Space

This week I've been listening to Pema Chodron's CDs on 'Getting Unstuck', in which she talks about the technique of observing thoughts, identifying the 'sticky' emotions at the heart of thoughts and then coming back to the breath or the now, in order to process that emotion.

I can see that the whirling of thoughts or day-dreaming in itself is a form of numbing-out. Yet as a writer this type of numbing-out is actually the source book. However Pema's teachings are equally useful to the writer because instead of staying in thought, we re called back to the now through meditation and at this point there is the opportunity to pick up the pen and process the drama of day-dreaming into a physical active form, ie. writing.

It's a 3 act play if you like. 1. Think. 2. Bring the essence of it down to the present. 3. Process. Then the writer must add the fourth step - Write. It is then the foremost priority to create Step1. by making sufficient space for thinking and meditation. This is the aspect so misunderstood by non-writers, who say, "Why don't you just write?" and they watch expectantly as you struggle to move your pen. But of course the pen doesn't move because the pen has nothing to say by itself. First there must be the space, and it is the space that is so difficult to create in the average working day.

Professional writers then have an advantage. They do one of two things. 1. They are so well practised at thinking, finding the emotion and processing that they are within a few minutes able to go straight to writing. 2. Because the professional writer has no other job to do in any given day then when they are not writing they can be quietly thinking so that when they return to their desk they are ready to start writing again.

It is not then solely that the amateur writer (who also works in another field) fails to interrupt their thought and bring it down to the now to process but also that often they never even start thinking, so taken up as they are, with the demands of other people and of the world in general.

This then is why the yearning for space and silence, a constant theme in modern living, is also at the heart of yearning for creativity.

The Rejection File

I read Patricia's last post and want to say Congratulations. Not because of the rejection letter because it`s just shitty to receive that response but because its a courageous act to send out your writing for someone else to "accept" or "reject." It's the act of someone who has decided to move beyond fear.

About ten years ago I was in my first flush of trying to establish myself as a writer. I sent out several articles and a fiction novel synopsis with the first three chapters. I soon received through the mail a collection of about a dozen rejection letters. I decided to be brave about it and stuck the letters in a rejection file.

I kept the file for many years, I hung onto it a lot longer than I spent working on new projects. And as it turned out I didn't send out any more queries. Even after I had the good sense to burn the rejection file the words of one letter are still ingrained in my memory.
"We really like your idea but the quality of your writing does not meet the standard of one of our authors."

I still worry about the quality of my writing. I ask people who read my work, "Does my writing lack quality?" I turn over what "quality" might mean in literary terms. It turns out to be quite an elusive concept, too vague to be corrected and too specific to be ignored. And still today something of an Achilles heel. All this despite a growing sense of objectivity which is shouting "They really liked your idea! Why didn't you re-write and re-submit?"

Surely the best way to deal with rejection is to read carefully what people have said, without dramatic interpretation, and then, as Patricia says, keep sending out the queries. Perhaps the truest mark of quality is honest endeavour and persistence.

Keeping the champagne on ice for when Patricia finds the right home for her article. Giving myself a kick up the arse for spending 10 years sulking over one rejection letter!

Sending Out the Query

Well, it is official. I have had my first writing rejection notice. I sent out my query, and I was told that the thesis was done already. On the one hand, it is a disappointment. On the other, I feel like I have had a major accomplishment. Apparently, one average I heard was that out of 6 queries, one will accept your work. So I am on my way to the success.

Finding your spot is like solving a puzzle. Your spot being the place where this piece of writing will work. I think it might be a cross between having a talent for it and practice, practice, practice.

And so, I am on to the next plan....

If you are not writing...

I am thinking of all the ways I can amuse myself when it comes to a writing project. My task this week is to write a query letter, a simple job really, except it doesn't feel that way. So here's what I do:

- laundry
- empty the cat's litter
- do the dishes
- call a friend
- pick up a magazine
- mow the lawn
- weed the garden
- sweep the steps

and my all-time favourite - read a book about writing.