Sunday Morning Musing: The Creative Mind

 

Yes, this is exactly what it feels like! 

Especially when inspiration strikes and all kinds of ideas are let loose in the mind and there you are reeling, rapturously trying to take stock of them all. Phew. 

(This could also explain why I always have about 8 different tabs open while I'm on the computer and constantly flicking back and forth between them. I couldn't do it any other way. It's not sore on my CPU, so my thinking is that it couldn't possibly be sore on my computer's...) 

So many ideas, so little time! We creatives are always being goaded by stimuli, so much so that our own CPUs are I imagine, awash with colour all of the time, flashing and flickering with the promise and possibility of new ventures and where they might lead. Sensory overload happens at times (just try getting to sleep when it does, a few nights I felt like my head would physically burst!), but as long as it is vented, expressed, manifested, head explosions won't happen. Heart ones though, metaphorical, are most likely.  And when they happen, honestly, there's no better feeling.

Creative minds everywhere, I salute you. Here's to unending colour and vitality!

~ Siobhán  

Interesting Further Reading on the Creative Mind:

18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently  ~ Huffington Post

The Importance of Daydreaming ~ Time Magazine

Sunday Morning Musing: Self-Creation

Yep, sounds about right...


~ Siobhán

Sunday Morning Musing: The Practice of Art

Yes, of course it is. And while in the process of growing your soul, you make a life, and a real 'living.'

~ Siobhán

A Writer's Survival Kit: Making a Literary Life

I've mentioned the book I'm currently reading on writing 'Making a Literary Life' by Carolyn See before, but now I just have to mention it again as it has saved me from a crippling block (and almost meltdown)! 

Yes dear readers, last night I was in the throes of lamenting the big bad block and so out of a need for self-consolation, I went to this writing guide to see if it could help me. (Usually while afflicted with writer's block, I can't bear to read someone else's theorising on writing - I prefer just to crawl into a corner and shrivel up until a bolt of returning words find and reawaken me again...) But no, last night, I thought I better take some action. 

And I can tell you - there hasn't been a funnier book written on writing! This book is laugh-out-loud hilarious. I love the author's casual light-hearted attitude she takes to the whole 'craft.' It's so fresh and new and bubbly and exciting. (I always approach writing 'guides' with a pinch of salt, hold them at a metaphorical arm's length just incase you know - their thesis does not sit entirely on par with mine - but this one, this one is so different!)

I headed to it in a frantic search looking for advice on writer's block (even though I goddamn know every last offering there is), but instead found solace in the scathing wit and humour she writes with on every page.

For example, on rejection, she is of the opinion that for every rejection slip we get back from publishers, we should send a thank-you note, just to dispel the inherent negativity that comes with such a knock-in-the-teeth. She speaks of editors as suitors for us writers to pursue and woo and as pre-programmed... plastic ducks: '...editors, playing 'hard to get' at every level, are programmed to act like those plastic ducks you used to see in 99-cent stores. Their little heads with their pink bills are set to wag back and forth: no, no, no, no, no. But the thing about those ducks was: With timing and concentration, you could put a drop of water on their bills, and from then on they'd nod yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! How do you get the duck to do that? It's certainly possible; it's part of the game.'

She has a point! They can be broke down, if we just approach them in the right way, at the right time. And if not, to not let ourselves get broken by their rejection. She then goes on to make the point that rejection (what we writers so fear) is a process, not an event, a process that must play out: 'So you send them a manuscript, and they send it back. Believe me, if you were Jesus Christ himself, they'd send it back."

She maintains that you write them a thank you note in return for their rejection slips and goes on to tell of a few of her own experiences in this aspect (very funny I might add!) The way to diffuse this rejection bad ju-ju is to send back a polite thank-you note that lets the editor in question know you have not 'died' from their dismissal but are simply carrying on the rejection/acceptance process of what she terms comically as 'cosmic badminton.' 

Haha! That's one way anyway to diffuse the whole mystique of approaching editors and to de-fang - even make light of - rejection!

She goes on in the next chapter about how to deal with success, if it comes and tackles the taboo subject of the writer's 'ego' on a very humorous basis: 

'Outside of having children, or dying, nothing more dramatic or life-changing can happen to you than to see your work in print. Oh, maybe winning the U.S. Open or the America's Cup, but I'm not sure about that, because those are fleeting moments, gone almost as soon as they happen. When you've something in print, even if it's a recipe for heirloom tomato aspic, you've bought a ticket in immortality's lottery. Part of you is floating in another universe, and until every last copy of whatever-it-is, is burned, smashed, and gone, you are, because of that little scrap, not bound by the rules of time. ...This is when your ego tends to go stark raving mad... You always suspected the world revolved around you, but your mother set you straight. By the time you got to kindergarten you realized there were other kids, that you were just one of many. But now, look! The proof is undeniable: Right there in the newspaper: 'Making Love Can Keep You Fit', and there's your name right underneath it! Or there, in the campus magazine: 'Adios Barcelona.' Nothing in the world is going to persuade you that there's anything more important than seeing your name in print - not the Ebola virus or World War Three or the love of your life.'

Well yes, there is no feeling quite like seeing your name in print, but her exaggerative qualities are what make the writing really hilarious here. She ratchets up the pride here just enough to pique familiarity as to amuse.  You'll find yourself sniggering along to her train of thought while reading. Here is jauntiness and fearlessness in the face of stereotypical pomp, - balls - for lack of another word. Most writers treat the craft so solemnly, especially when writing about it. This is a book on writing which talks in common sense and with a  wink-wink-nudge-nudge style effect as if saying - 'ah go on, admit it, this is how we writers really feel.' 

But she offers sound advice too. Like for example, when a piece of your work is published and you want others to read it, she advises to send them copies (even your enemies), because if you're relying on friends and family to rush out and read your stuff, it just ain't going to happen. They have their lives to get on with (point duly noted.) And besides, 'nobody could ever love your work enough. Have you heard the phrase 'That kid's got a face only a mother could love'? Your work is your child; you're the one who has to love it, even though it may still be a little funny-looking.' True enough. But nobody ever pointed it out to me like that before - thanks Carolyn!

Also, when confronted with someone who says they saw your piece in whatever, a reader so to speak  - don't, under any circumstances, ask them what they thought of it (for chances are, Carolyn notes, they'll say something you don't want to hear...) Instead, she advises to reply with the standard one-size-fits-all-situations answer 'No Kidding,' and smile politely. Let them say more if they want, but you just smile on regardless. What a gem! If  only I'd followed that advice before, I'd certainly be one or two critical insults down.

Most importantly, she also remarks that it doesn't matter what these people think of your work, whether they read it or do not - it only matters what publishers and editors think of it. After all, they are the ones controlling whether you can do it for a living or not. Exactly. (And again, advice I need to retain a vice-grip upon).

I am now into the second part of the book which deals with the techniques of writing and already it's still written with a humorous, original premise. Nothing predictable about this book! If you want to read a book on writing, I'd highly recommend this one. From laugh-out-loud observations to witty sarcasm to straight-up common sense do this-or-don't to lilting sweep-you-along romantic idealism, the authorial voice is always surprising yet relevant and right. And I suppose writing - the craft, the profession, the life - is made up of all these aspects too.

I'll end with her passage on beating discouragement in writing and in life (for the two are inexplicably woven together, are they not?) and being proactive:

"That's it, isn't it? Do we cry, or do we go out sailing? Do we eat dog food when we're poor and old, or do we make gourmet carrot soup? Do we sit on the couch or go out for a walk? Do we fall in love or make some poor bastard's life a living hell? Do we look out the window and groan about our wasted life, or do we make a plan to see if we can live our dream? Do we go through life asleep or try to wake up? 

I hope I'm wrong, but I imagine that about 90 percent of the human race is snoozing along, just going through the motions. And 100 percent of us dull out some of the time. It takes miracles, white magic, wonders, to jog us from our slumber. What if we really were masters of our mind and life? What if we were God-in-action? What would we do then? 

Everything we write is some kind of answer to that question."

Indeed. That's all I needed to know for now to get me back on the unblocked path. Thank you Carolyn.

~ Siobhán

Why so Blue?

'The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of colour. Our entire being is nourished by it.' - Hans Hoffmann

What's your favourite colour?? Bet your bottom dollar you say blue? Seems blue is the preferred colour of most people. The New York Times ran this really interesting article on our fascination with the colour blue a few weeks ago (you can read it here:  http://nyti.ms/RTqHk4) which got me to thinking a little about, well...blue. Why is it such an important colour? And almost everyone's favourite? And as a fan of blue myself, it got me to wondering just why we are so taken with it.

 

Maybe it's because it is so multi-faceted. There's so many different varieties of blue. So many shades: cerulean, turquoise, lapis lazuli, cobalt, ultramarine, aquamarine, duck egg, midnight blue, electric blue, baby blue. (And artists out there will add more!) There are as many shades of blue as there are associations with blue.

Blue is all-inclusive. Blue is worldly. Blue is celestial, ethereal. Blue is the colour of creativity. The colour of uncertainty. Oceanic depths. Sorrow. Moodiness. Infinity.  Smoky jazz. The proverbial blues.

In colour psychology, blue is the colour of calmness. Studies have found that people feel calmer in surroundings with blue hues than in those with brighter colours like red and yellow. Blue is relaxing. Just think of all those tropical blue ocean holiday resorts. As well as a mood soother, it is also the colour of trust and loyalty. Did you know that being referred to as 'true blue' means that you are dependable and trustworthy and committed fully to something? 

Feeling 'blue' is a well known euphemism for feeling sad, down in the dumps, under the weather. But why? Where did it come from?  There are several suggestions - the first comes from many old deepwater sailing ship traditions of flying a blue flag if the captain or any of the officers died. Others suggest that because blue is next in line to black on the colour spectrum it was as such  linked to depression and fear. Of course 'the blues' also refers to the popular music genre that exemplifies this feeling. It originated in African-American communities of the Deep South in America around the end of the 19th century, the rhythmic songs of workers eventually becoming known as the 'blues' as they expressed deep melancholy and woes.

The 20th century's most famous artist Picasso took this idea to a new level with his infamous 'blue period'. It marked a period in his art when after a friend died from suicide, he started painting in all blues to mark his sadness. The paintings from this period are all lamentative portraits, his most famous being The Old Guitarist. For him, blue was the colour of sadness and depression, a sort of absence of colour to depict a mournful view of the world. The blue period saw many of Picasso's greatest portraits, mostly of solitary figures set against almost empty backgrounds, the blue palette imparting a mood of melancholy and desolation to images that suggest unhappiness and dejection, poverty, despondency, and despair. Most prevalent among his subjects were the old, the destitute, the blind, the homeless, and the otherwise underprivileged outcasts of society.

Maybe this came from the fact that blue is the colour of cold, of ice, of snow. A cold body turns blue. Blue is the colour of the absence of life. To be called 'blue-blooded' is to be portrayed as a cold, uncaring person. But blue is also nothing if not contradictory. 

It can relate to sadness yes, but also happiness. Bluebirds for example, are a famous symbol of happiness. The song 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' is partly responsible for this: 'where happy little bluebirds sing...' And you can't talk about blue and artists without mentioning Marc Chagall, the Russian Expressionist painter. He used blue in most of his later paintings - it became such a defining and important aspect of his work. And the blue he used doesn't appear melancholy or mournful (although he started to use it more fully after his wife Bella died)- but romantic, dreamlike, spiritual, surreal, emotional, enchanting. It is even referred to now as 'Chagallian blue' so famous and unique to him has it become -  a blue of love, of dreams, of intense emotion, of the soul: 'But perhaps my art is the art of a lunatic, I thought, mere glittering quicksilver, a blue soul breaking in upon my pictures.'

Blue is mysterious. Deep. The ocean is blue. Blue is the colour of the unknown: the fathomless depths of the ocean, the highest reaches of sky. Blue is in the ether around us. Actually when I picture 'ether' I picture blue, a deep dark blue. To me, creativity is blue. That spark of inspiration like the blue at the centre of a flame. And great creative ideas (and most random things) come 'out of the blue', that mysterious place/space of infinite miraculous resources.  

Blue is rarity. Ask any gardener about growing blue flowers and they'll answer that the PH of the soil needs to be specially adapted, that only the more seasoned gardeners grow blue flowers successfully. Think about it - there aren't that many blue flowers (and all the more beautiful they are). A blue moon is the term used to describe a rare second full moon in one month. And just look at the sensation Elvis's blue suede shoes caused! 

Blue is the colour of the sky, of endless possibility (did you know 'blue sky thinking' refers to outside-the-box creative thinking?). Blue is the colour of the horizon, the big beyond. 'Blueprints' are the name given to detailed etchings and plans.  Blue gives a feeling of distance. Artists use it to to show perspective. This is a good way to understand the energy of the color blue - it allows us to look beyond and increase our perspective outward. And blue is the colour of energy itself - of electricity. It crackles with power.

Blue is the colour of many beautiful things: blue butterflies, peacocks, skies, sapphires, water, eyes. Blue eyes are the most sought after colour of eyes all around the world. Brown is the dominant colour, blue is more rare - only around 8% of the world's population have blue eyes (which may explain the rise in popularity of blue contact lenses. Doctors in California have even come up with a new revolutionary laser treatment that can make eyes blue - by literally zapping the pigment from them...) 

Oh and, blue eyes are also associated with innocence. The phrase 'blue-eyed-boy' or 'blue-eyed-girl' is the name given to someone who can do no wrong, who is wholly pure and innocent and sweet. (And on the contrary once again, we have 'blue movies' which refer to the X-rated kind...)

But maybe blue is so pleasing to us as it's an ever-shifting colour. Oceans look blue from far away but when you're wading in them, they're more grey or translucent. Skies, the same. The blue colour we see of skies is only a reflection from the earth's atmosphere, it is not really there. When it comes to blue eyes, the blue colour is really the absence of colour - brown eyes and green eyes are pigmented, blue eyes have no pigment. (Note how babies always have blue eyes when born, but then they change.) Maybe it's because blue is sort of an illusion, a colour only half-there that it so fixes us? 

But how can it be half there? It is so intense a colour. Ever seen a piece of cobalt paper in a lab? Squeeze cerulean blue paint from a tube onto a canvas? Blue is at once natural and unnatural; basic and breath-taking. 

For me, blue is my talisman colour to enhance creativity. My lap-top is a shiny opalescent turquoise blue, my Word files are bordered in blue, my notebooks - maybe all this stems from using blue biro, blue ink to write with. Turquoise, indeed, is the blue gemstone to enhance creativity. The colour of our throat chakra or communicative energy space is blue and so turquoise resonates with that. Blue is the colour of communication.

It is also the colour of the spiritual and celestial. Lapis lazuli stone was often considered to have magical elements. The Archangel Michael resonates with the dark blue colour of this stone. The ancient Egyptians used lapis lazuli to represent Heaven, with its dark blue colour and gold flecks. In the Catholic religion, the Virgin Mary wears blue and the colour has become exclusively associated with her. Blue, blue-green, and green are sacred colors in Iran where they symbolize paradise In India, paintings of the god Krishna often depict him as having blue skin. In Greece the color blue is believed to ward off the evil eye. Indigo, a deep blue, is the colour of our third eye chakra, the portal to our spiritual consciousness.

Blue is not an earthy colour - we do not eat blue, (well, apart from blueberries, which are technically more purple in tone). But no, we don't consume any blue foods. But it is an everyday colour. Apart from the presence of it in the sky it's popular in clothing - blue jeans have become an iconic fashion statement of the modern age. They are the symbol of casualness, hard-working, tough, take-it-easy lifestyle. In contrast to the phrase 'blue-collar' which refers to the more upper end of society. Blue is the colour of airmail and of post-boxes in America (maybe because of the sky?) In Ireland, you'll be met by a bright blue sign announcing the name of each street.

To artists, blue is a true colour - 'Blue is the only color which maintains its own character in all its tones... it will always stay blue; whereas yellow is blackened in its shades, and fades away when lightened; red when darkened becomes brown, and diluted with white is no longer red, but another color - pink.' -Raoul Dufy, (French Fauvist Painter, 1877-1953.)

'Blueness doth express trueness ' - the poet Ben Jonson said, and art historian John Ruskin noted that, 'Blue colour is everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a source of delight.'

A source of delight - yes that's it! Blue is a constant source of delight. From the sky to turquoise jewellery to blue LED lights, to my own personal favourite - bubblegum ice-cream (yum!). It is the colour of the natural world, the celestial world, beauty and dreams and truth. 

Is blue your favourite colour? If so, why? Are they any other associations you have with blue?

I'll leave you with Joni Mitchell's song 'Blue' (so many songs too with blue in their title!) sung here by Sarah MacLachlan. 


~Siobhán

Sunday Morning Musing: The Creative Mind

'The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. 

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off… They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating.'

                                                                                                                                                 ~Pearl Buck

Ah, how very true. I stumbled randomly upon this quotation yesterday evening and it struck me as maybe the truest definition of creativity I have ever come across.

Whoever said sensitivity is a curse, need only look to the greatest writers, artists and musicians of the centuries who all seem to have been blessed with an extraordinary talent and who in turn, blessed us with their offerings and understandings of the human condition.

And so to those who ask - why do you write?, why does he paint?, why does she play music so intensely? Well it's because there is no alternative - we are not really alive unless we are creating. It's as simple as that. 


~Siobhán 

Crossbreeding a Tomato and a Trout: Why Saying You're a Writer Is Never a Good Idea

I'm currently reading and enjoying Carolyn See's writing advisory manual 'Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers'. It's saturated with tongue-in-cheek humour, with many laugh-out-loud moments, but most especially her opening line which had me hooked from the get-go:

'It's (the book) for students just coming to this discipline, older people who wanted to write in their youth and never got around to it, folks who live in parts of the country where the idea of writing is about as strange as crossbreeding a tomato and a trout.'

Crossbreeding a tomato and a trout! Ha, couldn't have put it better myself. It's safe to say that I live in such a place. And my gosh, saying you're a writer does garner many funny looks. (Which is why, on most occasions, I shy away from it.) 

Carolyn explains why a little further on in the book and she makes a logical argument. - People just don't want to hear about it. Don't want to hear about you being or wanting to be a writer.  Because civilization is made up of structure, rules, routines. And writing throws them all out the window, as she explains - 'the minute somebody begins to write - or to make any kind of real "art" - all that structure comes into question. It's no coincidence that repressive governments go after their artists and writers first. Daily life is serious business. It's hard enough to put a civilization together. And one artist is - theoretically, at least - capable of bringing down the whole damn thing.'

Well....whoa. I never thought of that before! Could it be...? The suspicion of anarchy in the ranks keeps reactions at bay? (Suddenly I'm reminded of an episode of the cult TV series back in the day The X-Files, where the supernatural foe in question is a suburban fiend who attacks when the conformity of the neighbourhood is subjected to a random riff - and the moment when Mulder, decides to provoke it by sticking a pink flamingo garden ornament on the lawn while uttering a revoke 'Bring it on.' - Are we writers the pink flamingo inciters of the conforming routine-abiding masses...?) 

So, Carolyn maintains it's best not to tell anyone about your writerly status, keep it to yourself, because basically -  'the last thing on earth people living an ordinary life want to hear about is how you want to be a writer.'

Honestly, this never occurred to me. But why exactly? Because writing is not... ordinary??  But then again, being an astronaut is not ordinary and I'm pretty sure they're met with reverence, respect and even celebrity status wherever they turn. Why not writers? Are we the plague of the earth?

Well at least it's not what I originally thought: that they think writing is a vacuous hobby, a non-entity in the work-world, a pithy daydream, a temporary phase, something so non-important as to be dismissed. Phew, I can rest a little easier now! I used to take it so much to heart when people would blank over when I mentioned writing. I used to perceive it as a passive-aggressive personal assault. But it's just that really -they don't want to hear about it, because it's so contrary to what they do know, even challenging to it  - the complete opposite indeed of what I thought.

She goes into more detail in a later chapter after witnessing the parents of one of her best students grimace at the thought of their son becoming a writer - 'The truth is that about 97 percent of "normal" people everywhere - not just in America - look on writing, if they look on it at all, as one step below whoredom. ' ??!

She says even a sculptor would be better received, a wannabe actor, a stand-up comedian. All because you see,  people 'can't see you write. They don't know what you're doing, and even if you do "succeed" - publish some magazine pieces, or your first or second or third book - relatives will say suspiciously, "I went into the bookstore and asked for your book and they never heard of you." Or, more to the point, "Yes, but how do you make a living?" Maybe jazz sidemen have as hard a time as writers do, but they can always pull out their trombone and wave it at their aunts and uncles: "This is what I play. This!"' We writers don't have that luxury I guess. (Although there were times when I was tempted to take out my lap-top and show these naysayers my abundance of Word files - but thought it'd be better to wait until the day I have a few paperbacks to wave in their faces, where I have incarnated them as the most despicable villains...)

I always said writing is an invisible vocation. And it is hard when you get this non-reaction from people, but at least I know now it's not just me who has experienced it - it's universal to all writers. An occupational hazard if you will. 

The author then goes on to advise us to hang out with people who support our writing (other writers mostly), not the ones who reject it (easier said than done....) People to avoid include the non-supporters, who have multiple reasons for their disregard of you, including:

- 'People who resent the thought of your writing: They're working hard; you're not. 

- People who need you to stay in the background, to be dim and dull so that they can look good...

-People who need you to not have "enough", so that whatever they have will look like more.

- People who have such a strong idea of what or who you are in their universe that they can't begin to see or perceive this other idea you might have about yourself.' 

Ha, she puts it so clearly! The haters - that's their characteristics alright. And again, what a relief to know that it is an acknowledged fact and not just an isolated personal experience.

Then she offers the sound advice of ignoring them. Because to rebel against them or defy them will zap your energy, and it does, it really does. 'The smart thing is to be polite and respectful and then gradually fade from view.' Good advice!  I just hope I can abide by it now instead of letting these people get to me. Because it is hard to tune them out. But tune them out we must do if we want to succeed in  our craft. A writer's life is a solo one! 

I'd highly recommend this book! It's so rare to get a book on writing that is not all seriousness and guidelines and exercises. This one is actually fun to read, full of humour and witty insights and exaggerated scenarios. It deals not just with the practice of writing, the technical ins and outs, but the whole writerly 'life' - how to cultivate being an actual writer, habits and quirks and idiosyncrasies and all. 

 

And worth it all almost just for that first sentence ;)

~ Siobhán

Read more on Making a Literary Life  here

The Art(s) of Living...

- Kurt Vonnegut

Some food for thought...

I think I shall recite this the next time I'm questioned on the values of the Arts as a career choice/hobby/pursuit. 

They are not a way to make a living indeed - they are the way to make a life. To make life bearable. Even more than bearable - beautiful.  They are a way to make the soul 'grow.' 

What, pray tell me,  could be more important than that??


~ Siobhán

Beware The Blank Page

The writer's greatest enemy: the blank page.  Scarier than you think. For all those who think writing is trivial, think again. It is anything but. It is serious, deep and dangerous. Real writing that excavates the bones of who we really are. It is dark psychological terrain. 

No one can explain this better than prolific Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. She is one of my favourite writers for her sense of unflinching truth. Her writing goes straight to the gut, and stays there. She is fearless and fearsome in tackling dark matter. Who can forget the dystopian nightmare of The Handmaid's Tale or the disturbing insights offered in Alias Grace? All of Atwood's fiction indeed, cuts to the bone. 

I was especially stunned and haunted after reading her take on  the blank page, or the page, as she puts it. This is writing as dangerous, writing as diving into deep matter, writing as a compulsion and a sacrifice. 

I just have to copy it here for you to read and become aware of, if you aren't already. And if you haven't happened upon her essays and short fiction, start!  This extract, 'The Page' comes from the short collection 'Murder in the Dark' which features other short essays and prose poems.

'The Page' - Margaret Atwood

1. The page waits, pretending to be blank. Is that its appeal, its blankness? What else is this smooth and white, this terrifyingly innocent?  A snowfall, a glacier? It's a desert, totally arid, without life. But people venture into such places. Why? To see how much they can endure, how much dry light?

2.  I've said the page is white, and it is: white as wedding dresses, rare whales, seagulls, angels, ice, and death. Some say that like sunlight it contains all colours; others, that it's white because it's hot, it will burn out your optic nerves; that those who stare at the page too long go blind.

3. The page itself has no dimensions and no directions. There's no up or down except what you yourself mark, there's no thickness and weight bu those you put there, north and south do not exist unless you're certain of them. The page is without vistas and without sounds, without centres or edges. Because of this you can become lost in it forever. Have you never seen the look of gratitude, the look of joy, on the faces of those who have managed to return from the page? Despite their faintness, their loss of blood, they fall on their knees, they push their hands into the earth, they clasp the bodies of those they love, or, in a pinch, any bodies they can get, with an urgency unknown to those who have never experienced the full horror of a journey into the page. 

4. If you decide  to enter the page, take a knife and some matches, and something that will float. Take something you can hold onto, and a prism to split the light and a talisman that works, which should be hung on a chain around your neck: that's for getting back. It doesn't matter what kind of shoes, but your hands should be bare. You should never go into the page with gloves on. Such decisions, needless to say, should not be made lightly. 

    There are those, of course, who enter the page without deciding, without meaning to. Some of these have charmed lives and no difficulty, but most never make it out at all. For them, the page appears as a well, a lovely pool in which they catch sight of a face, their own but better. These unfortunates do not jump: rather they fall and the page closes over their heads without a sound, without a seam, and is immediately as whole and empty, as glassy, as enticing as before. 

5. The question about the page is: what is beneath it? It seems to have only two dimensions, you can pick it up and turn it over and the back is the same as the front. Nothing, you say, disappointed. 

    But you were looking in the wrong place, you were looking on the back instead of beneath. Beneath the page is another story. Beneath the page is a story. Beneath the page is everything that has ever happened, most of which you would rather not hear about. 

     The page is not a pool but a skin, a skin is there to hold in and it can feel you touching it. Did you really think it would just lie there and do nothing?

   Touch the page at your peril: it is you who are blank and innocent, not the page. Nevertheless you want to know, nothing will stop you. You touch the page, it's as if you've drawn a knife across it, the page has been hurt now, a sinuous wound opens, a thin incision. Darkness wells through. 

(*From  'Murder in the Dark: Short Fictions and Prose Poems' © Margaret Atwood Virago UK 1994)

Indeed.  All of this rings true and through me. How about you? 

Dangerous, yes. But exhilarating too. Like climbing your own veritable Everest. All those metaphors of whiteness. The page is definitely somewhere you can lost, but also where you can be found. If you're brave enough of course, to ditch the gloves and the safety measures, and dive in there, whole-heartedly.

~ Siobhán

That Eureka! Moment: The Genie of Creativity

'Had I Not Been Awake' - Seamus Heaney

 Had I not been awake I would have missed it,
A wind that rose and whirled until the roof
Pattered with quick leaves off the sycamore
And got me up, the whole of me a-patter,

Alive and ticking like an electric fence:
Had I not been awake I would have missed it,
It came and went so unexpectedly

And almost it seemed dangerously,
Returning like an animal to the house,
A courier blast that there and then

Lapsed ordinary. But not ever
After. And not now.

Last post, I wrote about having no inspiration. This post, au contraire, is about feeling inspired and marvelling at the whole process of creating. 

The above poem by Seamus Heaney perfectly describes the feeling when one is inspiration-struck. If you substitute the word 'aware' for 'awake' then you'll get a better understanding of the meaning behind the poem: the metaphorical wind of inspiration, whooshing in and shaking up recognitions, but only if we witnesss it, accept it.  I love the line  'the whole of me a-patter/ alive and ticking like an electric fence'. This is exactly how it feels when you're inspired creatively. When you are literally buzzing with energy and everything once ordinary  suddenly becomes hyper-real and extraordinary.

And it happens just like that, out of the blue (those blue bolts again), usually, in the middle of the night, as Heaney implies here. Infact, did you know that 4am is supposed to be the peak hour for creativity? When the waking rational mind is silenced just enough to comprehend things more fully, when the dormant dreaming artist's eye opens and ideas light upon it like stars. I've written some of my best stuff in the wee small hours of the morning, scribbling so fast it inevitably turns to shorthand. These instances are brief but brilliant, an epiphany of a kind, radiating light and realisation and regrowth on all that has been fallow and dark. A most welcome gift. A high-five Eureka where all is answered.

And what fascinates me is how I myself have absolutely nothing to do with these happenings, no control, no say, no ability to instigate them, schedulue them or summon them. They simply happen. From that great blue beyond. And I know a lot of you out there will agree with me on this. So many writers and artists have professed to this 'other' source from which their best ideas come, and talk of being merely the 'channel' through which these ideas are made manifest. 

In other words, they let this creative source work through them. I remember when younger and doing the whole school exam thing, the common cliche  doing the rounds of 'hoping for divine inspiration.' Something to intercede on our behalf and fill up the pages for us. And sometimes it worked. Ideas just came, out of the blue with blessings of what we didn't know (or maybe, didn't know we knew).

I like to refer to it, as many others would, as taking dictation. It's like cocking an ear and listening. Not even. Sometimes ideas, words, lines just fall into my consciousness, like floating bird feathers. They just come to me. Instant whispers from some wise source. Readers sometimes praise me on my use of vocabulary - how did I come up with that word, it sums it up exactly! And it's not as if I rummaged around amongst my inner thesaurus or dusty real book one, the word in question just sounded out of the ether, ping, just like that, as a light bulb pop ups up in cartoons above a character's head. I didn't need to think or find it; it was just there. Abracadabra. And I feel guilty for accepting compliments; it wasn't me really - it was that other voice, the creative space that hovers around us, elusive, ethereal, but eager to assist.

As I said, this theory resonates with a lot of creatives. I recently watched Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the hugely successful 'Eat, Pray, Love' talk on this and other aspects of creativity. She talks about how the ancient Greeks and Romans would refer to this aspect of the creative process as artists having a 'daemon' or a 'genius', like a genie or magical spirit that would assist in their work. She also mentions a poet who talked of how she would 'feel' poems coming at her and references singer-songwriter Tom Waits in this analogy too! *(See video below)*

Similarly, in the iconic 'The Artist's Way', the author Julia Cameron refers to creativity as a process of 'surrender, not control.' She is of the opinion that the universe takes a direct hand in our creative pursuits, adds that 'other' dimension to it, the divine, transcendant, inspired aspect.

Artists of all kinds respect and acknowledge this part of the process. But we also know that our part must be done too. When I said that words just come to me, I should also add that it's not all the time that this happens. Just some of the time. Other times, I do have to do a bit of thinking and scribbling. Creativity is a two-way street: we show up for our work and only then maybe the Muse will too.

Most of all, we must keep ourselves 'aware' incase we miss it - that wind in the night, that illumination, that electricity, that whooshing of ideas, that genie spirit whispering to us.  Keep ourselves awake. That's what I've been doing these last few days, and I'm delighted to announce I'm making my way out of the trough I'd fallen into (with a helping ethereal hand) and on the yellow brick road to creating once again.

It's a process that continually amazes me. Hence this post!

Keep Creating,

~ Siobhán.

Elizabeth Gilbert: A New Way to Think About Creativity:

Imagination Vs Reality: Feathers & Bricks

'They say that most of what happens to a writer happens only in their head.'

There's one occupational hazard about writing that affects me majorly in real life and that's imagination. 

Specifically, over-use of imagination, over-reliance on imagination. Which translates to unintentional illusions and alternative realities made of the fine fragility of feathers that collaspe under the weight of reality's bricks eventually, leaving me in a heap of broken-dream rubble.

See to create fiction requires a lot of imagining. Lots of wondering and pondering, fantasising and make-believing, using and over-using of this power. To live in the real world requires....a blocking out of that power? My real world, and probably that of many other creatives, is more than scaffolded with imagination. I imagine things better than they are at times. I add and embellish and decorate the bones of day-to-day life with ideas, visions,  reinvention of what-ifs and what could bes. I refuse the black and white platter we're offered and choose instead to paint scenes with the coloured palette of possibilities. I see things as I'd like to see them; I see things as they settle into mutable shapes in my mind, not as the sharp lines they actually are in reality.

I first became aware of this at a creative writing group once when a participant remarked to me after I'd read out some work 'how she'd love to live where I lived, with all the magical surroundings and people' - she was referring to all the moonlight vistas, emerald-green wonder and blue-eyed muses I'd charted in my writing. It occured to me then that this must be how I see the world; not how others see it, not how it actually is. I was telling stories to myself I realised. That's how I lived, through stories. Through stories I'd read, watched, and created myself. The fabric of my life was a narrative I was continually creating and re-creating.

So I've come to realise that I have the power to create my reality somewhat. Mythologize things  into magic. Like an alchemist, turn the cold metal of mundanity to shimmering warm gold, ordinary to extraordinary. It's like I'm pre-programmed; if I didn't do this, then the world would seem a very plain place to me. That's why I believe stories are so important to us. They have been since the beginning of time, since narrative first began with a few scratches on cave walls.  

We need stories. They are our way of making sense and meaning of this sometimes blank of existence. No one likes to be faced with a blank page after all, our instinct is to fill it. So we tell stories - to each other, to ourselves, to understand our world, but more so, to know that we matter, that things we hold dear matter, that everything has meaning beyond this sometimes bottomless insignificance that confronts us from time-to-time in the form of ennui and emptiness. 

One of my favourite books is Life of Pi by Yann Martel. In it the author chronicles a young boy's experience lost at sea, alone on a lifeboat, with only a tiger for company. (Yes, a tiger. Read it to believe...) Without giving the story away, the book highlights the importance of fiction in our lives, the vital necessity of it for our sanity, our survival, our sense of self.

So being able to tell stories is good, right?  In certain situations yes. In others,...  I don't know. I've gotten myself into tricky situations due to an over-active imaginative impulse... When it comes to matters of the heart for instance, how to know what's real and what's imaginary? How in the heck do you decipher reality when you spend all of your time creating an alternative one while in writer-mode??! You see my dilemma. Most people have 'common sense', a gut reaction, which is their foolproof guide. I do too, but it's just that imagination interferes, and I don't know which to trust, as it's usually imagination  most of my waking life.

And now I'm wondering if I'm destined to make the same mistakes over and over again when it comes to figuring out what's real and what's imaginary in that airy-fairy vague realm of love. Is the proof in the actions, the words, or how I interpret them? Is the truth in my head the pure unaltered version or has imagination enveloped it in a misty aura, tinting  it opaque? I can't decipher reality from imagination at times; and without that gift I wouldn't be able to sit down and write and create worlds out of my head and see life as great big coloured Wonderland full of possibilities and surprises.  But with it, my vision is obscured when it comes to calling it as it is. (Added to this I'm also a diehard Romantic; which results in a highly potent mix of misguided idealism, unyielding optimism and mighty misunderstanding!)

Like right now. Right now I feel stupid for having read signs wrong; putting two and two together and getting five; believing in a rainbow instead of a black and white reality. A Sylvia Plath poem is going round and round in my head which explains my state exactly, because yeah, it is enough to drive you mad! And the repetive haunting echo of the villainelle structure just goes straight for that silly soft part that actually was stupid enough to drop all defences and believe. Here:

Mad Girl's Love Song - Sylvia Plath        
         
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; 

I lift my lids and all is born again. 

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, 
And arbitrary blackness gallops in: 
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed 
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade: 
Exit seraphim and Satan's men: 
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said, 
But I grow old and I forget your name. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead; 
At least when spring comes they roar back again. 
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

They say that most of what happens to a writer, happens mostly in their heads.... Yes, I think I made you up inside my head. And that makes me wonder now -  what else did I make up? 

George Bernard Shaw once said: 'Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love and beauty.' And I'm starting to really believe that. That only in the hold of the imagination does perfection exist, in love, truth and beauty, the great grail trinity. Seems reality comes up second-best every time.

So I turn to the page, where it's perfectly acceptable to imagine, and be rewarded with the contentment of creation. The permanence and importance of it. Instead of self-doubt and recrimination.

The sobering thought of facing reality is a thorny one. But facing reality without the cushion of imagination, definitely worse.  In the coming barren days, it'll be imagination that tends to these raw wounds reality has inflicted. I need this trait to create. Without it, I wouldn't have  a hope in hell of ever filling a page. 

There you have it, another writer's dilemma. Has anyone experienced this occupational hazard? How do you deal with it? Is there a chance of reconciling the two? I'd love to know....!

 

But for now I suppose, if it came down to it, I'd rather be buried by feathers than a tonne of bricks. 

~ Siobhán. 

(And another poem, the medium where reality is tilted until truth glints off it. And apologies to Sylvia Plath for showing her gloomy side once again here, there is more to her than deadpan despair, will include more of her neutral poems in future..) But for now, here's an achingly accurate picture of regret:

Jilted - Sylvia Plath 

My thoughts are crabbed and sallow,

My tears like vinegar, 
Or the bitter blinking yellow 
Of an acetic star.

Tonight the caustic wind, love, 
Gossips late and soon, 
And I wear the wry-faced pucker of 
The sour lemon moon.

While like an early summer plum, 
Puny, green, and tart, 
Droops upon its wizened stem 
My lean, unripened heart.

This blog was soundtracked by the magnificently morose, The National. A perfect pitch to match the notes of disappointment and disillusionment, for when the castles come crashing down: Fake Empire -The National

*images taken from weheartit