I am not a normal writer that
would be a contradiction in terms. By definition writers are hardly normal.
They dream up stories that never existed before, and populate them with people
and scenario’s that are imaginary.
There
is nothing wrong with this noble occupation, people have been following it
since the invention of the chisel, and their efforts have prevented an
unimaginable number of pratfalls from taking place. Without the writer to chart
the uneven terrain of love, the dastardly realm of politics, or even the
contradictory subatomic shenanigans of quantum physics, existence would be pure
chaos.
For
the writer of course, existence is pure chaos, and its measurement is in what
one has to sacrifice. The life of a writer is solitary; it is solitary because
one has to think. It isn’t really necessary to come to conclusions, in fact
conclusions are to be avoided at all costs, because they paint one into a
corner and corners are best left vacated until the final throes of ones final
edit.
Keeping
the story moving, adding twists and turns, and not being long winded are all
excellent nuggets of advice for the writer trying to mine rich veins of
adventure, comedy, or angst. The fact that they are all diametrically opposed
to one another brings the errant writer to an almost Zen-like crossroads that
he has to learn to transcend with the wily non-doing of a Taoist adept bent on
immortality.
But
wait a minute; this non-doing of which you speak is what writer’s have been
waging war against since the dawn of time. It’s the blank page one stares at,
the canvas un-painted, the word un-spelled, the story un-formed. It is the bane
of every writer’s existence; it is the very thing that drives us up the wall.
It is the most contemptible facet of an occupation that is otherwise the most
pleasing of all artistic careers . . .isn’t it?
No!
All of those things are doing, and they are indeed the friction that brings
creativity to a halt. Non-doing does not only apply to writing, it applies to
life itself. It is the cornerstone of a spiritual existence, it is the
flexibility that water exhibits, it is not thinking oneself into a corner, and
it is not taking oneself too seriously.
Why
are you immune from all the pitfalls of being a writer? I hear you wonder, along
with a string of curses and vicious invective that is better left unsaid. The
truth is I’m not. I continue to fall into all the traps that bedevil you, and
many, many more of my own invention. This is probably the reason I refuse to
think of myself as a normal writer anymore, because as a normal writer I was at
war with the blank page, and the best thing I ever learned to do, was to make
peace with it.
