What could it possibly be????
Relax.
Sorry I wanted to play the shtick up.... anyhow that is my answer to writers block, but I think I need to explain.
In my life I have written two plays that I think are really special. I have written a lot of other things, but nothing that I feel measures up to these works. I have also spent a large amount of time chasing after the phantom of these plays and trying to recapture the magic that happened when I wrote them. I think I have hit on an answer that may finally make some headway on this problem.
I realize that having recently asked my mom what her opinion is on how I can write more and better, the question of anxiety couldn't have possibly come up in that discussion because it would have been an admission on her part that she could now observe something that she had a hand in creating and had done nothing to help me with in the entire time I was growing up.
So I will tell you the story of the two plays "The count of Venice", and "Malaria: The Musical".
The Count of Venice was written about ten years ago. I was at the time taking a pen and a pad of paper around with me just in case I had an idea come to me. So one evening I was out taking a walk, it was late July or the beginning of August. I wasn't in school there wasn't a whole lot that needed to be done, I am not sure what year it was but perhaps it was the summer before I started University.
I was out taking a walk and this idea came to me about a count, a very pompous fellow and he would go into a panic over something insignificant. Then it came to me that it should be a hangnail and he should have a lot of advisors that would react as though it were in fact very serious. I then got out my notepad and very quickly started writing down the outline, one thing after another came to me and it all made sense and so I wrote down the outline on this long thin notepad that you might use for a shopping list, and I think it took two pages front and back.
I was quite happy with that outline and was determined to write the play. At the time we had an older computer around the house that wasn't good for much other than word processing. It certainly was not much good at browsing the internet, well I used that computer to write on because I didn't want the distraction of the internet. I would sometimes just roll out of bed and start writing, or I would not even get out of bed and start writing. At the time I think I carried a floppy disk back and forth between the older computer downstairs and the newer one in my bedroom. Most of tthe writing was done on the old computer downstairs while I was sitting on a high bar-chair, which was kind of like a barstool, but had a back to it. I started writing at the beginning of August and finished at the end of August. "the Count Of Venice" was my magnum opus, I believe it clocked in at 87 pages and it was the longest thing I'd ever written. It was fantastic, but I don't know if anyone has ever read it. Certainly it has never been performed.
Needless to say for someone who struggles to write and rarely put together anything longer than two pages it was quite something. At the time I thought that it would change everything and I would never struggle to write again... boy was I wrong. I now believe that the way I framed it then and have up until this very night thought of it as "inspiration" was in fact relaxation.
So why do I think that it is relaxation, because that's what I've come to realize that both plays have in common. I was relaxed about writing them. It's not just about being relaxed and leaned back in your chair because that's fairly easy. It's more about being at peace with the act of writing. I have tried everything to reproduce the process of writing either play. I've tried taking long walks with a pencil and paper in my pocket. I've tried making outlines. I've tried coming up with silly stories with silly main characters that need to be taken down a peg. I've tried writing on computers not connected to the internet. None of them produced results, but I never tried simply relaxing and not worrying. Actually this comes down to a distinction I was realizing in language learning. In language learning you have to be paying attention to learn, and that's the kind of learning that is confusingly called "unconscious learning" to differentiate it from the grammar and vocab practice that is the hallmark of traditional language learning. Well that learning does take place mostly in your unconscious , but there is nothing unconscious about it. You in fact have to be paying attention and actively interested in order to learn anything. So I think it would be more properly called "attentive learning", however back to my point, the writing process is not divided between two false alternatives of worried or active writing on the one hand and relaxed or passive writing on the other. The relaxed end of the spectrum always seems like it is supposed to be some kind of passive state where you are just letting the muse work through you. In reality the relaxed state is a very active and attentive state, you are paying full attention to what you are writing. In fact you are so absorbed you don't even have any attention to spare for worrying or anxiety.
So writing "the Count Of Venice" I was in a relaxed state I was not nervous or tense, I was not pushing myself to write. I was relaxed and just enjoyed the writing. Now how do I know that it was relaxation and not something else? Well this evening I decided that I would write a part of a story. So I sat down at the computer feeling worried about how the writing would go. I could see in my mind's eye how the evening would go, I'd get a few halting sentences out and end up feeling like they were terrible and perhaps I should just give it up for lost, and then I'd either push myself to keep writing something I had no interest in or I'd find myself browsing websites for news about the latest videogames. In that moment I decided that I would not worry, I'd just relax and enjoy writing. That there was nothing bad going to happen, I might write something bad I might write something good. I just needed to relax about it. So I did. I took a deep breath, relaxed back in my chair and decided to not be nervous about writing. This is not an absolute fix, I still need to work on being able to relax about my writing.
I think I should also talk about 'Malaria' because it reinforces the idea here about relaxing. Now 'Malaria' was written in such a Zen state of relaxation that I can hardly remember the process. I remember I started writing it one day in a thoroughly boring class about South America and perhaps south american politics. It was the worst and the professor was an out and out admitted communist. But it was easy, so I didn't have to spare any attention and could devote it entirely to writing a silly play with overt references to the Bush administration attacking Iraq and whatever else I found amusing at the time. In fact I believe I may have modeled one of the characters on my droning professor. Point is though, I was super-relaxed. The classroom was quiet apart from the droning prof, I knew I didn't have to pay attention because the class was super easy, and I had no special reason to be worried about what I was writing because I was just writing it for my own amusement. Now later after it got picked to be produced in the theater department I was a complete nervous wreck about it and couldn't make decent revisions to save my life. In fact I wrote an entire 26 page play the Sunday night before our revisions were supposed to be done using the exact same characters and setting since the play had already been cast. I mention that play to point out that you don't need to be relaxed to write, but if you want to write well it helps to be relaxed. I think that play I wrote in one evening is probably quite cringe inducing, and I'm glad it never saw the light of day. I still felt very nervous about the revisions and so enlisted the help of my best friend in revising it, we did a terrible job of revising it and I blame myself and the director for turning the play into crap by the time we actually put it on stage.
Well anyhow, that's the tale. I have tried very hard to reproduce the process that made either play, but I don't think I'd grasped the essential similarities until now.
So my answer is relaxing and it works, at least thus far it seems to work. I got into a relaxed mood and wrote 500 words in real short order. and this little essay is somewhere around 1700 words, I haven't felt the least bit nervous about it, just focused and attentive on the points I want to make. Now relaxing is something that most people who know me think I don't have any problem with. They think I'm always laid back and don't worry about anything, but that's not true. I do have a facade of not worrying and of bored indifference... However that's a bit off the main topic and I have gone on more than long enough. Thank you for sticking with me if you did. Please leave comments if you don't agree or have something to add that perhaps I missed.
No comments:
Post a Comment