stoking the creative fire

Trying to write consistently is be a challenge. For some reason, I decided long ago that long-form fiction writing would be my passion, with a side of poetry. Unfortunately, my personality is not inclined toward the precision and forethought that could really support such a venture. I dislike sitting down and thinking through what I want to say, creating an outline, and then adhering to it, though at times I've found it really helpful.

Instead I've been attached to a sort of ecstatic, mystic idea of writing; opening my skull and letting the Genius write through me. What excites me most is stumbling through the process of taking inspiration and following its uncertain thread until I reach the denouement and realize, wow, that's where it was going all along! The writing path is full of surprise and intrigue and sloppiness, and several revisions are necessary to bring the whole work in line with what I was stumbling toward. That's the idea, anyway.

Unfortunately, the thread of inspiration is geared toward shorter bursts. Short fiction, short poems, or the occasional snippet in a longer work. Which isn't to say that it's not present in the more involved work, but there are far more days when it feels like sitting down to blankness and fighting against the complete emptiness of inspiration to generate some content. I suspect this would be the case even with an outline.

This summer, I read Philip K. Dick's brilliant alternate-history novel The Man in the High Castle. In his process of writing the novel, he consulted the I Ching regularly, using divination to direct the action of the work. This seemed like a wonderful tool for connecting to the creative unconscious, and sustaining that connection for a longer work.

My writing practice already includes some of this work. At times when I feel stalled, I'll do a dream incubation. At night, while falling asleep, I'll tell myself that I want to have a dream that will provide inspiration for where the novel will go next. The dreams are rarely "about" the novel in an explicit way; however, images and occurrences in the dream become intriguing irritants in my conscious mind that inspire further work. While writing Dreams Among the Ruins, I incubated a dream that featured a cadre of clones of the X-Man Cable dressed in womens' clothing, as part of an incognito mission. The dream led to two creative inspirations: one was a plot point that occurs in the novel. Later, in between drafts and looking for a creative palate-cleanser, I was inspired to write a screenplay draft for a Cable movie.

For this process, I've turned to one of my other loves, the Tarot. When I feel stuck as to what to write next, I'll shuffle and then deal three cards. One is the Court Card, signifying what character will be the focus of the next piece. I've begun developing correspondences of which court card signifies which character. The second is a Minor Arcana, signifying the action of the next scene. The third is a Major Arcana, signifying the greater arc or spiritual theme with which the character is grappling.

When I divide the cards in this way, I feel like the deck becomes immensely practical and clear. Oftentimes I may ask a practical question and get a card that I find wholly confounding, because I don't have a clear intention to frame its interpretation. I accept this lack of precision in my personal meditations because I feel it opens me up to some broader and more nuanced comprehension of both my life and the cards, but it can be maddening when trying to work on a practical question.

Unfortunately, work on this novel has and will continue to be slow, given my current status as a graduate student. All the more helpful it's been to have a process like this.

to commemorate my Saturn Return

Saturn in Libra

1.
Beneath the scales dispute the blessed ones:

With outstretched hand, one measures the land,
dispersing food and hearth from each
according to their labor, to each
according to their wealth.
				The other,
with grasping hands, demands power for what
is his. In agitation, the sun glowing
illuminates the work of many to feed
the few. 

	Meanwhile, her wings unfold the balance,
her heart the fulcrum of understanding
and wisdom, mercy and strength, love and power.

2.
In my throat lives shame, who says: “Do not speak.
Admire the melody of laughter, beneath
which thrashes muffled pain. Smile through clenching
larynx, cage the voice and leash discord.”

In my belly rage says: “These assholes and fools.
Admire the civility, gold-plating
pasted over disdain for suffering
and pronouncements of ignorant judgment.”

Now seething in complicity, efforts
wasted as rage and shame compound in blame.
Neither reason nor justice can survive
when power twists to choke upon itself.

3.
If I change, so must we, and so will you.
Decide for yourself what to do. You could
not change while I remain the same. Stasis.

4.
This blind silver moonlight is my left eye,
vibrating tides of your fathomless urge,
upwelling desire to flow with you.

This hot scarlet sunlight is my right eye,
piercing the seed to crack the shell, calling
the stalk to thrust upward, to claim its due.

5.
This one: the decimating desert storm
blasting righteousness to unveil the wicked.
The other: sky that holds us all in love,
arched in witness to justice and to vice. 

Sickness is harmony without dissent,
falsehood eating serenity of soul.
Torture is aggression devoid of love,
evil begets evil among the scared.

6.
Let both hands upset false balance. Justice
will seek its own return. The goddess bends
her hip, tilts her hand. Whatever you
fear most to say, speak; and then listen.

submitting to the work

I've yet to find the relationship with writing that really feels right to me. Or if I have, I keep letting resistance get in the way of bringing it home.

In working on a new long piece, I've set a goal for myself that I will write 600 words, 6 days a week, allowing myself one day of my choosing to rest. I've come to re-embrace the concept of Sabbath, in giving myself a break from my regular duties to relax, reconnect to what is divine and important in my life, and allow some spontaneity. Otherwise I would plan my life to death. Truly, there have been times when I wanted nothing more than to have a fixed daily schedule in which I spent half an hour meditating, an hour exercising, an hour writing, half an hour cleaning the house, eight hours working, two hours with my partner, and maybe a half hour for unstructured free time. Thus, the logic in my head goes, I won't die feeling regret that I never achieved my goals, though perhaps I might die wondering if I had ever made time to live.

These days I work at a job where the hours change daily, and my days off change weekly. Between that and being in graduate school, I don't have the stability of schedule that allows me to rigidly plan out my life, so I've needed to be even more disciplined while going with the flow. Which means I need to make sure I write when I have time to write. The nice thing about setting limits is that I also give myself permission to stop. I don't have to spend all day fretting about getting enough done if I've hit my benchmark.

The problem is when and where. Lately I've been exploiting the hell out of a Netbook I appropriated from my beloved husband, to the point where it seems to be rebelling against me. I found that writing on the bus could be quite invigorating. Since I had a limited amount of time, I could compel myself to bypass the inner critic and censor, skip past the dilly-dallying, and just write, just get out the 600 words, who cares what they are.

The downsides, of course, were that I only wanted to write when the bus was relatively unoccupied. I hate people reading over my shoulder when working on the first draft of a piece. Such privacy is rare on a bus. If I missed my work on the commute, I would try to squeeze in writing during my breaks at work, but it became all too easy to peruse the Internet and veg out.

Turns out, I have a wonderful computer at home, and a room of my own in which to work. I love my office. I've dreamed of having one for years and now I do, and now there's a part of me that wants to avoid the hell out of it. I suspect it's for the same reason that makes it seem easier to write on the bus. There's something about actually sitting down and sinking into the work that is unsettling to some part of my personality, the one that would rather procrastinate or indulge in some fruitless vice. Perhaps it's tied to why I find it hard to settle into stillness when meditating. Is it the ego? Whatever it is, it rebels against discipline, it hates settling into the process where it's just my self and the work.

I find it easy to half-ass writing. To do it on the bus, say, or at the table while chatting with my partner, or in front of the television. All great ways to avoid totally focusing. Without that full commitment, I'm not sure I can produce my best work, but perhaps that's the out my subconscious is seeking. "Oh, if it's not very good it's because I didn't try very hard." That no longer feels good enough.

So this week I'm choosing to recommit to working on my writing in my office. Not on the bus, not at work, not on the netbook. (Naturally, I am writing this blog post on the netbook at the dining table.) The process of sitting down to write creatively, to write fiction at my computer was wonderful. I could turn on the atmospheric, spooky music I loved, shut the door, and let myself write. When I was a teenager, this was my great passion. To enjoy the music I loved and create, using my computer as the medium of creation. It's a lonely process, and there's a sacrifice in time that could be spent with others. At the same time, in doing the work, I feel freed up to be more there with others. I'm not trying to squeeze in writing on the bus or while half-assing conversation. I can do my work, unplug myself from the computer, and be there for the rest of my life.

aphorisms of the damned, stanza 1

There is no belief so heinous as the one most recently discarded.

There is no group so hypocritical as the opposition to yours.

Ask a complex question, get no answer.

Ask a simple question, sit through ten minutes of conversation until you can finally get your answer.