go against stereotypes – the book’s about an older generation. I wanted them to be inclusive and resilient ... friendship was important. They've learned how to work together. So although the book is intended to be fast and fun, it also [contains] messages that I wanted [to highlight].
On one hand, the artist’s role is to communicate ideas. At the same time, the artist is also creating communities through his or her art. The people who are reading my book [make up] a community; people going to a concert form a community. Some artists are capable of moving the needle politically through the communities they create. I don't have that skill, but I’m glad others do. I think it will be a really important skill going forward.
I can't envision what our world is going to be like politically or economically after this pandemic. I'm hoping that artists will be among the people who help craft a new vision. I suspect that initially we will try to recreate the structures and institutions we’ve had in the past. But some of those structures are already broken or breaking down. Some need to be changed. One model I hope we don't go back to is the one that automatically cuts the arts out of budgets first. Because look at what's getting people through [this pandemic] - it's the arts, it’s people standing on their balconies singing to each other or taking an online art class or an online piano lesson.
This segues into my next question: how do you think that we can get our country and the world in general to value the arts more highly?
I am hoping that out of the horror of this pandemic there will be an inflection point where perhaps the arts will be able to move us forward by speaking to people's spirits. [Right now there’s] a kind of thinking within a box that treats the various disciplines as separate towers. Sometimes the arts aren’t even included among those towers. You’re expected to know, or learn, the arts on your own. I think that kind of separation is not useful. I think the arts are part of everybody's identity, and we need to celebrate that.
What are some of the creative challenges that you've come up against during your creative journey and how have you moved past them or are you still moving past them?
I've been very fortunate. I know a lot of artists who've had to figure out how to support their kids and their families and work twelve jobs. I haven't had to struggle in that way. A lot of [my challenges] are internal, and some have been inadvertently self-created.
One of my challenges is that I always need to keep moving past self-doubt. I sometimes joke about it saying, I really only have two things that I worry about with my writing: one is the fear of failure, and the other is fear of success. I studied English in school because I loved words, and wanted to write, and I got to read all these wonderful authors. And when you think about it, that can be totally intimidating. One of my writing buddies started to write a novel, but shortly into it, she gave up saying, I'm never going to write a novel because I can't write one that will be as good as The Great Gatsby. And that breaks my heart. I'm not trying to write a novel as good as The Great Gatsby, I'm trying to write the best one I can write.
What advice would you give to someone of any age who wants to be more creative?
I'd say have fun. Play more. Play more; worry less – I know that's hard. Be present in your writing. Sometimes when I sit down to write it's magical. It's as if I'm just channeling the words. I can't explain what’s going on when that happens, but it's beautiful, wonderful, exciting. And some days I can't write a simple English sentence. But if I don't sit down every day, that magical moment isn’t going to come.
This interview has been edited and condensed.