Just Jen: On Writing

the enchanted 15: the end

Books are never finished only abandoned. -Oscar Wilde

I am thinking this morning that this series has completed itself.  There are 20 posts including this one and though there is always more to write, I am feeling somewhat satisfied with what I've written here. Getting into a regular rhythm of writing, realizing that the time in which you do it is enchanted, and meeting yourself honestly in the time that you spend committing words to the page are the three essentials to accomplishing something worthy.  

You may realize in reading this series, that I look at writing as a spiritual act as much as anything else. It is a commitment to using your time and talent for something bigger than yourself.  And that, my friends, is the biggest struggle of all.  Writing as service as opposed to self-aggrandizement.  I enjoy all of the benefits and blessings technology has given me as a writer.  As I wrote over on my main blog the other day, the opportunity to interact with an audience as you write is a very new thing and something that can feed you as a writer.  But there is always a shadow side to everything, things against which you have to struggle in order to make sure that the negative doesn't overcome the positive.  

The thing that I find to be the biggest pitfall in writing on the internet is that spoiled child that screams: NOTICE ME.  It's the thing I have to struggle against not just daily but hourly, the desire to be read is the desire to be noticed, and this is the thing I believe can kill writing more than any other negative tendency.  Because even if you are on the best seller list and greet millions of readers, still the act of writing is essentially solitary; it is something you do, day in and day out, without being noticed.  Even a best-seller has hours and hours of unnoticed efforts and sacrifices that went into it, and no number of accolades or readers can make up for that sacrifice. 

You have to kill that child that wants to be noticed in order to be able to do something good.  Because the best things in life always arise from the things we do without being noticed.   To work, silently, bravely, and quietly without being noticed will always bear more fruit.  This is the truth that must be believed in order to live.  

If being noticed by other mortals is the ultimate goal, it will not carry you.  You will always allow your time to devolve down to self-pleasing activities. To escapes and to laziness and to hedonistic pleasures.  Because the notice you receive--if you ever receive it at all--is always going to be delayed.  So if what you are looking for in your writing is to be NOTICED, your energy will be less than what it could be.  You will always feel weary, tired, and close to burning out. 

But if you believe, with the passion and conviction of something called FAITH, that offering your time and yourself to something that may in fact escape notice, not just now but forever, will lead to great fruit in your life and the life of others, you will find that your energy, like your time, can stretch much further and much deeper into  the fabric of all that is, was, and will be than you ever imagined possible. 

It seems odd to speak in such grandiose terms, about something so simple and so, ordinary.  But I believe that it is true.  The time we spend in pampering and coddling ourselves, in protecting ourself from pain and hurt, dissipates immediately. 

But the time we give to others, to service, and to sacrifice for it's own sake, stretches into a forever-ness.  Again, it sounds grandiose.  Silly, even.  But it's my experience that silliness often earmarks something authentic, unique, and true.  Think of when a child acts "silly".  They are usually doing something completely creative and original.  

So when you sit down for your 15 minutes, and you are tempted to feel something that can only feel like despair, because what comes out seems less than what you'd like it to be, less than what it could be.  Or because, it's time you feel is lost because it was time spent unnoticed, when you'd rather be emailing, texting, websurfing, eating, smoking, drinking, watching tv...

Remember this and know that it is not true.  In fact, the opposite is true.  The time spent in idleness is lost forever.  But the time spent in service to your time and your talent and, hence, to the world, is the only time that remains meaningful. 

The best of luck to you on building your writing 15 minutes at time or one day at a time or however you choose to think of it.  Every time I sit down to work, I'll think about you.  And I'll notice it. 

In a way.  

the enchanted 15: inspiration and effort

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.-Jack London

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.- Samuel Johnson

Inspiration and Effort

One of the consistent motifs in this concept of writing in 15 minute blocks, is that you write with discipline and in habit despite inspiration.  All of us who enjoy writing, who might attempt to actually produce something of consequence, likely got the idea because, at least once, we experienced inspired writing, at some point or another.  The kind of writing that pours from you, seemingly without effort, stories that form themselves like respiration, words that slide into perfect context and rhythm without the least bit of strain and hassle on your part.  

It is as if the story, essay, script, or paper writes itself.  

I very much doubt you would even be reading this if, for you, as for most people out there, writing is always 100% effort.  For you, writing is something that, at least occasionally, flows.  In fact, for some of you, writing has been, at one point or another, an ecstatic experience of complete unity and seamlessness.  An experience when you forget yourself and time gets away from you.  You believe 15 minutes has past and you look up to realize that you've been writing for three hours.  Perhaps, people often get mad at you for being late or for telling them that you'll "be right there" and then, you never arrive, because you are writing.  

If you are one of these people, then there is a huge problem you can encounter within writing, that can, if you are not careful in your understanding and treatment of it, destroy the good work that you can do with that ability.  Read on. 

If you are one of these people, a writer who is at least occasionally an inspired writer, it is not less important that you develop a strong writing habit but more.  Because look: as much as we might not care to admit it, there is a childlike emotion involved with this.  Inspiration has historically been described as being visited by the Muse.  When you are visited by the Muse you can feel special, chosen, and like part of an elect.  You actually feel loved as your write because the writing comes easy and that must mean that you are loved.  

The problem is, if the next time you sit down to write, the Muse is not there, it is not simple frustration.  You feel bereft.  As if your boyfriend or girlfriend hasn't called or as if your best friend forgot your birthday.  And now, this is irrational, but you begin to wonder what you did to deserve such abandonment.  

Suddenly, coming to the page, is not just difficult, it is painful.  It's like coming to a bar looking for the person who stared at you from across the room, and made you feel a heat under his or her gaze, and so, you return hoping that he or she will be there again, just so you can feel that feeling again.  And your eyes search the room but you never see the gazer again. And though, you didn't really know the person ever, inexplicably, you feel...

Loss. 

Some of you might find this totally ridiculous.  But I know there are a lot of you who know exactly what I am talking about.  (And then of course there are some of you who will PRETEND to find this totally ridiculous and WISH you didn't know exactly what I was talking about because it makes you feel foolish, but secretly, I know you do.)  If these feelings sound familiar to you, at least a little bit, then, if you are failing to come to the page, you do not fail to produce because you are lazy or because you do not have the time.  No, it is because you fear loss, you fear abandonment.  You fear uninspired writing, not because it is hard work, but because having to work without inspiration means that you are not worthy.  

But here's the deal, and I promise you, with the promise of one who knows that it is true, you are not unworthy because you write while uninspired, but more worthy.  It's a trick, you see, because inspiration, or rather The Muse, is very, very sensitive.  It doesn't want to be used for cheap thrills you see, so it will test you.  It will play games with you.   Showing up to work, even when The Muse hasn't called, or The Muse has long been absent, only proves your love.  Then when The Muse returns, The Muse returns with greater and greater faithfulness. 

There is a term that the Zen philosopher DT Suzuki used to describe the kinds of experiences meditation can produce in the individual.  It is called "habitual intuition"--by which he means, among several other things, is that we all have flashes of intuition as human beings, but if you meditate you cultivate a habit of intuition that begins to inform even the most basic every day occurrences in our life.  I suppose, ideally, those habitual intuitions begin to string together into a whole until we are living an entirely inspired life.  

I'm not sure many people in history have achieved that but it's worth the effort to try.  

I use this idea of "habitual intuition," um, habitually.  Okay, what I mean is, I've used it to understand a lot of different people, experiences, and things.  And I especially use it to understand how my writing skills develop.  Inspiration comes and goes, because The Muse is insecure and that makes The Muse fickle.  But my effort as a writer, is what makes it safe for The Muse to come back and stay awhile.  My effort meets inspiration and then, that, that is when mountains are moved.  

Try using this idea: imagine that when you sit down to write, all you are doing is making deposits in the bank, and you know with certainty it will grow.  If it is a barren 15 minutes and only two sentences come out so be it.  It doesn't mean anything at all--it doesn't mean that you will never feel that rush of inspiration again, it doesn't mean that it will always be this hard.  It doesn't mean that The Muse has dumped you. It simply means, that you are putting in due diligence and faithfulness. 

It means you are letting The Muse know it's safe to return, and that you are looking for more than cheap thrills.  That is when The Muse and you can move from infatuation to relationship.

That is when the work you were meant to do begins to form, mature, and grow.  

That is when your writing is open to life.  

the enchanted 15: the writer's curse

Envy (also called invidiousness) may be defined as an emotion that "occurs when a person lacks another’s (perceived) superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it."[1] It can also derive from a sense of low self-esteem that results from an upward social comparison threatening a person's self image: another person has something that the envier considers to be important to have. If the other person is perceived to be similar to the envier, the aroused envy will be particularly intense, because it signals to the envier that it just as well could have been he or she who had the desired object. -Wikipedia

Envy and malediction.  Wikipedia gives a very good description of envy above--and malediction, quite simply, is a curse.  Evil speech.  We tend to shrink from the idea of a curse as a superstition.  We don't believe in wizards and curses, right?  At least, not anymore.  Or maybe they are metaphors, we think.  But the fact that words and actions have psychological effects is not a metaphor.  It is literal.  So the curse is just another way of describing a reality we acknowledge to be real using other terms.  Freud changed the curse to "complex" and so on.  

So curses are real and I want to talk about the way we are cursed and cursing as writers.  It is always that way.  Once cursed you will also curse--it is a socially embedded action.  

How often, honestly, do you look at other writing, and feel a loathing for it? Do you ever look at the best-sellers list and think of all the "trash" or "tripe" that goes out into the world and resent that you are in obscurity and haven't received the same attention?  Have you spoken mean-spirited words about other writers?  Do you focus on how bad other work is?  Do you leave a play thinking about how terrible it was?  How about a movie?  Yes, plays and movies can be bad, simply bad.  But do you DWELL and curse that movie and its makers?  

Envy and then a consequent malediction seems like something innocuous at first--it's normal to feel inadequate next to people who are prolific and/or highly published, people who make a living at writing, people who receive public accolades and attention.  It is also normal to occasionally "vent" about others who frustrate, anger, or annoy you.  It makes you feel better (you think) and who does it hurt really?  It's just venting.  If you find yourself excusing your speech by saying you are venting--I will alert you that you are already in trouble.  

Like anything to do with human experience, it is a socially embedded phenomenon.  It works both ways between the giver and the receiver.  It is likely that someone who envies and then gives malediction has once been the recipient of that same negative thing, a negative thing that is not so much a thing but a NOthing.  Which is to say, it stops the positive flow of creativity, and instead of creation there is just blockage.  And by saying it's socially embedded, I mean that it is truly a curse and a curse is nothing more than psychological contagion.  Where the will of one person is imposed upon the other and the intention of that will is catching.  

So when someone envies you to the point of malediction, they actually wish for you not to have an ability or to achieve a certain success.  And that desire, even unspoken in your presence, affects you deeply. The problem is, you get stopped up and then you are even more vulnerable to experiencing envy and committing malediction the next time you encounter positive creative actions and inspiration.  It's not only contagious.  It's epidemic.  If you envy you create envy.  If you are envied you will envy.  And so on. It's a cancer.  And can only exist if there is a good, positive host for it to feed on.  You only experience the ill  result of envy if there is good in you to be envied.  And you can only envy someone else if there is good in you on which the envy feeds.  

I have recently been on the receiving end of an intense sort of envy that led to malediction.  The reason I was aware of it was that it affected me profoundly, interfered with my work, and led to me feeling a similar envy and misery, and tempted me toward extreme malediction.  I felt a bubbling need to SWEAR. I confess, I grew up in Queens the daughter of a man very much of that world and I have a colorful way of expressing myself.  Swearing by itself is not bad--it is vulgar, perhaps, but vulgarity is part of the richness of experience, and there is a reason comedians swear.  It's because it's funny.  Swearing is fun.  

But sometimes the urge to swear is the urge to curse--to name call, and to actually block another person from receiving goodness, and the only reason a person does this is because the person envies.    

Let me tell you a little anecdote.  It is true, but I have altered some details to protect the innocent as they say.  My friend Lydia is constantly talking about "creative" people--"I'm not creative, like Mary is."  "You know, she is one of those creative people."  She is actually married to someone who works professionally as a "creative".  Her mini-obsession with creative people and creativity is really because Lydia is very creative herself, but can't bring herself to create.  I know there was a powerful person in her life that envied her.  I'll withhold details for protecting identities, but I know this is true.  And this person cursed her through that spite and envy.  As a result, she is blocked.  

She sees me as a "creative" person, and she wrongly believes that I have talent at everything and that everything I do is just so "creative".  She'll talk to me about how she wants to be creative but she doesn't know what she is good at.  She continually spews bad talk about herself.  One day, we decided that we were going to do a "creative" activity together so we decided to paint.  We went to the craft store.  She hemmed and hawed about what to buy.  I bought a few containers of paint and a couple of brushes and a canvas.  She bought easily 10 times what I bought, some of them paint by numbers sets and some sophisticated tools that we weren't even sure what they were.  She was irrational in her purchases. 

I should tell you I have no innate skill as a visual artist. I almost have a developmental delay when it comes to drawing I so lack the natural skill set for it.  I am not very good at arts and crafts in general. I DO arts and crafts because it's fun, its therapeutic, and I consider it "cross-training" for writing.  It is good for me to do things I am not naturally good at and the skills I learn in the process of struggling with something I have no talent for translates into writing for me, something for which I do have a natural talent.  And I say both of those things--that I lack innate skill as a visual artist but I have talent for writing with no sense of blame for the former or credit for the latter.  It just is.  

We sat down to paint together and she decided, cursing herself, to do the paint-by-number, even though it was "lame".  She asked me what I was going to do and I said, I'm going to do the only thing I can do--I'm going to paint a flower.  We began working and I sat chatting to her, and she was watching me do it--she was not getting much done on her paint-by-number, because she kept stopping to watch what I was doing.  Her eyes burned holes into my hands.  I literally felt it.  And she kept saying, "How are you doing that?  See?  I want to do something like that.  I should stop this.  I'm not going to do this.  This is lame. It's childish. I just want to paint something like that."  

I tried to steer the conversation toward other things, until eventually, I was tempted into talking about how bad my flower was.  Just so I could relieve some of the pressure she was putting on herself.  Trust me, this was no great flower, it was just a blue sky background, and then a flower.  Cartoon-y and two-dimensional.  But it was a flower that I tried to love into existence.  A flower that I used to relax myself and to appreciate the exquisite beauty in all flowers.  I should not have been talking badly about my little flower.  It deserved neither censure nor praise.  It just was.  It's the "wasness" of it that was good.  She kept going on an on about how beautiful my flower was.  And not in a way that you would believe that she really took any pleasure in it.  It was about how bad her paint-by-numbers was. 

I slowly felt like I could not breathe in the room.  Eventually, disgusted with herself, she gave up, and she was mean to me for the rest of our time together.  Short-tempered.  Hostile.  She, in short, hated me.  Eventually, we got over that patch and we are still friends, but for a period of a couple of years occasionally I felt inexplicably hostile toward her and  cursed her to other people.  I know it was a hangover from that event.  I felt that she hated me, wanted me stopped, because making that little flower in her presence, when she felt she could not, hurt her.  I was disgusted by it: I can't just be myself without you taking offense?  And this led to a number of situations in which I "vented" about her to other people.  

I have repaired that relationship and that action, but that absorbed an enormous amount of psychic energy.  Really ridiculous amounts.  And the gravity of that situation has stuck with me, because I realize the problem for Lydia is that she has hundreds upon hundreds of flowers inside of her that simply aren't allowed to come into being.  

May Sarton has written beautifully about this:  

The gift, turned inward, unable to be given, becomes a heavy burden, even sometimes, a kind of a poison.  It is as though the flow of life were backed up.

When a person--or yourself--starts spewing negative bile about herself or another they are suffering.  And the problem with envy and malediction is that it spreads the poison around.  Yes, you don't know how permanently you may be hurting another when you give action and voice to such feelings.  Even a person, who is not in the room when you say it.  

But that's not the biggest problem.  The biggest problem is that it is narcissistic. Even if a person seems to be saying negative things about themselves, when it involves comparison to another, it is a deep, sick self-love that inspires it, because it means even good in another person just sinks you into your own ego.  Narcissism is a mirror and mirrors reflect back.  

When you send it out there it always comes back on you.  And it will block.  It will be a burden. It will poison.  Pay attention to envy and malediction.  Note in others.  Note it in yourself. 

And be very, very cautious about it.  Like you would be if you believed in wizards and curses.  Because the thing about wizards and curses is not that they are metaphor.  It's that they are real.  And we can measure their effects empirically. It's just not in fashion to use terms like that any more.  It didn't go away because it was false. It's just another way of describing reality.   

And occasionally its extremely useful to bring things from the past back into the present, because they tend to shed a little light. 

Except for stirrup pants.  Those are just ill-advised.  ;)