Zen And The Heart Of Writing
"Life is what happens while you're making other plans"--John
Lennon
Everything you can think of will and in an odd way SHOULD get in
the way of your writing. In other words, if you are doing the
work...REALLY doing the work, you are constantly digging into
the least comfortable corners of your psyche, constantly
struggling to understand yourself, your culture, your world.
Constantly engaging with questions of the origins of violence,
sexuality, love, hate, war, need, hope, and hopelessness. In
other words, you are going deeper and deeper into the one human
being you will ever have any hope of comprehending...yourself.
There is a thought exercise that goes something like this: take
a beaker and fill it with rocks. Is it full? Yes? No? Take
pebbles and pour them into the beaker so that they fill the gaps
between the larger stones. NOW is it full? Yes? No? Take sand
and pour it in so that it fills the gap between the pebbles. NOW
is it full? Yes? No? Finally, take water and pour it in so that
it fills the gap between the grains of sand. NOW is it full? You
get the picture.
This exercise has been used as an illustration in physics
classes, and in time-management courses (do the big things
first!), but here, I want to apply it to something else. As I've
said repeatedly, I'm in the run-up to finally finishing the most
punishing project of my life, the novel Great Sky Woman. The
copyedited manuscript came back to me for a final two-week read
over...you guessed it...during Christmas vacation. In fact, it
was delivered to me in Atlanta, where I traveled with my family
so that my wife could experience the birth of her niece. Along
the way our jet-lagged two year old woke us up at ungodly hours.
We never quite knew where we were going to sleep (just
logistical stuff--no one's fault.) Rooms were too cold, or too
noisy. Vehicles that were supposed to be available became
unavailable. Nerves were on edge. Maps were inaccurate, leading
to long, stressful drives. Cassette players didn't work, making
drives even worse. By the time we got home we were flu-ish, and
I was running out of time to work on my book (and I hadn't been
able to do much in Atlanta, because my research material was all
at home in L.A.!) The baby, now adjusted for East Coast time,
was waking up too early AGAIN, as he adjusts for West Coast
time. Stress, stress, stress...
And yet...you know something? This is life. A beautiful child
was born. Tananarive got to spend precious time with her sister
at a critical moment. My son got to play with his cousin Jaxon,
a wonderful little boy. We got to have Christmas with her
family.
These things are far more important than a book. Any book. They
are the essence of life itself. But the temptation is to think
that they are "distractions" from the work. No. they are what
life is about. What any book, any story worth a damn is about.
Life. Our hopes and dreams, and how reality interacts with them.
How to do it? How to navigate these perilous channels?
Lifewriting suggests that the answer is in us, and in the way we
address our challenges daily. The creative flow, the magical
moments when we are swallowed whole by the work we love, is
still there, waiting for us to slow down, center, and find
it...ESPECIALLY when we are stressed out. Slow the #@$$ down,
people. Listen to your heartbeat. The rocks, the pebbles, the
sand are the emotional reactions we have to the "distractions."
The water, which can ALWAYS fit between these "problems," is the
emotional juice of our lives, our ability to improvise, to
reinterpret, to create in the midst of chaos. This is your
challenge. How will you Flow through the madness?
In everything we write, aren't we constantly addressing the
question of how a character will respond to unexpected
pressures? How in the world can we learn this without developing
such skills ourselves? The "water" is the zen immersion in the
moment. It is our genius, our capacity for full engagement. The
voices in our heads are the rocks, the pebbles, the sand.
Be clear that you are the water. Regardless of the challenges or
barriers, you must be committed to returning to the ocean of
your soul, your creativity. Writing, as life itself, must be a
constant search for what is real, and beautiful, and absolute,
even in the storm of life itself.
When all is said and done, that is all that really matters,
isn't it?