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lizwilliamsThe Chen novel has reached that grinding stage, but it's taken a while to get there and it's been fun so far. Now I just need to get it finished.
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jaylake has, as ever, some interesting things to say about goals and objectives in writing, and I find myself pretty wholeheartedly in agreement with both Jay and with Jeff V, who contributes to the comments thread. For me, writing has always been a question of focus and discipline: visualising the desired outcome (and I mean visualising, not just vaguely thinking about it, with what I believe is known in Buddhist communities as 'concerned indifference.' Attention paid to it, without fretting - easier said than done, sometimes). It's actually basic magical practice as well as a psychological technique. I conduct most of my life that way and it's worked well so far.
Having said that, my career goals have, some time ago, taken a place beneath other priorities. The preceding post should show that; cancer and widowhood and loss are a damn sight more important than any award you win, or fail to win. Doesn't mean I won't play the game, but the game is - well, just that, for the most part. I think Burroughs had a point, however, when he said that you can write your way out. Different people react to different stimuli, obviously. I watched a newly-widowed friend of mine work diligently throughout the weeks and months that followed her husband's death and she proved to me not only that you could do it, but that it had to be done, for me at least, because the adherence to normal life is a way of defeating death, whether it's writing or just getting the washing up done every morning. My thoughts, anyway.
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jaylake has, as ever, some interesting things to say about goals and objectives in writing, and I find myself pretty wholeheartedly in agreement with both Jay and with Jeff V, who contributes to the comments thread. For me, writing has always been a question of focus and discipline: visualising the desired outcome (and I mean visualising, not just vaguely thinking about it, with what I believe is known in Buddhist communities as 'concerned indifference.' Attention paid to it, without fretting - easier said than done, sometimes). It's actually basic magical practice as well as a psychological technique. I conduct most of my life that way and it's worked well so far. Having said that, my career goals have, some time ago, taken a place beneath other priorities. The preceding post should show that; cancer and widowhood and loss are a damn sight more important than any award you win, or fail to win. Doesn't mean I won't play the game, but the game is - well, just that, for the most part. I think Burroughs had a point, however, when he said that you can write your way out. Different people react to different stimuli, obviously. I watched a newly-widowed friend of mine work diligently throughout the weeks and months that followed her husband's death and she proved to me not only that you could do it, but that it had to be done, for me at least, because the adherence to normal life is a way of defeating death, whether it's writing or just getting the washing up done every morning. My thoughts, anyway.
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Date: 2007-02-10 04:17 pm (UTC)Which is good, because I needed perspective on that issue, and the Divine delivered.
The writing is still important. The rest of it? Seems like a sort of colorful glaze on top. Pretty, occasionally useful, but it's not the bowl.
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Date: 2007-02-10 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 06:03 pm (UTC)Well put. Thanks.
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Date: 2007-02-11 12:24 am (UTC)Jaylake's comments
Date: 2007-02-11 03:28 pm (UTC)I found Jay's comments interesting and they stirred me into thinking and setting my own (current) thoughts down on paper. This also helped me to feel better about myself - which I ofton don't because many of you guys have had masses of books published and with top publishers and other demoralizing (giggle!) thinkgs for me :-))). I posted this in a reply to his post.
You say, "For me, writing has always been a question of focus and discipline: visualising the desired outcome (and I mean visualising, not just vaguely thinking about it, with what I believe is known in Buddhist communities as 'concerned indifference.' Attention paid to it, without fretting - easier said than done, sometimes). It's actually basic magical practice as well as a psychological technique. I conduct most of my life that way and it's worked well so far."
yes. I go along with this, my vocabularly's slightly different as it isn't buddhist but similar concepts are available in the Celtic trad. Visualising the desired outcome is still difficult for me, which is in some ways weird because i teach this successfully to my students! I'm reminded of Richard Bach, "You teach best what you most need to learn" ... says it all really I think ???
On the attention without fretting I've got things too that I try to say to myself: one is Edith Piaf, "Je ne regret riens"; the other is from my TP psych teacher (Ian Gordon-Brown) who said he always went into things with expectancy but no expectations. Well ... I try to do both of these.
"Having said that, my career goals have, some time ago, taken a place beneath other priorities. The preceding post should show that; cancer and widowhood and loss are a damn sight more important than any award you win, or fail to win. Doesn't mean I won't play the game, but the game is - well, just that, for the most part."
Ummm! I'm not sure here. I've not been through either widowhood or cancer, and I know you have, so I don't have those perspectives from a "this lifetime" space. Writing isn't "a game" for me, it's the work I came here to do this time around and so, my raison d'etre, soul purpose if you like. I don't know yet that I will succeed as I promised to do before comeing down ... hope so but but ... and there I get into Zen, in the sense of "don't try, do!", another thing I teach well but am not so hot on doing for myself!
"... for me at least, because the adherence to normal life is a way of defeating death, whether it's writing or just getting the washing up done every morning."
Ouch! was my immediate response here. for me, it's a non-sequitor to even think of defeating death. And (again, for me) death is not an enemy but a friend. And again, I died to my life across the worlds when I was born ito this incarnation, and I will be born again into that life when I die to this one. Death and birth are the same thing seen from different angles.
This doesn't mean I want to die, right now, or any such. I love this life, I love being here on Earth, I'm having so much fun - even if I'm poverty stricken and really am not sure where the rent is coming from each month. I may panic, get terminal angst, etc, etc, but I'm full of Joy and I love Life. But I'm not afraid of Death and it/she/he isn't my enemy. Death is part of Life.
well ... just my take on it, as of now-ish or thereabouts :-).
Re: Jaylake's comments
Date: 2007-02-11 04:11 pm (UTC)I saw a mutual friend of ours in Bristol the other night and he was with Tim Sebastian 10 days or so ago, when Tim died. He said that a lot of people were very struck by the fact that Tim - a chief druid - went on Imbolc at a full moon. But he said: 'It wasn't very magical being there watching Tim fight for breath.'
That's the essence of it for me. I could see it as a rebirth and all that before I had to deal with it so closely. And now - it may be, but I've lost faith in the process. This last encounter with Atropos' shears has nearly done for my faith and has damn nearly done for me. I appreciate the position, but sometimes life does dole out more than one can bear.
As my friend E says 'That which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. And when I am stronger, I'm going to hunt down that which didn't kill me and I'm going to MAKE IT PAY.'
Re: Jaylake's comments
Date: 2007-02-13 01:23 pm (UTC)I have some understanding of losing people I love, 3 junkie firends who topped themselves using dirty needles; some servicemen friends who got killed in N Ireland and the Faulklands; and vraious others including my eldest brother who died of cancer and my parents who just died. But the Otherworldly life helps me with this in that, although they're not available to me in the flesh any more, I know they're not "gone forever", ceased to exist. They are still there on another plane and I can contact them if really necessary, but I don't make a habit of fussing around them, of course :-).
Mmmm, I was involved, at a distance, with Tim's death - he asked for "healing" before Yule and I knew then he was on his way out. What I sent was to enable him to do it as well as possible, which he did in pulling the plug at Imbolc and full moon, very good.
I've been a psychopomp for about 30 years now, so have helped many people over, and helped those who "get lost" having died and are not sure what to do next. My father was one of these and had to be guided home - and damn bolshy he was about it too! But we got there. At the end of that, after he'd gone and I'd been sent home again, back to earth, I was sitting on his actual grave, on the boards over it the day before we burried him. The sky was wild, dark clouds, threatening rain and lots of crows - all very Spielberg! When I got back from the journey, in the north over the churchyard wall, was a mass of cloud in the form of a Celtic cross and lit purple by the westering sun (gawd! it does sound purple to write this, but that's how it was) and, just as icing on the cake, 3 of the crows flew out of the centre of the cross and straight over my head to land on the church tower. Ah well! Otherworld seem to have noted my taste in Goth ... :-).
But anyway, I can sense how you feel and there's always a shoulder of support here when it gets bad. And you're welcome to swear at me or bash me with a wet fish if it helps. Other people's experience, while interesting, doesn't always help (at least immediately) with getting one's own knowing back when it's got a bit lost. Soul and power retrievals a speciality here if required :-).
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Date: 2007-02-12 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-13 01:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-13 01:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-13 05:00 pm (UTC)I'm Footling, sub-ed on the Bloodlust.UK.com site. Very happy that you submitted some of your stories to us - good luck with getting Chen III completed.