A Professor of ideas

Bookworm by Karl Spitzweg

I’m so glad that Karl Spitzweg created this painting. It resides over my reading chair in the library and I can see myself reflected in the old man on the ladder. He is so focused on the book in his hand that he’s unconcerned – or unaware – that he could topple from the ladder. I’ve been known to carry ten books with me on holiday just so I can have a piece of my library with me – a travelling library I guess. I’ve also been known to stand in just such a posture in a bookstore with books tucked under my arms and my face firmly locked onto the words one of my finds. Searching for books, finding books, acquiring books is just as important as reading them. I guess the same can be said for ideas for writing. The process of discovery is as important to the writing process as the writing itself. In a way the writer needs to be a Professor of ideas – a researcher, an explorer, a woman or man of letters.

Ideas are everywhere, but first you need to find your imagination

Look under rocks, under your pillow, beneath the water’s surface
Consult your dreams, your childhood memories
Read the big books, the little books, read between the lines,
Look down, look up, look inside out,
Search among the grains of sand, in the veins of leaves
Search the space between yourself and the rest
Look by touching, tasting and smelling
Find them in music, in laughter, in silence
Search between the blades of grass and on the boughs of trees
Look to the stars, the surface of the moon, the storms of Jupiter
Ask the big questions, the little ones, and the ones in between
You’ll know it when you feel it

© Sharon Egan

mmm Jam . . .

I’ve spent much of the last two days on my feet cooking. Good cooking, like good writing, is an art-form. Though I am no chef I seem to have a much easier time coming up with tasty and unique dishes than I do coming up with interesting and original prose. I tend to cook by the seat of my pants – choosing ingredients based on mood and personal preference rather than from a recipe.  While I will occasionally refer to a recipe for the basic set up of a meal, I almost always end up customising it to suit mine or my husband’s taste. This kind of behaviour would have some people I know accusing me of being one of those impulsive creative types who can’t follow instructions. All true. But my creative cooking is never without purpose. I like to bend tradition, to come up with unlikely combinations of food – like mixing Persian with other international flavours – to test my own wits in the kitchen. Whenever I discover a tasty dish at a restaurant I will always try it at home, adapting it of course. I can’t always recreate the atmosphere, or the exact flavour, but the process and sometimes the result is rewarding.

So my list of accomplishments this week is: Persian paste for marinating chicken, my own version of basil pesto (using home grown ingredients) and jam. Today I made mixed berry jam (boysenberry, raspberry, strawberry and cherry) and a blackberry jam.

If I could only apply this enthusiasm to writing, that novel would be “cooked” in no time.

Chaos

Yesterday I spent most of the day out in the garden, which I’ve dubbed Bibliotopia. I set myself up with music, a comfy cushion and a pot of tea on a porch swing and did some time thinking. It’s surprising how exhausting a day of thinking can make you feel. I thought about my book, about other people’s books, more books I could write and all the books that will never get written. I  had ideas. I wrote one of them down and then thought about the likelihood of it ever being written given my current commitments. I jotted it down anyway to be stored on an index card for that someday when I’ll have time to write it. I have a few of these index cards, but most of the ideas are written on scraps of paper scattered throughout the house, or are locked in my mind. When I was working I used to fantasize about having the time to manifest those ideas into real volumes of text. Now that I have time it is taken up with a thousand other tasks – being a wife, training a 5 month old puppy, taking care of the house, writing a novel, maintaining a blog, trying to launch an online magazine, trying to get through a growing stack of books, and of course, having time to think about doing all these things. I’m 36 years old and I wonder if I will ever get my writer’s brain sorted out and then I think that the chaos is what allows me to be a writer. Chaos is what allows to me propagate ideas in the first place. I guess I’m happier with chaos than without it.

I is for insomnia

I haven’t felt like saying much for a couple of weeks because my brain is in la-la land. Insomnia is hitting hard during the night, leaving me lethargic and unmotivated in the day. My body is busy growing a baby and for now that takes priority. I must be content to write in fits and starts, though I am finding that difficult to adjust to. It feels unproductive, but the more I try to motivate myself the less motivated I feel. This is only a temporary glitch and I’m sure I’ll be back on track in a couple of weeks when the hormones have settled down. For now I am retraining my brain to think like a writer and not just a crazy pregnant woman. This is a more challenging task than I had anticipated, but in this I am single-minded. If you’re in a writing rutt like me instruct yourself to write as it comes and expect creativity to return.

Writer/director

I’ve been cooking, gardening and focusing on the house this week. I’ve noticed that even in my down times I’m still writing. When I was a kid I used to physically and verbally act out the scenes in my stories. It was often quite theatrical and mostly I did this because it was a form of play that suited my temperament and vivid imagination. Between the ages of 11 and 13 I started writing plays with my best friend who also loved to write; some we performed in front of our class, some were simply for our own pleasure. We even had the chance to write and “direct” a play for an assignment. I preferred to be in the role of writer/director rather than acting in front of an audience. As an adult I am still a director, but most of the scenes I direct are in my mind. Some of them end up on paper, but the majority won’t make the grade and are destined to be filed in the dusty corners of my mind. I’m ok with that. As long as I keep playing, I’ll keep writing.

Spark up sparky

A couple of years ago I went through an extended period of low creative output. Recently my creativity has dwindled again and though the reasons (excuses) are different, the underlying cause is the same: it all comes back to choice. I can claim I’m tired, yet I know some of my best work was produced at 4 am when my eyelids felt lead-weighted. I can blame many things, but ultimately they are the excuses of a weak mind. When I ask myself if this is the way I want to be, the answer is always no. Every time a writer sits down to write, s/he makes a choice to do it, yet when it comes to not writing – when we have “writer’s block” – we claim it is beyond our control. This is an unhealthy attitude and only breeds frustration. Writer’s block, if it exists, is a choice and complaining about low creative output is unacceptable if you want to build a future in the creative arts. Some days/weeks it will be hard to write and to maintain that standard you have set for yourself. Accept those hard days, but never expect them to last. Expect creativity.

Today I have taught myself a valuable lesson, now I have to follow-through on my choice. My sister used to say “spark up sparky” whenever I was down or non-responsive. It was short hand for snap out of it, honey, there’s too much to do and live for to feel bad. Smile and the rest will come. It always worked, so today, in the tradition of my sister I’m going to give myself the spark-up-sparky treatment and smile while I wait for the rest. Sometimes it is that easy.

Umpires of reality

Birth and death. Mutually exclusive or synergetic? In an unlikely twist to this week’s bumpy ride, our old dog Hercules has only a couple of days left on this mortal coil. Needless to say I haven’t thought much about writing this week. My mind has been focused on the little person growing inside and making memories of the last days of an old dog’s life. It’s amazing to me how things happen in bunches, yet in fiction we are taught that moderation is the key to a good story. We are taught to be umpires of reality, to select incidents according to their appeal or marketability. I’ve heard it said that fiction is the art of lying creatively. Ultimately, though fiction reflects reality. Even the most outrageous fiction holds truth in the subtext. Reality is something none of us can escape, not even writers.

A room with books or a library?

My current workspace has kept me happy for some time now, but recently my hubby and I took a tour of the area under our house where the pool table currently resides. Due to a wet summer and its continuation into winter, the brick walls have attracted fungi (we have ENSO conditions to thank for that – El Nino Southern Oscillation). As we discussed what to do about the fungi I started to imagine what the space would look like as my studio. It is large enough to hold my books and my desks, as well as the pool table, plus it has it’s own bathroom. Within minutes I was telling my husband how I’d like to turn that window into a door, lift up the lino and replace it with something nicer and warmer, erect a wall between it and the garage and treat the brickwork to some rendering to seal it from the moisture. My husband might have made one of those faces he makes when he’s anxious, but I was too busy in my fantasy studio to notice. For as long as I can remember I’ve dreamed of a library/studio lined with books, a comfy armchair and an enchanted garden just outside. I am halfway towards achieving the enchanted garden at the side of the house, but currently it is only accessible through a makeshift gate. My husband was all for the idea after visualising it himself (and perhaps seeing the benefits of relocating my writing life). We have a four bedroom house, but three of the rooms are taken up with workspace, one with my books, one with the desks and tools of writing and the other is my husband’s man room where he keeps his manly things.

Even though I spend my days staring at a 17 inch area of white screen, I like to fill the space around me with thoughtful things – and paper, lots of paper. Currently a large portion of the paper component is missing from my space. This was a choice I made some time ago to maximise both bookshelf space and workspace, but, as I suspected it would, it has left me with a feeling of being unglued. As a writer it is difficult for me to separate the acts of reading and writing. I constantly write notes while reading and read while writing. It is an immutable thread. When I am in the workspace I think about being in the library and vice versa. Though I love to lie on the sofa bed in the library with a pile of books, it feels like a room with books rather than a true collection or reading room. Books belong in hands, not collecting dust on shelves out of sight or getting compressed in boxes. They need to be opened in order to speak. And so it is with this in mind that I am seeking to create a new library/studio to house my collection and my thoughts.

External space is an allegory of the internal world. We must be as comfortable in our workspace as we are in our own minds.

Mind mapping: part one

I have a confession to make: I don’t really get mind-mapping. In my quest to be a flexible and involved writer I have explored this technique endlessly. I’ve produced pages of pages of organisational charts and mind-maps that just end up looking like words suspended in a spider web. It comes down to the way I think: I can’t think around an idea and apparently I’m not alone. Instead of trying to figure out mind-mapping for this post I decided it would be more helpful to take online thinking tests to determine my thinking style. Half a dozen tests later I have an opaque idea of my thinking style: I’m a right brain dominant, abstract sequential, intrapersonal, intuitive, short term visual thinker with a balanced male-female brain and a mild case of OCD. This is good to know but it still doesn’t help me with mind-mapping. I feel like this is something I should know how to do well. It’s all the rage at the moment and I’m sure if I could get my head around it there’d be rewards. More research is required.

What do you think?

If (writing) doesn’t come naturally don’t do it. This is a paraphrase of something I’ve read in several different places this week. Do you agree or disagree?