A Creative Pact - Honouring The Muse

 Australian Aborigines say that the big stories—the stories worth telling and retelling, the ones in which you may find the meaning of your life—are forever stalking the right teller, sniffing and tracking like predators hunting their prey in the bush.

Robert Moss, Dreamgates

Ideas come and go, flitting in and out of our minds. In order to realise these ideas they must be grounded. As Julie Cameron explains, ‘art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite - getting something down.’  For me, it is usually enough to keep a journal in which to note a dream, a connection, a description, a quote. . .  anything to provide an anchor for my fleeting inspirations. But I have been guilty of neglecting my journal, believing that I would remember the ideas that came through the dreams that permeated my restless nights, or while walking on the promenade here in Aberystwyth, listening to the crash of the waves and the cries of the gulls. For a time the ideas came as they always have but I didn’t ground them and after a while they stopped coming because I had stopped listening. I forced myself to keep writing, not my novel, but other projects that demanded my attention. However, the flow had stopped, so that I was giving without receiving and in so doing, depleting myself. At first I just felt drained of enthusiasm which should have been a clear warning signal because enthusiasm, a term that originally meant an inspired connection to God, is a vital part of creativity. After a while I became fatigued and emptied of vitality. Instead of joy and vigour I found myself caught up in a deadening and monotonous day-to-day routine. And finally I began questioning my calling as a writer.

There have been a number of times in my life when I’ve questioned my reasons for writing but until recently I have never doubted that writing is my path in life, the form of expression best suited to me. This doubt proved to be a wake-up call, alerting me to the process that had been subtly eroding my creativity over many months. Since then, I have followed the advice I gave myself in my previous post and found a way to re-engage with my novel-in-progress. It is a tentative return though, a fragile agreement between me and my muse, and one that could be broken again at any time if I don’t keep my end of the bargain. And a bargain it is. For in turning my back on this novel I have, in a sense, betrayed the responsibility I carry as a creator of stories, a responsibility that entails being present for the creative process. . . listening. . . trusting. . . making notes. . . following the clues. . . asking questions. . . and looking at the world through seeing eyes. As Julie Cameron explains, ‘in dance, in composition, in sculpture, the experience is the same: we are more the conduit than the creator of what we express.’ To a certain extent then, our creative expressions are gifts but in order to receive them we must remain open (see Giving and Receiving). If we turn away we lose our connection and break our agreement.

At certain stages of the creative process, solitude and silence are vital. We descend into a quiet place within ourselves where we take stock and gather our energy, all the time listening and watching, waiting for our inspiration. I am reading a good deal now, both fiction and non-fiction, nourishing myself with the creations and ideas of others. I am walking too, more slowly, relishing the quiet and taking time to notice everything around me, to wonder at the mysteries of life, pausing joyfully in front of a bed of flowers, and watching intrigued as a bird gathers twigs for its nest. It will take time to refuel but I am on the way. Once again I am carrying my journal with me and already I can feel the excitement of unexpected links and the rewarding back and forth movement between my journal and the novel, as one inspiration inspires another.  As the process continues, a sense of playfulness grows, a tuning in to the imagination and a willingness to let go of expectations and allow surprises. Creativity demands this playfulness, allowing us to make the necessary leap into the unknown and retrieve our story (see Coming Unstuck). Ben Okri speaks of the ‘marriage between play and discipline, purpose and mastery,’ a marriage that produces ‘the wonders of literature’. For me this 'marriage' represents a perpetual movement between the heart and the head and the intuitive and the rational as I seek to maintain a harmonious balance between the art and the craft of writing.

Storytelling is a sacred skill and sometimes it is hard to meet its demands. The process is one of alchemy, taking the raw material and transmuting it into gold, finding the essence of meaning, exploring truth through metaphor and building bridges with words that will paradoxically enable us to escape the very limitations of words.  As in alchemy, the process is not purely technical. There is something else, a tremendous change that must be brought about within the alchemist or the story teller. In The Philosopher’s Stone, Peter Marshall writes that ‘at all times an inextricable link was recognised between the personal growth of the alchemist and the development of his experiments. Ultimately the alchemist is the subject and object of his own experiment.’ As with alchemy, a story always leaves its mark on the teller. Both writers and readers emerge changed but for writers that change is usually fundamental and the process sometimes frightening. For as novelist, Maria Szepes writes in The Red Lion, ‘by the laws of alchemy something has to die and decay before it can rise.’ If we deny the creative process, then we deny change and in so doing we deaden ourselves to life. But if we accept change we step into the unknown and while ultimately rewarding, it is not a safe journey and it is rarely easy.

In his essay, The Joys of Storytelling, Ben Okri describes ‘two essential joys. . . the joy of the telling, which is to say of the artistic discovery. And the joy of listening, which is to say of the imaginative identification . . . The first involves exploration and suffering and love. The second involves silence and openness and thought.’ As I make small forays into my novel, reacquainting myself with the characters, building scenes and developing themes, I find myself immersed once again in ‘the joy of the telling’. I can only hope that I am have been stalked by a ‘big story’, one that is ‘worth telling and retelling’.

Copyright (c) 2013 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Giving and Receiving

 

'Unless the work is the realization of the artist's gift and unless we, the audience, can feel the gift it carries, there is no art'.

Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World.

I believe that one of the greatest lessons in life is to learn how to accept a gift with grace and gratitude because in that acceptance lies the true art of giving. To deflect or deny a blessing, a compliment, a teaching, an act of kindness or a material gift, is to deny the giver and to deny yourself. It blocks the free flow of energy that is giving and receiving. Lewis Hyde wrote a wonderful book called, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, in which he explores the value of creativity and the idea that a gift must keep moving, though not necessarily in the same form. When I was a student in Sydney and found myself struggling financially, a friend gave me $200 to help me pay an essential bill. I was embarrassed and grateful, and told her that I would pay her back as soon as I could. 'No,' she said, 'I don't want the money back but perhaps one day you could do the same for someone else.' I found this profoundly moving. Instead of a debt she gave me a lesson in living and an opportunity to become a giver myself, not necessarily financially because we do not all have abundance in this area, but in whatever way I could. Since then I have tried to give to others, both through the cultivation of everyday compassion and through the telling of stories.

A few years ago in an interview with Boekenkrant in the Netherlands, I was asked if writers are special. I replied that 'we all tell stories. Stories are everywhere: in books, the cinema, television and the internet; passed around campfires; and swapped over coffee. . . . A writer consciously sets out to create stories but writers are not extraordinary. The stories they write are a gift, to them and to their readers. It is the responsibility of the writer to be true to themselves and to that which inspires them. Otherwise, I believe the only prerequisites for a writer are a love of language, a need to express themselves, self discipline and a fresh way of looking at the world. Everything else is technique and can be learned.'

There is an art and a craft of writing. In the craft of it lies the technical skills, the tools we need to produce a successful story or poem. Learning the craft is not always easy but it is fundamental because it enables expression. In the art of writing lies the gift. This gift is not ours to keep but rather to use as best we can, to hand on to others, for as Hyde writes, 'there is a sense that our gifts are not fully ours until they have been given away'. Recently I have been asking myself what it means to be a writer, and in an abrupt turn around a few days ago, I realised that I am not so much a writer as someone who seeks larger truths and that for me writing is a medium through which to express what needs expression and to seek what needs to be uncovered. Writing is a way of holding a mirror up to myself and in learning how to see myself, to then offer others the gift of seeing themselves. I have been blessed with an ability with language and bestowed with the gift of storytelling, so for me writing is my means of expression. What I have understood is that what is expressed is far more important than the medium through which it is expressed. Reaching out to help someone who is hurt, creating a business, singing a song or dancing a dance . . . these are mediums for creative expression. It is up to us what we express through them. Perhaps that is where our responsibility lies. A gift is a responsibility and it must be used. Hyde writes that, 'once a gift has stirred within us it is up to us to develop it. There is a reciprocal labor in the maturation of a talent. The gift will continue to discharge its energy so long as we attend to it in return.' In short, we must use it or lose it.

When we write we are inspired, a term that refers to a divine influence and to a drawing in of breath. When we are inspired we are breathing in the spirit of the gods. I am not a member of any religion but I do have a strong sense that the universe is a far deeper and more mysterious place than modern science would allow. My own experiences of the numinous are personal and profound, reinforcing this sense of mystery and creating a certainty that there is a deep connection between all of life. I have no doubt that writing is a gift that brings with it a responsibility. We must cultivate this gift and respect it. We must develop our understanding of the craft of writing to the best of our ability and be open to receiving the inspiration that turns our gift into art. In the acknowledgment section of my novels I am always moved to thank the giver. Once again I do so, with humility and a deep gratitude.

Have a joy filled Christmas.

 Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Banishing The Fear

'We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path: and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; and where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; and where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the centre of our own existence; and where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.'

Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

There's no doubt about it, I'm afraid to begin my new novel. This happens to me every time I am about to launch into a new project. Perhaps it happens to everyone, I don't know, but I do know that the thought of sitting down and committing words to paper sends my stomach into somersaults and my heart rate soaring. Perhaps it is a simple fear of failure, the fear that this time I will have nothing to say, or no proper means to say it. The fear that my muse/s will abandon me, that inspiration will dry up and I will be left with empty words. Or perhaps it is a reluctance to mark the page because each mark is a choice and each choice closes off other choices, so as a new story begins to expand, paradoxically its potential begins to contract. Perhaps it's a fear of the commitment, which once taken will absorb much of my life for a period of time, turning me into a distant figure to my family and friends. I know from past experience that I will once again become immersed in the world of my story and the characters who inhabit it, and begin to resent any intrusions into that world. However, my reluctance to begin doesn't just relate to the time it will take to write this novel, or the immersion in another realm that is inevitable; it's also the journey itself that frightens me, with its peaks and troughs, because although this novel is a work of fiction it is filtered through me. In order to write it I will once again be forced to venture deep into the underworld in order to face my demons and bring them out into the light.

In Negotiating with the Dead, Margaret Atwood states that she believes all writing 'of the narrative kind. . . is motivated by a desire to make the risky trip to the Underworld, and to bring something or someone back from the dead.' As I see it, the underworld represents our unconscious selves and the journey to it, a delving into what is long buried. Writing a story for me is a way of reclaiming the pieces of myself, of my soul, that have been lost, either given away or stolen. It is a way of gathering myself back together again - of making myself whole.

These journeys into the underworld are an initiation of sorts, into a deeper form of perception, a new esoteric understanding of the deeper laws of the universe. In Shapeshifters, writer, storyteller and healer, Luisah Teish describes a personal life changing experience: 'When I talk about the me that I was before that experience, I find myself saying, “she,” a third person. I understand that it's my personal history. It's not like a slate was wiped clean, but everything that plagued me before has been turned into compost out of which the new me was growing.'

Whatever their genre or medium, many contemporary stories mirror heroic myths, both in their structure and in the elements that make up their plots. Each story involves a character leaving the safety and stasis of their ordinary world and being plunged into a new and dangerous world, one in which they don't know the rules and where they must undergo a series of adventures. The second stage of the journey involves accepting change, stepping into the abyss with no idea what lies ahead. Like birds we must be willing to fall in order to fly. Risks are taken, and if successful there is a reward of some kind. The final stage involves returning to the 'ordinary world', understanding and integrating the reward and using it as is appropriate. A new status quo is reached and the protagonist has changed in some way.

When I complete a novel, in a sense I have become a new person, as have my characters. According to Christopher Vogler, in The Writer's Journey, 'The Hero's Journey and the Writer's Journey are one and the same. Anyone setting out to write a story soon encounters all the tests, trials, ordeals, joys and rewards of the Hero's journey. . . Writing is an often perilous journey inward to probe the depths of one's soul and bring back the Elixir of experience. ' The act of writing changes the writer. To write a story is to descend into the underworld with only a few clues and no guarantee of a way back out again. It's a dangerous process, exhausting and filled with apprehension, but it's also a magical journey. This is what I must remember as I embark on my new novel, because although it is natural to feel fear, it's not okay to allow ourselves to be limited by it. And if I'm honest with myself, this fear I'm feeling is mixed with a delicious anticipation. . . It is time to begin.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

In the Beginning

The heralding of a new novel begins with a feeling. A new book is coming; far off yet, but I know it's there. This is a beautiful sensation, something akin to the way a woman feels knowing there is a new life growing inside her. There's a satisfaction associated with it, as well as a great sense of mystery. It's a succumbing to a power and a process that is beyond oneself. The enigmatic smile of the Mona Lisa reminds me of this sense; an inner knowing, a looking within. This is what happens when the seed of a novel begins to grow. After that there is an inevitability to the process, in that it is growing towards something and instinctively knows its own way. But of course there are many factors that will help or hinder it on its journey. As a writer, I must gently nurture the tiny seed of an idea until that moment when it struggles out of the darkness seeking the sun.

During this nurturing time, nothing has yet been written but there are flashes of images in my mind, unformulated ideas that hover in the background awaiting their moment. Then there's the synchronicity; a series of clues I must trust and follow in order to find my story: a plot point here, a character trait there, some background research, a theme or simply a glimmer of understanding about what I am writing and why I must write it. . . . The clues appear random and yet they're linked in some way. I pick up a second hand book at a market stall, then another in a book shop, while at a dinner party someone mentions a subject that leads me in a new direction. . . I am being led through a maze of ideas.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/