Maintaining my spiritual practice as a Buddhist has helped me in lots of ways, but here I want to talk about how it\u2019s helped me as a writer. To begin with, let me mention that the two key concepts for a productive practice are place and process. I meditate twice a day, every day of my life, and for meditation, I need a quiet place without distractions. Once I settle in to meditate, I need a process for doing so, in the form of a Sanskrit mantra that I repeat silently, as a way of bringing stillness to my erratic thoughts.<\/p>\n
I mention place and process in my spiritual practice because the need for place and process applies equally well to my writing practice. Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m lucky enough to have an ideal situation for a writer, which I can configure to suit my needs. To begin with, I sit at my desk in front of the computer, so that if I want to find out when Abraham Lincoln was born, or how to spell a word, I can do so. But that\u2019s just writing as fact-checking.<\/p>\n
For the real, creative part of writing, I don\u2019t use the computer at all. The computer comes last, just as a way to record what\u2019s been created. To create, I have very specific requirements. I\u2019m left-handed, so I sit with a clipboard with lots of lined notebook paper on it, and two fountain pens on my left.<\/p>\n
I write on lined paper because the lines give me a reassuring sense of order; the stacks of paper and the pens\u2014more than I need at any moment\u2014give me a sense of abundance. If I have abundant pens and paper, then it\u2019s easy\u2014easier, anyhow \u2014for me to believe that I also have an abundance of ideas and stories.<\/p>\n
Then comes the part writers often find difficult\u2014looking at the blank pages. I have the impression that looking at blank pages often causes anxiety for writers, and is a prime source of writer\u2019s block. I have a two-level solution for it.<\/p>\n
The first level, the obvious one, has various sources and precedents. Its best-known advocate is Julia Cameron, in her 1975 book\u00a0The Artist\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>Way, in which she advises people to write for the sake of writing. While\u00a0The Artist\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>Way has proven very helpful to me, I find it more useful to remember media theorist Marshall McLuhan\u2019s phrase \u201cthe medium is the message.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing mysterious about this much-discussed phrase. For the writer, it just means writing one sentence after another. The content doesn\u2019t matter. As in: \u201cI\u2019m sitting here. I\u2019m sitting at my desk. I\u2019m wearing jeans. Today is Tuesday.\u201d And so forth. But like I said, this is just the first stage. It\u2019s often useful to get you going, but there\u2019s nothing especially creative about it.<\/p>\n For the creative part of writing, I draw on my meditation practice. I go into myself and ask questions. And\u2014this is the really important part\u2014I don\u2019t just sit there and ask myself questions. If I just sit there and think about my questions, it\u2019s all too easy for me to get lost in the labyrinth of my mind. So I write the questions down, and the act of moving my hand across the paper connects my mind with the external world and keeps it connected until I get the answer.<\/p>\n Sometimes I write the question down over and over again, just as I repeat my mantra over and over again. Sometimes I cover a whole page with the same question. Like this: \u201cWhere does the story take place? Where does the story take place? Where does the story take place?\u201d<\/p>\n And, after I\u2019ve written my question several times, then, inspired by my favorite Beatles song, \u201cLet It Be,\u201d I sit there and I let it be. I let the question be. If I\u2019m supposed to write the short story, if there\u2019s something there for me, it will come.<\/p>\n This is where the faith of the practitioner comes in. We practitioners learn to feel comfortable when the answer doesn\u2019t come right away. Or, sometimes, there\u2019s no answer at all, and I leave myself open to what that might mean. It might mean that there\u2019s no story for me that day\u2014or maybe that week. But that doesn\u2019t mean that I stop writing down the question.<\/p>\n But let\u2019s be optimistic. Let\u2019s suppose that, as in \u201cLet It Be,\u201d Mother Mary, or my muse, or Buddha, or Spirit (insert your favorite term here) brings me words of wisdom from that well of creativity that usually remains mysterious, even to the greatest of artists. I recently went through this process for a story, and when I asked the question about place, the answer did come, and it was \u201cNew York.\u201d<\/p>\n Okay, so the story is set in New York. This simplifies lots of things and eliminates a lot of possible characters. \u00a0Although there are lots of stories you can tell about New York, they usually don\u2019t involve surfers, say, or farmers.<\/p>\n For me, and I know this sounds idiosyncratic but bear with me, finding the place of the story comes before finding the characters in the story \u00a0Finding the place of the story quite literally grounds the story.<\/p>\n Once I have the place, then I can ask more specific questions about the characters, like \u201cWho\u2019s in the story?\u201d If I\u2019m lucky, and I\u2019m in the flow\u2014in the zone, as athletes say\u2014then I have a sense\u2014sometimes a visual image, sometimes not\u2014of a character in the place that I\u2019ve defined. When I have an image of a character in a place, then the story starts to jell, to cohere.<\/p>\n In general, the questions that I ask about my stories begin with the most general ones, and then they become more specific. Once I know where the story takes place, I can ask what characters are in the story, and what they do.<\/p>\n Recently, while working on the story set in New York, I had an image of a woman on a sidewalk. \u00a0It was just a flash, but it was vivid. \u00a0Once I have that image, I can ask, \u201cWho is this woman? What is she doing in New York?\u201d And, crucially for this story, as it turned out: \u201cWhom does she encounter on the street?\u201d When you have the answer to a question like that, then you keep asking questions. And, once again, for my writing process, it\u2019s crucial for me to keep writing down the questions with a fountain pen on lined paper. That physical act grounds the questions by slowing down my thought processes.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a paradox of creativity that after your mind slows down enough to get the necessary answers about the place and the characters, then\u2014if all goes well\u2014then the pace picks up. The words come tumbling out of your mind; they tumble so fast that you can hardly put them on paper fast enough. But the muse, to revert to that old, possibly sexist, clich\u00e9, is fickle. Sometimes the flow of words, which is so exhilarating, just\u2026stops. And that too is part of the process. Sometimes you can restart the flow, and sometimes you can\u2019t. Sometimes when the flow stops, you\u2019re done for the day, and it\u2019s time to run errands and fold the laundry.<\/p>\n But the next morning when I sit down to my clipboard with the lined paper again. I pick up my pen and I write down more questions on the lined paper, or the same questions that I got stuck on the previous day. Usually, eventually, I get answers, which lead to more specific questions such as \u201cOkay, when he says that, how does she react?\u201d \u00a0I keep that up until I finally run out of questions. At this point, I understand where the characters are, what they do, and why they do it. When I have no more questions, the creative part of writing is mostly over.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean that I\u2019m through writing, though. I will probably want to go back over the story, filling in details, checking for spelling and punctuation, and doing all those things that give the story a professional feel. Then I enter what I\u2019ve written on the computer, and the story is done.<\/p>\n And then the next morning I pick up my fountain pen and write on my lined paper, \u201cWhere does the next story take place?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","categories":[23,7,12,15,25],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/937"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articles"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Creative Part of Writing\u2014Asking Questions<\/h2>\n
Faith and Creativity<\/h2>\n
First Comes the Place; Then Come the Characters<\/h2>\n
Asking Questions and Developing the Characters<\/h2>\n
Creativity and Pacing<\/h2>\n
And Then the Next Morning\u2026<\/h2>\n