I've just begun the busiest time of my year with 14 weeks of uni - essays, fiction pieces, readings. Add to that work as usual, job seeking, interviews/hope/rejection, writing the 2nd draft of my novel and of course my usual pumping social life (maybe not pumping, but you know I do stuff). Yeah it's bizay! And yet, all I can think of is play time. What am I doing that's just for kicks? That's just creative and not necessarily wrapped up in some intense goal or expectation.
Fun is always the first thing to go when life gets full, but it's the very thing that makes life worth living. I think I kid myself into thinking I don't have time for it. But truth is, it's just easier to zone out on fruit ninja for 20minutes rather than actually think about something interesting to do.
Play time may eat at time that I should spend on that assignment or editing my novel or searching literary journals to send my stories to. But without it, I know that in a few months I'm going to feel dry as stale toast. Stale mouldy sad lonely toast.
So though I don't think I have the time, I'm starting salsa dancing classes with Mat. I'm going to those dinner parties, I'm going on adventures with my little brother, I'm playing with the dog, I'm lying on the grass and making shapes with clouds, I'm marvelling at the colour of a flower, I'm writing love letters, I'm keeping a smile on my face and some joy in my heart.
I’ve finally hit my relatively modest goal of 50 000 words since starting in November 2008 (!) The story has swelled and is continuing to grow despite me, though I’m eager to end it – even if it means writing a purely arbitrary finale – so that I can begin the very scary journey of EDITING! (eek!)
Anyway, last night I wrote a pivotal chapter. It was emotional, scary and at times I wanted to stop but I couldn't. I find that writing upsetting scenes come naturally to me. Most of the time I struggle to write even 300 words in one sitting. But when the content is distressing or moving and when I find myself asking the question "can I show this to other people", my writing becomes fluid, I can punch out 1000 words in under an hour and it is mostly coherent.
I have a few scenes in my novel like this. Scenes that I seriously question whether I have the stomach to edit, expand and prepare for a second/third/fourth pair of eyes to read. The scenes are not morbidly grotesque or terribly depressing, but they are dark and confronting. Sometimes they are themes that stem from dark times in my own life - though they are always fictionalised extensions of what I have experienced.
Despite the fact that it is fiction, sometimes the emotion of traumatic scenes, that my characters face, get to me. I've gotten emotional while writing about four or five key scenes while writing this piece. One of which I don't know if I'll ultimately include at all in my second draft. I feel like I can communicate the scene well enough and it defines the behaviour of one of the main characters... but I don't know if I want the content, I don't know if it has a place in the bigger story, I don't know if I can go back to it to improve and manipulate the first raw scribbling.
Have you experienced this? What do you do when your content gets too close to home? What do you do when it gets too far from home and you find yourself a little lost
Ps. If you want to read an extract of my WIP click here (1) and then here (2) let me know what you think!
I've finally finished reading Midnight's Children. What an epic, witty, tragic story! Rushdie is so gifted and while I don't admire everything about him or his philosophies, I am so astonished | bewildered | mesmerised by his creativity. I've been re-reading the introduction to the book, in which he outlines the origins of the characters and his family and friends' reactions to having been caricatured in the story. He highlights the political climate in India when he wrote the book and then reaction to its publication. He also talked a little about working in advertising at Ogilvy's while writing MC.
These are just a few of the lessons I've gleaned from this short introduction, written retrospectively in 2005.
1. Writing is not the best get rich quick scheme going.
Rushdie had published a novel - Grimus - prior to Midnight's Children, but even after publication and after receiving an advance on the second novel, he could not give up his day job, well he did for a bit but he had to ask for it back! If you want to be a writer, you need to love writing for what it is, not for the potential ca-ching that you've been pinning your dreams and your financial future on. If you are truly talented and hard working, maybe (just maybe) you can be very successful!
2. Fear not.
Don't be afraid to offend people that are close to you with your thoughts, memories and expression. Personal history is a huge repository for joyful, bizarre, interesting and macabre inspiration. Use with wisdom, but don't stifle it.
3. It's not that common knowledge.
In the 80s Indian university students said to Rushdie: "I could have written that book, I knew all that stuff."
Use what is known to your locale - most people outside of your ethnic group, geographical setting, culture, heritage, etcetera, may just be completely fascinated by facts that are common knowledge to your people.
4. You don't need more free time/inspiration, you need a kick in the backside.
The following quote from the Introduction really inspired me:
On Friday nights I would come home to KentishTown from the agency's offices near WaterlooBridge, take a long hot bath, wash the week's commerce away, and emerge - or so I told myself - as a novelist. As I look back, I feel a touch of pride at my younger self's dedication to literature, which gave him the strength of mind to resist the blandishments of the enemies of promise. The sirens of ad-land sang sweetly and seductively, but I thought of Odysseus lashing himself to the mast of his ship and somehow stayed on course.
Still, advertising taught me discipline, forcing me to learn how to get on with whatever task needed getting on with, and ever since those days I have treated my writing simply as a job to be done, refusing myself all (well, most) of the luxuries of artistic temperament.
Just like the rest of us, he had to work a day job out of necessity. But because he loved writing, he MADE time for it. Don't cry and moan about how little time you have to write because of your "real" life, let the challenges you face sharpen you, teach you to be disciplined. (I say this to myself - the biggest whiner of them all.) You need a strong (perhaps stubborn) mind to resist the blandishments of the enemies of promise. The enemies of promise are your job, your busy-ness, your distractions, the kids, the cat, the bag of giant triple choc cookies, sleep!. If you don't resist these you'll never prioritise your writing/creativity/happiness!
So, what's your day job? What is it teaching you about writing or expressing your creativity? How does it help your writing?
Ps. As I'm writing this on the train, the girl next to me is reading a copy of Midnight's Children! I love that.
I wrote a comment on someone else's blog a few weeks ago, which I've really wanted to share here. I've held off until now, because it could be seen as offensive to certain members of my extended family. But this is it, these are my experiences, and I've lived to tell the tale and I've risen to make meaning out of these seemingly random events that I've encountered, and so and so and so... I'm hoping these people either don't go online enough to bother with this blog and/or appreciate the beauty that I have found in the midst of ugliness.
Sarah Wilson (Australian journalist) recently posted about lowering expectations as a way of being pleasantly surprised by life. I get what she's saying, don't set yourself up for a fall by expecting to much of yourself and others. But part of me feels like this is pretty defeatist. "If I train myself not to expect much, I won't be disappointed by the nothing that I get and therefore I'll be happy." It sounds ok, but all you're doing is trying to protect yourself from disappointment, as though you can trick yourself into not being disappointed, as though disappointment is something you can foresee and avoid.
I think the let downs are one of life's most useful things. The way a person responds to disappointment can either build or decay their character (and sense of humour!). I think that we should have the highest expectations of ourselves and others, as this is what propels us forward.
If happiness is the goal, I think disappointments are a great opportunity to learn that real joy is NOT something that comes from the outside in. I expect a lot from the people around me, but I don't hold anyone responsible for my happiness.
A lesson: My 21st Birthday was spent in South Africa with my huge extended family. The gifts were beyond tragic: 2kg candles in the shape of faces, a holographic dolphin cuff-watch, and a furry leopard skin and diamante purse. But what topped this bizarre 12 year old themed list was the commemorative plate with a photo of my face stretched, so that I resembled a beardless swami, across the front from my most beloved uncle. The horrific plate was immediately passed around the large circle of Aunties who sporadically exclaimed “oh sooooo beautiful”, “sooooo thoughtful”. All of this could have sent me over the edge of self-pity and binge eating, but instead I kept a plate-stretched smile on my face and thanked every one earnestly for my gifts. Though I was not thankful for the trauma, I was genuinely thankful for the thought, the gesture, the kindness in their eyes, the love that I felt radiating from them toward me. Yes, I was very thankful!
I didn't need the Tiffany's bracelet or the subscription to Vogue Living or the Eames inspired wall hooks that's been sitting on my wish list for the last two years! I got a stack of crappy presents and something far more enduring and inexplicably valuable. (Don't you hate it when a writer writes "inexplicably", it's like "Come on, you're the wordsmith, give us an explication. That's just lazy." Well it's not lazy, it was beautiful beyond words, so why don't you back off cause you're ruining this touching moment.)
To be honest, that awful plate has given me more joy than any other gift I have ever received. I still have it, hidden in some dark place. One day soon, I’m going to dust it off, serve a delicious dinner for Mat on it and share the joy.
