Finding the Muse again

What happens when you lose inspiration to write again ? Everyone at one point or another has experienced what you call "a writer's sickness", by where nothing you seem to type or print makes sense.

This overcompensating feeling, or rather urge as you try to sustain old pages from the "good ol days" of notebooks and heaps of one sentencer's that have the "potential", of something, somewhere, someday!

This lack of inspiration may cause many to abandon their love for writing- whether it's a professional quest or a personal ambition- the writer's sickness has pledged some of the greatest writers of our time. A rampant dis ease sucking the creative force from the mind, pulling at its synapses asking, "Please, just one line, all I ask is for one line".

But sometimes the lines we get are pure nonsense, have no credential to make it to the publishing table, let alone the eyes of a dear friend. Such self bashing is our unconscious attempt to prove again, that yes" we are failures."

 However, such an idea is utter nonsense, and the creative process needs to be re-evaluated. Most writer's have suffered writer's block to some degree; and most accept that yes, this is a part of the process to successful writing.

Life in general is a continuous cycle that rises and falls; we have moments when we are turned up full blast with creative ideas brimming from our pens, other phases we are dry & decrepit, only uttering half legible sentences; most which would shame us into the dark winter pain (again).

There are times to retreat and other times to take center stage; this is also inherent in the process of writing. But understanding the process will better help you define the moments when you are, say "stuck on words", to the moments where you can't shut up and idea's are bleeding through you; quite effortlessly.

Writing is an expression of self. When our minds are cluttered, often this is reflected in our writing - so it's often the best medicine to take a step back and stop thinking so hard.

Here are some quotes from prominent writers about writer's block & the process of writing:

• "...And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." -Sylvia Plath

• "The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." -Anaïs Nin

• "I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others."- Molière

• "I have nothing to say / and I am saying it / and that is poetry / as I needed it." -John Cage

• "Be obscure clearly." -EB White

• "You don't want to OD on improvisation." -Patti Smith  

• "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." -Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith

• "Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." - E.L. Doctorow

• "The easiest thing to do on earth is not write." -William Goldman

• "One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph, and once I get it, the rest just comes out very easily." -Gabriel Garcia Marquez

• "The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one." -Mark Twain

• "You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence."-Octavia Butler

• "People have writer's block not because they can't write, but because they despair of writing eloquently." -Anna Quindlen

In closing, finding the muse again  almost feels like winning a lottery ticket; if you only scratch half the ticket, you have half the potential to win- if you scratch the entire ticket and still end up losing; know at least you made an effort to persevere and keep ploughing through the corridors of your sleeping muse.

The unblocks to writers block or what I call "writers sickness", coming to a pen near you- is only a temporal pain; the real pain comes when you are full of ideas but  cannot choose which one to go with first.

These are the cycles of writing and also expression of life itself.

For books to ease the process of writing and other creative steps, please check out:

  Unstuck : a supportive and practical guide to working through writer's block by Staw, Jane Anne

  Finding water : the art of perseverance by Cameron, Julia.

   Soul fire : accessing your creativity by Ryan, Thomas, Father.

   The artist's quest for inspiration by Hadden, Peggy.

Eye on 800s: THE TYPEWRITER

This past Fall, among all the great readings and literary events the season offered, Calgary was privileged with visits from some remarkable writers, one of which was John Irving (as part of Wordfest). Out of all the insights Irving disclosed about his process, one detail struck me with genuine admiration: the man continues to produce his novels on a typewriter. This surprised many of the 400 gathered, who collectively gasped at his obstinance. Put into historical perspective this is not so alarming – personal computers have been around for a mere 30 years, whereas the typewriter was (and in some cases does remain) the tool of choice... for over 110 years! 

At the time no one ventured to ask Mr. Irving what benefits of the typewriter he is so faithful to, or what he might lose by switching to today’s preferred writing tool, so until one of us has the chance to ask him these important questions, we can only speculate and ask ourselves:

Has our dependence on modern writing tools weakened our wit? Dulled our diction?

Consider how many of the world’s cherished masterpieces were written pre-processor, without the ease of single-click cut & paste, shortcut-keyed edits, or the intrusive nag of spell-check. The question of what 20^th century writers may have produced given today’s technology may be silly – like asking a square what it lacks by not being round -  but we can ask:

How would using a typewriter transform the words we type?

From an evolutionary perspective, the fragment of the human brain used to engage with the typewriter is now gathering dust in a dark corner of our skulls. Typewriter-era writers developed different (and probably stronger) neurological routines. The personal computer is so versatile that we may be doing a disservice to our biological fabric by using it for projects that deserve our full attention. It is one part writing tool, but several other million parts as well, confusing its operator with countless distractions and excessive applications. Maybe if we kept one instrument exclusively for writing our brains would recognize that we want it to be in a writing mood. We all know how important it is to study the work of our favorite authors, but remember to look at HOW their words made it to the page, physically.   

So consider keeping a typewriter in arm's reach of your desktop, not only for the joy of pummelling the keys, but as a valuable exercise to enforce discipline on your vocabulary, to sharpen the significance of every word you select, and most importantly: to slow down.

For examples of how wonderfully the typewriter can be manipulated, take a look at these titles in our collection:

Howl : original draft facsimile, transcript, and variant versions, fully annotated by author, with contemporaneous correspondence, account of first public reading, legal skirmishes, precursor texts & bibliography by Ginsberg, Allen, 1926-1997.  

        The alphabet game : a bpNichol reader by Nichol, b. p., 1944-1988.  

               Typewriter art by Riddell, Alan, 1927- **

                  **This book is not classified by Dewey in                 the 800s. I'm cheating - but click on the link & place a hold to see some of the most impressive work ever done on a typewriter. 

 And be sure to keep an eye out for upcoming Author Readings at the Calgary Public Library.  

WRITE YOUR WAY TO $5,000

If you are:  

-  A RESIDENT OF CALGARY

-  40+ YEARS OF AGE

-  COMPLETING YOUR FIRST BOOK OF FICTION…

Then you are eligible for the Brenda Strathern “Late Bloomers” Writing Prize.

The prize is $5,000.                      

                                                                                                  For application and eligibility details follow the link                                                                                                below to The Calgary Foundation’s official description.

http://www.thecalgaryfoundation.org/documents/BrendaStrathern_FEB09_000.pdf

The deadline to apply is MARCH 15. 

                                                         GOOD LUCK !

Eye on 800s: THE ESSAY

There is plenty of appeal to go around in the 800s. There’s the aesthetic comfort of poetry, the practical application of literary criticism, the intimacy of memoirs – so it’s easy to understand why essays might be overlooked. Although the essay is a natural and very basic form of writing, open to manipulation, it is not a popular undertaking for writers, who would perhaps rather leave it in the academic world – sitting on the desktops of frustrated, sleep-deprived students, awaiting a grade. However, the recent popularity of writers like Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris show how the essay can be an engaging, hilarious, and in demand form. (Find links to Sedaris and Burroughs by scrolling down.)

 When the characters of your novel won’t talk, or the lines of your poem won’t sing, wouldn’t it be nice to have some short, personal, non-fiction projects to work on? You may also find an outlet for ideas and opinions aching to be extracted from your mind that wouldn’t normally receive the honour of being developed on paper.