Starting Out is Like a Vertical Treadmill

epicthings

Invention (or the starting-off phase of writing) can be like a treadmill, a plank at a steep incline.

Today, I have several writing projects in this stage, and I am finding it very amusing.

The work feels like a significant exertion though it's not necessarily an unpleasant situation. I'm aware that this is how it often feels when I am starting a new piece of writing. The incline of starting carries around the cliche in English of "an uphill battle." It also contains the conceptual metaphor of ascent and possible transcendence.

I know myself as a writer pretty well by now, so I understand that it's not usually audience concerns that make starting an exertion but rather contact with the unconscious. That is, I don't usually worry about the impact of my nascent words on an imaginary audience in the future--those worries are not the source of strain. With new ideas there is always the shadow of the unconscious. (This is even the case with the scholarly writing I do--not just creative writing.) Exertion comes from forcing contact with the unconscious: it's the inaccessibility Freud describes in his term "motivated-non-knowing."

I've come to understand that this treadmill is my all-too-human desire for mindlessness.As Elaine J. Langer puts it in her discussion of Freud in Mindfulness, unconscious forces are connected to mindlessness. (That's fine; we all need a healthy dose of mindlessness.) They "continuously affect our conscious lives yet, without extreme effort such as is required in psychoanalysis or various spiritual disciplines, we can not recognize or change their influence.”

Sometimes my treadmill is accompanied by a surreal image: the actual running floor of the machine is transformed into a continuous fingerprint, expanding and fluctuating like some sort of fun house mirror. I understand this image as related to identity and the self in writing.

I also think of the neat packaging of the 5 canons in the Greco-Roman tradition (invention, arrangement, style, memory, delivery). The "exact moment" in which we start a piece of writing is much more fluid than any neat category. Who knows when you actually started? Perhaps in a dream you had last night. Perhaps four notebooks and two years ago (or longer). Perhaps even when you gripped a pencil and formed your first letter as a child.

If a person is intimidated with starting a piece of writing, they are, in the words of Suzuki, "adding something extra" to the experience. Just observe the moment the draft begins to surface. Don't be scared. Every present moment of writing contains shards, marks, and strings of Beginning as well as Ending.

The Gray Rock: Ambivalence and the Writing Process




Christine Little-English

 

The ability to write will lead to an ambivalence about doing it.

This phenomena is positive since it means that there isn’t a sharp dualism in the act of writing. It is neither terrific nor frightening to be engaged in writing; to write constitutes neither a success nor a potential failure. Writing is simply an act one does, something I am doing. It is a motion in time. It is as beautiful and as basic as mindfully breathing.

It is an ambivalent productivity.

The trick about experiencing this state of ambivalent productivity is that you can become doubtful of the writing because it doesn’t contain that outburst of joy and relief you might expect. You might even want those emotional sensations as a sort of reward for all your struggle. Additionally, you can start believing that what you're writing is worthless or boring because some excitement is not accompanying the ability to write. Your perception of the content of your work can be negatively affected.

It is crucial to not expect that a sensation of thrill will accompany your sudden ability to write.

It’s especially important to remember this idea after a period of time has passed in which you were (seemingly) unable to write anything.

Another quality must fuel the ability to continue the writing project: the acceptance of the way things are being expressed and a belief in the goodness of that communication. If you are entertaining the added thought that you expect a thrill, you are detracting from the writing. Any thoughts of ambition, excitement, or even disappointment are extraneous material which lessens a concentrated experience of writing. Zen master Suzuki wrote, “when you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind; you should be concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like a good bonfire.”

Sometimes after a difficult stretch in which writing does not happen to my satisfaction, I have had to remind myself that what is important is to not become excited about this reappearance of my ability to write.

Instead, I should use equanimity and see how in the moment, writing is the necessary thing to do. By necessary, I do not mean that writing is special or virtuous, but instead that it is the activity which is just happening right now. Its happening is linked inextricably with that moment.

When we realize the naturalness of writing to the particular moment in our lives, we are completely absorbed by the task. We forget all worries, personal or those explicitly related to our writing goals. Hours pass. Writing hardly exhausts us because we are so at peace with it. To be exhausted by writing would be as nonsensical as being tired from just sitting in a chair.

Choices arise naturally, such as whether to add this sentence or delete that adjective.

Our hands feel warm leaning on the alphabet of the keyboard. It is often at such writing moments that totally unexpected new material and ideas arise. This is when we start to feel “inspired.” We can begin whole new creative directions after achieving ambivalence and calm in writing.

The risk is that we can overvalue this calming process in itself. We can falsely fixate upon trying to achieve calm as a vehicle to write. When writers rely on routines or addiction in order to stimulate a prolific experience, they are essentially trying to recreate that inner calm and ambivalence. To do so will inevitably cause the opposite effect, leaving the writer blocked and frustrated.

The Looming Genre Cliff: A Reflection

Ben 124
 

The Looming Genre Cliff

This morning, I'm starting a brand-new writing project—one that's in a different genre than my usual—and I’m experiencing all sorts of emotional turbulence. It’s helping me remember what it is like to have a writing block. Puts me in touch with what others who are facing writing blocks—what they might be feeling.

The fear. The sense of standing at the edge of a glass wave that's also a sort of cliff.

This fear of the unknown is compounded by all sorts of predetermined thoughts I might hold about that new not-yet-written piece: daydreams of outcome, reactions of as-of-yet non-existent audiences. I’m even anticipating my own pleasure at the contemplation of a final version of this writing project.

Those are the (mostly) pleasant thoughts.

Then there’s the fact that my pulse is elevated and my breathing constricted.

I’m anxious. This situation heightens the inner conversation I am having about my writing ability and writing quality. What normally hums non-stop behind the scenes at inaudible levels is now vibrating and in bold letters.

Any noise (someone coughing in the household, the branch of heavy black footsteps overhead) is a spike in irritation because it makes me more aware of standing on this precipice between writing and not-writing. Also, those disturbances increase the volume of my inner talk about my current writing situation.

But, hey, I’ve recently been looking for something to shake me out of my lassitude with poetry. I’m done writing 95% of my next book. No longer invested in the invention phase for the manuscript, my energies had tilted toward editing and sculpting it for readers. I can’t dwell any longer in the creating phase for this book; it’s almost as though I’m being forced out of its space.

Well, starting a new genre and a new project has definitely taken the lethargy out of me (Evidence A: rapid pulse staring at screen).

I think this is happening to me because I've got a nice routine established.  By having a morning poetry practice (which I probably do 360 days out of the year), I've established a comfortable way to re-engage my inner voice each day for the purposes of this type of writing. The pens and notebook I use, the coffee I make, the sequence of events that gets me to my writing desk fifteen minutes after waking up.

With this new genre, I'm mainly noticing my discomfort, but I appreciate this situation. I’m not going to push this discomfort away. Instead, I’ll stand at the edge of this genre cliff and observe, watching my breath, and observe.