The Doing For Being

I've just finished reading an article on today's Guardian about the "nausea of writing novels"- It was written by Zadie Smith and, it seemed to me, her response to a book she had read about precisely the same theme.
Her conclusion is one that I agree with completely. Simply put, the problem is not in the genre but rather in the one who dwells on it. Conventions are what they are. Tools. We'd be fools to think them otherwise. That is my opinion at least.

But why am I telling you all this?
Well, i was initially attracted to the article because I am writing not one but two novels at the moment. And I was attracted because Zadie had suffered from writer's block and it seemed she was going to talk a bit about it in the article (which she did).
I myself have suffered from this. I think it's inevitable. Sometimes the brain just doesn't want to go to that place anymore and yet, here we are forcing our mind's to stay in a place where they don't want to be anymore...
That's when the writer's block happens for me.
It has solely to do with an unhappy mind. A mind that doesn't want to linger on (believe it or not) what's it's forcing itself to be!
We are truly crazy creatures...
But we also do know that, if we don't stick around some of the things we don't like doing, then nothing will ever get done.
It's called compromise.
And I think writing has as much of that as it has of creativity.
In fact to me, freedom only makes sense when we consider boundaries.
If there are no boundaries at all, then we don't have freedom.
We have something else.
And THAT'S much more important...
(and those who know meditation well will recognise where these words want to lead to)

In any case, this article got me to think about my own writings (it's always about us, isn't it?!) and the ups and downs i've been feeling lately.
And yes, sometimes, i think I should just better quit and do something more useful with my life.
Relax and meditate, for example.
But I don't. Because those things I know I CAN do.
Writing books is a different matter. Books that I can feel genuinely happy about.
That I still haven't done.
I've written a few. But they've never got to the state where I'm happy with them.
I'm close, just not there yet.
And I know I can.

So, there I was thinking about these things and this got me to think about my latest standstill. I want to create a situation where the reality of the ancient world life comes alive on the page and takes the reader deeper into the emotional, rather than just the (quite interesting though) ramblings I had a few days ago about the philosophies and religious views at the time.
I also got thinking that I'm going to have my appraisal next monday and that I should be working on that rather than thinking about my book.
And I said to myself
At least write a draft of it today because then, on monday, it will be much easier to correct and come up with something interesting.
That's when it hit me.
i've known this for ages.
That writting something even vaguely today will make it clearer tomorrow or the next day.
Here's an example.
Day One
Jesus needs to get into some sort of religious trouble with his companions.
Day Two
A man cries out for his missing daughter.
Day Three
Jesus and his companions are bathing on one of the effluents of the Nile when they hear the man crying in despair over his missing daughter. What they do not kow is that things aren't as clear cut and they're getting into a mess themselves by trying to help the poor man. He's lying to them. But they don't know it. And they're gonna get in trouble by trying to interfere with Egyptian and Roman law.
Day Four
There's no day four. You just need to write it now!

At every step we add something. We might not know how it's going to lead us, but something will happen.

Alright, all of this was known. So what is new?

What is new is this.

When I started doing this, the taking of notes really helped release that mental space for something new to come in.
But there is more. And this was what I realised when I thought about all these things.

When the idea first comes you create a memory for it. If it comes again, even if it is the reawakening of that memory, you'll have another memory for it, possibly filled on top of the other. But it's still the same type of memory. It has the same things associated with it. It's still fully internalised.

Now when you write...
it's a whole different matter.
You're associating motion to the flow of thought.
And you're creating a much more powerful and deeper memory to it. Simply because it has a lot more data associated with it.

Just think, how many times you thought of doing that particular thing and then life happened and it slipped away.
But when you actually do it there's something insubstantial but extremely precious that stays with you. Even if the next challenge is bigger, tougher, higher than that one, you still know that you've at least done it once.

What I'm saying is, we don't really measure ourselves by our thoughts. We mainly measure ourselves by our actions.

It's an old motto, I know, but perhaps there are some good reasons behind it.

And I think it's this knowing that, if we make different mirror images of the same idea, we will be able to work on this idea much more easily.

This is why I sometimes also read out aloud the idea. Or pick up the guitar and try to play something that conveys some musical feel of what I cannot say with the words.

when we do this, when we create different backgrounds for the same idea, we are giving it perspective.
They can be completely insane perspectives, but sometimes you need to run away from the hill to notice you'd been on it the whole time.

So, what I'm trying to say is that, even if you feel that you have no perspective over your story (ie, you have writers block), you can give yourself one.
The only thing you need to do is provide it with different settings.
And create these settings on a physical, bodily way, so that this idea becomes registered in different areas of the brain.
So that then it's easier to relate things. To make those inspirational jumps of the imagination.
In order to give our readers and ourselves what we enjoy so mcuh: that unexpected sense of beauty. Always fresh. Always appealing. Always insightful.
Always present.

Peace.