There’s No Right Way to Write

Most people are familiar with the expression, “If you meet the Budha on the road, kill him”. I recommend the same approach to anything you meet that claims to be the definitive guide to creative writing.

There are important rules of the road, to be sure, and practices that have stood the test of time, but the idea that there is one ideal process is an illusion that sends many a writer off on a wild goose chase instead of owning what works best for them.

The reason no one system works for everyone is simple: A standard formula requires standard ingredients, and there’s nothing less standard than what an author has to work with: their conscious, their unconscious, and the world as they know it. What’s more, getting these three ingredients to work together can sometimes feel like driving a troika whose members have the synchrony of an ostrich, a camel and a crocodile.

It takes a lifetime to get to know one’s own troika, and what works with mine might send yours careening off course. (At the moment, my ostrich wants to take this analogy and run with it, but maybe another time!)

Who Calls the Shots?

Two of these ingredients – our conscious and our unconscious – pose a dilemma for the writer. If we depend too heavily on the conscious, in the sense of charging forward with images and ideas we have in hand, the best we can hope for is the written equivalent of elevator music – a nice, fleshed out-version of the story line, with perhaps a touch of clever.

I ‘found’ a poem some years ago in The French Lieutenant’s Woman (pp 95–98), that gives John Fowles’ take on this aspect of writing:

The novelist you say knows all;

Only pull the strings and puppets will behave.

But, fill a book with reasons -

Vanity, amusement, curiosity -

Why novelists write

All true but not true of all

Only one is shared:

To create worlds as real as the one that is,

But other.

 

The world is organism, not machine,

Independent of creator –

A planned world, a dead world –

And characters begin to live that disobey.

The only good god is freedom

That allows other freedoms to exist;

And standing next to God,

The novelist.

The author as scribe with a front row seat, capturing what happens when characters get a chance to be themselves; certainly not the conventional image of the author as an omnipotent commander.

It wasn’t uncommon during the years I was writing the Two Roads Home series to be replaying dialogue in my head and have one of the characters go off script, or to have something unforeseen happen in my mind’s eye that changed the course of the story. It felt very much like being along for the ride instead of in the driver’s seat, and with my ego shunted unceremoniously aside, those have been among the most exciting, rewarding occasions in my writing experience.

Let’s not kid ourselves, though: depending on the unconscious to deliver the goods through imagination, dreams or free association can leave us either waiting for Godot, or trying to make sense of a jumble of images and ideas with as much order as the flotsam along a high tide line.

The Muse Helps Those Who Help Themselves

Frida Kahlo said, “I am my own muse.” Wow! Most of us can’t let go of the idea of some external embodiment of inspiration but even with such a symbol, the goods come from within. The trick is to find that condition, those circumstances, in which we can tap into both the conscious and the unconscious.

How do I remain proactive in the writing process but not kid myself about what I can do without the help of resources beyond my control? What does it take to make the unconscious feel welcome? I have found three helpful tools: repetition, receptivity, and research.

       i.          Repetition.

What do attorneys, detectives and psychotherapists have in common? They ask you to repeat your story, sometimes over and over again. Unless you’re suspected of deceit, they use this method because they know that, as our mind settles into a subject, it begins to recall more detail and make more associations – not unlike one’s eyes getting used to the light in a dark room.

It’s not unusual for me to reread a passage – even an incomplete sentence – or play a scene over in my mind twenty times. Frustrating as hell to end up in the same place again and again, but sometimes the tumblers drop and my ‘out of nowhere’ delivers a different word, a different view, a different thought about what’s going on. Or it might just say, “Just a minute; the problem is somewhere else.” Either way, it pays off with a richer outcome.

     ii.          Receptivity.

The muse is unlikely to want to share your head with a neighbor’s lawnmower or Breaking News on CNN. And it takes more than a cup of coffee to make way for her if you’re tired or preoccupied. I’m not talking about retreating to an ashram; just give the writing process the same attention and alertness you’d give any other important mental exercise.

You’ve probably noticed that there are particular times or places in your day when ideas are more likely to come out of nowhere. For me, it’s in the moments after I first wake up. Linger a few moments in those times and places, and keep a pen and notepad nearby.

And there’s something else about this receptive state: you can’t turn it on and off like a light switch if the phone rings or your partner reminds you about some errand you promised to run. How you negotiate that particular issue is another story, but minutes become hours when you’re in that space. So unless you want to become Exhibit A for ‘writers are selfish’, some bargaining with others in your life is in order.   

   iii.          Research.

The world as defined by our knowledge and experience is a shallow version of what actually surrounds us, whether we’re talking about philosophy, internal combustion engines or whole wheat bread. OK, some of our dioramas might have Smithsonian detail, others may resemble first grade homework assignments, but there’s always room to broaden and deepen our awareness of any part of the world we live in.

It’s all well and good to be guided by the axiom to ‘write what you know’, but that doesn’t rule out taking the time to learn more about it. In fact, digging around at the edges of the familiar has been so productive of ideas and images for me that I’m tempted to make an axiom out of it.

I think what happens in this process is not only the discovery of new facts and perspectives, but it’s almost as if it sets in motion a parallel rummaging among the synapses of our brain, and associations are exposed that lead us to memories and instincts that we may not recognize, or that may even have preceded us.

So, click on items around the Google entry you started with, chase synonyms, contemporary events, names – let curiosity call the shots and see where it takes you. (This is probably a good point to recall the note above, about minutes becoming hours!)  

At some point you’ll have to reign yourself in and get back to the query you started with, but what some may call distraction can be the source of new levels of authenticity and insight in your work.

The Emperor’s Clothes

A brief note in passing: if you use some form of chemical inducement in your courtship of the muse – a drink, a smoke, or whatever - be sure to look carefully at the gifts from your trip before you share them too widely. Your insight or inspiration could have felt in the moment like a whole new wardrobe but, in the cold light of day, the emperor may be as naked as a jaybird.

Finally,

I think a piece of writing has three lives:

• One that matures with the light of day - its clarity, scope and coherence;
• One that evolves with the writer’s discovery of themselves – its validity and insight;
• One that finds its place on the shelves of time – its relevance.

… and the intriguing thing in terms of process? They are all unfinished business.

 

Jim

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Winter in the Byward Farmers Market

As a boy during the Depression, my father stood in Ottawa’s Byward Market with his father, selling eggs and chickens from a modest family flock. In June or July, the worst thing about these Saturday routines would probably have been the boredom and the thought of what he might be missing out on because of this tedious business of helping the family keep body and soul together.

But in January and February, it would have been a different story: The truck seat, cold and hard beneath him as they traveled through the sub-zero morning darkness; the anxious search to claim a good spot on the perimeter of the pavilion; The effort to clear it of snow, arrange cartons of eggs on the tailgate, and set up the chopping block and wobbly plucking table; the fight with frozen canvas to make a wind break around the crated birds.

By mid-morning the sun would be strong enough to begin to melt snow from shed roofs and window ledges, and send rivulets of icy water through the slush in search of leaky boots and frayed gloves. It would tease the backs of raw chapped hands at the plucking table and lure the boy into brief catnaps between customers.

By late afternoon, as the sun retreats up the side of the buildings across William Street, the temperature again drops quickly. Toes can no longer fight the soaking cold. Chickens fade into a listless trance and as their feathers ruffle and their heads droop, they lose any appeal to the dwindling crowd that trudges past. Grandpa’s mood darkens as these late-day shoppers push him with ever-decreasing stocks of civility for a give-away deal. They know he must accept at least some of their offers to scrounge the last dollar from the day.

As hope of additional sales fades, crates and tools would be broken free of the ice and loaded back onto the truck, to the refrain of familiar unspoken questions. Is this more or less than we took home last week? How much money did we make? 

Will the truck start?   

Will there be dry socks in the laundry hamper?

What’s left on the stove?  

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