The Waiting Game

Posted on February 21, 2012 by

Waiting for inspiration can be dangerous. I’ve wasted days waiting, walking my dogs, staring at this screen, tapping on my desk. Given that life contains a finite number of days, and I’ve no idea how many more I have left, it’s infuriating to get to midnight and realise I’ve achieved nothing more than add to what’s already a mighty stockpile of self-loathing.

Waiting – and critiquing oneself while waiting – often leads to days which are not only unproductive but depleting. Birthday calls are not made, emails are ignored, and other mundane but necessary tasks are left undone.

So, there are three approaches to this that I can think of:

1. Forget inspiration. Writing is work. Force good work to come by working, putting one word in front of the other until you feel yourself picking up speed, writing a little more smoothly and then lifting off. Sort of like forcing the pedals on your bike to go around until you’re riding fast and effortlessly.

The worse case scenario is that you write for hours, see none of it is worth saving, press delete and start drinking. The best case scenario is you delete the first few pages/lines of drivel you wrote and then see you actually did produce a few lines/pages that might lead somewhere/be usable. The fast and effortless bit is probably as common as smiling cyclists, but I’ve heard tell…

2. Seek inspiration in other people’s writing, art, gardens, films, music. This will appear like stalling or time-wasting to outsiders but visiting someone else’s creations can be energising.

A few weeks ago I found myself bored with my writing, stuck mid-scene, mid-novel, not really caring about my characters or where I was going with my story. I walked through my house and gathered up novels I’d loved reading or had found impressive, put them in a pile on the living room floor and sat with pen and notepad and flicked through each book, stopping when I came to a part I liked. I read to see what made the writing work – why did it seem lively, compelling, lyrical, so wonderfully complex or profound or simple? Every now and then it occurred to me I could apply what I saw to my own work: look, she doesn’t use any adverbs; he wrote a whole scene of dialogue without any ‘he said’/'she said’ and yet I knew who was speaking; that’s how to transition from a memory to the present. I saw that I had too many characters and that I still wasn’t establishing place as well as the writers I admired.

I have a lot to learn, so I can pick up almost any book and be knocked backwards by what I don’t know. However, I found this a useful exercise. And it did lead me back to my desk with specific notes that I could act upon, so I had a clear way of getting back into my book.

3. Give in to feeling flat and uninspired. It won’t last forever. (It won’t.) Wait it out consciously, without beating yourself up. Do something practical than has nothing to do with your creative endeavours. Let your head rest.

I almost added Jealousy as a fourth point but while it’s a motivator, it’s not an emotional place that delivers much by way of inspiration. Reading a positive review of work you think shoddy – work by a friend especially – can be enraging enough to get you thumping at your keyboard but I’d suggest no great writing is produced this way. I could be wrong though. If fury, indignation or panic gets your juices flowing then make good use of them.

I can’t help anybody with points one or three, but for point two I’d like to offer a short video. My son showed me this. It a film about the artist Riusuke Fukahori who was stuck for inspiration and found it by watching his fish. (The fish in his art aren’t real by the way – they’re made from layers of painted resin.) I urge you to take a few minutes to watch this. It’s beautiful, and inspiring.

Posted in Create, Write | 4 Comments

Monster at Home

Posted on January 20, 2012 by

After six days in dog hospital, Badger has come home.

We thought we’d have to say goodbye to him this week. The vet said it’s a miracle (her word) that he recovered from whatever toxic substance he swallowed. He’ll stay on a cocktail of drugs for a few weeks, but he’s alive, and getting stronger.

Thank you for your good wishes, expressed in every medium invented. People are kind. And vets – and spunky animals – are awesome.

Posted in Dog Days | 2 Comments

Missing Our Monster

Posted on January 18, 2012 by

This is our dog. He’s hard to love.

We named him Badger but sometimes we call him Monster. He’s bitten me, many times. Growled, snarled. He ignores me when I call him and if I try to pick him up I risk losing an arm. He snaps at small children who irritate him with their affection. And despite numerous attempts at training, he jumps on every person who stands on our threshold and barks through the night at possums, cars and pedestrians.

He’s prone to skin conditions. We’ve spent thousands of dollars – thousands – treating his dog eczema. When it flares up he’s more cantankerous than usual. We forgive him since his skin reddens, itches, oozes and gives him no relief until the drugs kick in. It must hurt a lot. The drugs mess with his stomach and energy levels. He’s seven years old but he’s had to deal with this since he was a puppy. He hasn’t had an easy life, health wise.

I should’ve known he’d be a challenging companion. He’s a terrier, with all that implies – the small dog attitude, the wilfulness and wiles, the fierce pride. But when we were looking for our first family pet I heard a vet on the radio sing the praises of Cairns, and I fell for it. One day I’m going to write to that man.

Every time we go for a walk, Badger gets compliments. He’s a beautiful animal. He has a salt and pepper coat, thick and shiny, and big brown eyes. Sometimes when I stop to chat to his admirers he urinates on my leg.

His favourite place in the world is the off-leash park. He beams, struts around with his fat tail in the air, chin up, and chases the largest dogs without a second’s hesitation. I love going to the park with him; it’s where we feel like a team. We stride side by side, smiling at one another, him and me. When we see a particularly appalling piece of dog behaviour – something neither of us can countenance such as undue whining or cowering – we share a moment; I roll my eyes, he raises his bushy brows.

He keeps me company on my at-home days. When I’m having trouble writing I walk around the house, doing this and that, chatting to him. He follows me, stops when I stop, cocks his head and looks at me inquiringly when I address him directly. He sleeps on the floor under my desk.

Tonight is his fourth night in a row at the vet, in the section they call the hospital. He’s in a cage with a drip attached to his leg. They use this to feed him water infused with an electrolyte solution, anti-nausea medication, high-dose antibiotics and, as of this morning, something to stop him coughing blood from his ulcerated bowels.

He’s had numerous blood tests: no to pancreatitis, no to diabetes, yes to failing liver and kidneys. The possible cause of his pain is food poisoning. He’s on a strict diet of dry food that keeps his skin happy, but Lord knows what else he’s eaten lately. We went away, interstate for a week, to visit family and friends. Our dog minder tried to win Badger over with a daily dose of a chicken casserole she swears by; there’s a deep hole on the side of the house that indicates Badger’s been exploring in the dirt under the floorboards; and he’s always been one to eat snotty tissues and detritus when he’s on his daily walk. Garbage by mouth makes him happy as Larry. Usually.

We visited him today. He was curled in a corner of the cage and looked sad and small and confused. His ears were flat, like a whale’s fin when it’s unwell.

The vets have cared for Badger with kindness, intelligence and compassion. And they’ve explained to us, fully and without condescension, what’s happening at each stage of his treatment, as much as they can.

‘We’ll know in the next 24 hours,’ Vet Jenny said this afternoon.

Two days ago Badger tried to bite her hand and she’d told the attendant nurses, who’d cheered.

‘That’s when we thought he must be getting better,’ she said.

I think he’s snapped at all of them at one time or another, but he had no fight in him today. No spark. No smile. There was no mischief in those eyes at all.

He has no idea how much grief he’s causing us, and wouldn’t care a whisker if he did. I want him to come home. What’s a home without a monster, a Wild Thing? We wonder how he feels being alone in the cage at night, look at his empty food bowl, miss him. He better get better.

Posted in Dog Days, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Reconsidering Birds

Posted on November 13, 2011 by

I’ve never been fond of birds. When I was a child, magpies swooped down from gum trees to peck my head as I walked home from school. Some of my friends wore plastic ice-cream containers like helmets to make their commute less hazardous. At home, miner birds screeched at our cats, and cockatoos argued with one another all through summer. In the city, pigeons and seagulls made outdoor eating a trial, and monuments and cars were regularly splattered in unsightly white poo.

As an adult, I grew to love gardening. Birds were not my friends in the garden either. They scratched up seedlings in my vegetable patch and wantonly, wastefully, sampled all the best fruit on my trees.

I do have a soft spot for rosellas, rainbow lorikeets and kookaburras. At holiday houses in the country my brother and I would leave scraps of ham in a line on balcony railings then watch the kookaburras whack each piece into submission before gobbling it up, smiling all the while. I don’t know why we fed them ham but they seemed to enjoy it. Sometimes we threw bread at the ducks and swans in the lakes at the botanic gardens. I liked it best in spring when the downy pale grey signets trailed behind their parents. And although magpies can be vicious I love their warbling songs.

When I was in Banff in October 2011 I heard many of the people in my writing group talk about the intelligence of crows, the beauty of starlings. I was fascinated. Two of the women in my course posted this incredibly beautiful video to their sites (birdsandwords.wordpress.com and poetsandthenews.wordpress.com). It is made by Sophie Windsor Clive, and it is astounding.

I am reconsidering birds, with respect and awe.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Posted in Banff Writing Studio, Birds | 2 Comments

Respect Yourself

Posted on November 8, 2011 by

Here is an extract from Joan Didion’s erudite and insightful 1968 essay on self-respect.

You can read the entire piece here but I recommend you buy Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays, the collection from which this comes. The book is not only a masterclass in writing with elegance and intelligence, it shows how one can be forthright, honest and blunt and, simultaneously, calmly indifferent – and indifference can be a powerful choice since not everyone deserves your interest or passion.

You need to read this several times for full benefit.

‘To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference. If we do not respect ourselves, we are on the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out – since our self-image is untenable – their false notion of us. We flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gist for imaginative empathy, evidence of our willingness to give. Of course I will play Francesca to your Paolo, Helen Keller to anyone’s Annie Sullivan; no expectation is too misplaced, no role too ludicrous. At the mercy of those we cannot but hold in contempt, we play roles doomed to failure before they are begun, each defeat generating fresh despair at the urgency of divining and meeting the next demand made upon us.’

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The Places You’ll Go

Posted on November 8, 2011 by

The places you'll go

The lines below come from Dr Seuss’ book Oh! The Places You’ll Go! Such wise words.

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets. Look ’em over with care. About some you will say, ‘I don’t choose to go there.’ With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down a not-so-good street.

And you may not find any you’ll want to go down. In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town. It’s opener there in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.

…

I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ‘cause you’ll play against you.

All Alone!

Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.

And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants. There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.

But on you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl. On you will go though the Hakken-Kraks howl. Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. On and on you will hike. And I know you’ll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are.

You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

Kid, you’ll move mountains!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!

 

(The painting above is by William Merritt Chase.)

Posted in Create, Persist, Write | Leave a comment

The Fabulous Mr Fox

Posted on November 4, 2011 by

When I was at Banff, last month, the Wired Writing Studio group met on Friday afternoons to read from work we admired. I loathe readings. At least, I thought I did. These, I enjoyed.

There was a great sense of camaraderie, humility, and smart and funny conversation about books and writing. Fiction writers, non-fiction writers, poets and mentors sat in a circle in a small room whose windows offered a view of snow-topped mountains and a quiet crowd of evergreens. Each person shared a piece of writing from a book they wanted to recommend to the group. We drank South American wine, ate kale chips (magnificent treats made by one of the participants), and were very kind to one another. I’m too self-conscious to relax when reading, so taking my turn was fraught, but I liked to listen, and I learned about many writers I’d not heard of before.

One of the mentors at Wired Writing was the Canadian novelist Marina Endicott. In addition to writing exceptional books, Ms Endicott is an engaging reader. She has a background in performance to call upon, and a voice that pulls you right into the story. I found myself leaning forward, wide-eyed, like a child when she read from Helen Oyeyemi‘s new book Mr Fox.

Mr Fox is the next title I will purchase. Here is an excerpt from the novel:

There was a brief but heavy silence, which Mary broke by saying: ‘You kill women. You’re a serial killer. Can you grasp that?’
Of all the—
I hadn’t seen that one coming.
She walked up to my desk and picked up one of my notepads, read a few lines to herself. ‘Can you tell me why it’s necessary for Roberta to saw off a hand and a foot and bleed to death at the church altar?’ She flipped through a couple more pages.
‘Especially given that this other story ends with Louise falling to the ground riddled with bullets, the mountain rebels having mistaken her for her traitorous brother. And must Mrs McGuire hang herself from a door handle because she’s so afraid of what Mr McGuire will do when he gets home and finds out that she’s burnt dinner? From a door handle? Really, Mr Fox?’

A review in the New York Times offers a winning line from the book in which a character takes to writing only to discover: ‘The words didn’t come easily…  She put large spaces between some of them for fear they would attack one another.’ I read that line half a dozen times because it made me feel so happy.

Almost every day I hear about the death of publishing, the dusty pointlessness of books, the collective mental atrophy and arrogance that means we cannot tolerate or even understand long-form writing, but while people are offering characters like Mr Fox and sentences like those above I don’t see the end of stories, or books.

Posted in Banff Writing Studio, Books, Helen Oyeyemi, Marina Endicott, Write | Leave a comment