“Sex is a key to enter a spirit....Sex is like a dream when you are awake; I think dreams are collective. Some parts do not belong to yourself.”
The quote is by author Haruki Murakami from an interview he gave a few years ago. I've started this entry with it because there is something compelling in his words, which draw me deeper into some place I cannot name.
That place is where I find myself located now as I struggle to keep with the word count for the National Novel Writing Month. My original idea was to write about something apocalyptic, something about social structures breaking down and the discovery of a hidden species who live in a parallel world to our own (not another dimension, but another habitat niche that currently exists on this one). The idea has since been dominated by a cast of three central characters who are bound together by family and by perception. I am no longer sure where it is heading because the story now seems to be erupting from a part that does not belong to myself. Perhaps I have entered some kind of collective dream?
The act of writing certainly connects me with my life force and with what I essentially believe (as opposed to what I think I ought to believe). My manuscript, however, is not any suitable narrative form. It begins and trails off in diffuse directions. There are too many ideas, too many layers, and all I can do is type out my character's thoughts and attempt to capture a sliver of their inner lives.
But I like the idea of dream time, where all times lines converge and linear time holds no dominion. There all minds can submerge in universal symbols. Of course, there are many who think the idea of some kind of collective unconscious plane is sheer bullshit and should be relegated to the realm of the esoteric. I'm thinking of Sam Harris and his excellent (but weighty) book 'The End of Faith', where he includes Jungian psychology in this category. I'm not so sure Harris' assessment is fair. I think we need some model to explain the creative realm of that exists on the shores of our mysterious psyches. I like to believe that there is still room for the unexplained and perhaps unexplainable. I have to admit, though, that the skeptic in me has serious problems with the idea of surrender. I refer to the surrender to the creative process and the trust required when you happen to be right brained creator like me who can only follow their characters and images into the dark to get a sense of the shape of the story, and not the other way around.
The romantic in me likes to think of these depths as the realms of poets and great artists. Whenever I'm in this frame of mind, I like to believe that we are all deeply connected to realms we can no longer perceive. Our senses have been civlized into obedience. The wildness has been disciplined out of us. There have been so many artistic movements that realized this and tried to break through the patina of the civlized.
In my freewheeling jam here, I question what it means to be civilized. So much horror has been created in the real world in the name of civilization, but I diverge from the point. The point being that perhaps we all are connected in a deeper sense, much like the buddhists believe. We are all part of the net of life. Art, then, is part of this collective dream.
Metafiction attempts, perhaps, to illustrate this point in another way by revealing the artifice of art, but also the interaction of art with life and life with art.
After all, where on earth do characters come from?
Friday, November 21, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
A time of Fallow...
I am waiting for the inner spring of inspiration to rise up to the surface. That is an age old problem about the myth of inspiration. Most of us like to believe that a work will come to us complete, like a gift bestowed upon us by some mysterious force, and that no good work can be accomplished without such an intervention.
Although you might sometimes experience this phenomenon, and it is wonderful when it happens, most inspiration occurs from persistent hard work and refinement.
That is what is so wonderful about facing the fallow within--that state of mind where you feel that everything you create is hollow and meaningless--and creating in spite of it.
No matter what you feel in the moment about what you are creating, all that really matters is starting from somewhere and continuing forward with openness and curiosity.
There will always be the critical voice putting down every idea and word anyway, but the difference is you are getting those ideas down on the page, where they can be sifted through, revisioned and transformed into something you couldn't have imagined without first allowing for those first tentative scribblings.
Celebrate fallow. It is a time of regeneration and a deepening of the creative process. All things grow within there own cycles and seasons, even your own creative process. Just be sure to show up and create.
Although you might sometimes experience this phenomenon, and it is wonderful when it happens, most inspiration occurs from persistent hard work and refinement.
That is what is so wonderful about facing the fallow within--that state of mind where you feel that everything you create is hollow and meaningless--and creating in spite of it.
No matter what you feel in the moment about what you are creating, all that really matters is starting from somewhere and continuing forward with openness and curiosity.
There will always be the critical voice putting down every idea and word anyway, but the difference is you are getting those ideas down on the page, where they can be sifted through, revisioned and transformed into something you couldn't have imagined without first allowing for those first tentative scribblings.
Celebrate fallow. It is a time of regeneration and a deepening of the creative process. All things grow within there own cycles and seasons, even your own creative process. Just be sure to show up and create.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Big Messy Creativity
November 1 is a date notable because it is the start date of the 30 day novelling madness of National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org). This year will mark my third year of participation in the contest. I was proud to fulfill the 50,000 word count for the last two years in a row. The results were two rambling jaunts of character and plot development that remain in the limbo of sprawling first drafts requiring radical editing and revision interventions.
Although writing 50,000 words in 30 days is really challenging and can be an emotional rollercoaster, the sense of accomplishment is akin to flying. My biggest question to myself is always: where on Earth did these characters come from? One day there was nothing, and the next I am having a conversation with a fully formed, albeit imaginary being, in my head.
That is another great thing about writing fiction. You can make stuff up and have all kinds of fascinating conversations with make believe people, and no one will ever think twice about it. After all, you are a Creative Writer.
Which leads me to my next point. Before a wonderfully polished work of art can be written, a big messy first draft must be born. Big messy first drafts evoke feelings of deep ambivalence. They might have some fantastic features and aspects, but so much requires reshaping, and the internal logic of the piece must be found. It is both an exhilarating and, at times, a deeply frustrating process. Sometimes I must remind myself of some of the images I have seen of first draft manuscripts from famous literary figures, such as Lord Byron. There are cross outs, scribblings in the margins, ink stains and rewritten verses. By peering closely at a draft manuscript, you can almost map the many starts and stops, points of departure and rethinking and moments of excruciating frustration.
Somehow I find the evidence of a great writer's struggle encouraging. It means that nothing worthwhile comes without great effort.
Although writing 50,000 words in 30 days is really challenging and can be an emotional rollercoaster, the sense of accomplishment is akin to flying. My biggest question to myself is always: where on Earth did these characters come from? One day there was nothing, and the next I am having a conversation with a fully formed, albeit imaginary being, in my head.
That is another great thing about writing fiction. You can make stuff up and have all kinds of fascinating conversations with make believe people, and no one will ever think twice about it. After all, you are a Creative Writer.
Which leads me to my next point. Before a wonderfully polished work of art can be written, a big messy first draft must be born. Big messy first drafts evoke feelings of deep ambivalence. They might have some fantastic features and aspects, but so much requires reshaping, and the internal logic of the piece must be found. It is both an exhilarating and, at times, a deeply frustrating process. Sometimes I must remind myself of some of the images I have seen of first draft manuscripts from famous literary figures, such as Lord Byron. There are cross outs, scribblings in the margins, ink stains and rewritten verses. By peering closely at a draft manuscript, you can almost map the many starts and stops, points of departure and rethinking and moments of excruciating frustration.
Somehow I find the evidence of a great writer's struggle encouraging. It means that nothing worthwhile comes without great effort.
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