Can anyone become a writer, specifically a
writer of fiction, or is the proclivity to writing an innate characteristic?
This is a question I often ask myself,
particularly when participants in my creative writing circles ask for writing
prompts or inquire where to find story ideas. As if the life you live and all
the people you interact with is not material enough.
It’s then that I think these people are not
writers, but instead fantasize about the clichéd version of a writer’s life.
The distinction could be further defined as those who ‘want’ to write, as
opposed to those who ‘have’ to write.
I have to write and, indeed, am writing all the
time - in my mind. I constantly watch people and ask myself questions about the
way they're dressed - what are they trying to say; their activities - whom are
they waiting for; and their mannerisms - why is she so jumpy. What would my
latest character do in this situation, I wonder? Plot scenarios continually run
through my mind. ‘What if’ is the question I most frequently ask myself.
So when I sit down it’s like a floodgate opens.
I write.
I can write anywhere at anytime. Often I simply
can’t wait to write. I grab a napkin, an envelope, the edge of a newspaper and
scribble words. I look forward to
it, long for it, and find it
deeply satisfying. It’s a release, a meditation, a method to make sense of it
all.
If you’re one of those that fantasize about
writing but are too conflicted to do any, then A Writer’s Space, Make Room
to Dream, to Work, to Write, by Eric Maisel, is the book for you.
Maisel is a creativity coach who holds a PH.D.
in Counseling Psychology. He believes that writers aren’t born, they’re
cajoled, coaxed, and coached into being. The first step to becoming one is to
pick, protect, and honor a physical space specifically for writing. Maisel
would have you go on a vision quest to locate the best place in your home to
write. Once you’ve divined the location, you must then prepare a security
pledge on how you will protect and do the right things in your writing space.
Evidently, the author doesn’t consider life and
people enough of a stimuli for a writer and offers all kinds of incentives to
inspire one to write. These include a way to access your ‘self-help neurons’ to
enter into a state of ‘creative mindfulness’. The next time you decide to be angry, Maisel tells the
reader, use creative mindfulness to decide not to be angry, or, I suppose, just
say ‘no to anger’. It’s as simple as that.
As well as the appropriate spiritual location
to enable you to write, Maisel suggests there are various psychological and emotional ‘spaces’ to psych
you up, chill you out, or otherwise evoke or enhance your inner muse. They
include an emotional space, reflective space, imagined space, public space, and
existential space.
At the end of each chapter, the author offers
up lessons to help you enter these ‘spaces’ which will allow you to ‘desire
worlds into existence; discover the ‘way of the meaning maker’; and, ‘not be
quite so nice’.
If you’re not ‘spaced out’ before applying these techniques and exercises,
I imagine you will be afterwards.
There’s also an exercise to ‘upgrade your
personality with twelve quick centering incantations’. This might be useful to
many of the authentic writers I’ve met since they tend to be reflective, more
observers than a participants, and comfortable with their own company, or,
depending on your point of view, arrogant, anti-social, loners.
A good portion of A Writer’s Space
is given over to anecdotes about the author’s clients/patients, an incredibly
flakey sounding bunch who imagine themselves as writers but don’t have the guts
and determination to sit down and actually write something. Success comes for
the Dr Maisel not when one of his
charges gets published, but when, after all the positive nurturing and
self-help mumbo-jumbo, they finally, actually make marks on paper.
If you haven’t drawn any conclusion on this
book from what I’ve told you so far, here's a sampling of Maisel’s profundity:
“You have been hungering for years to write
a certain piece while simultaneously curbing your enthusiasm and by curbing it
killing it.
”
If
you can relate to that statement, I’m sorry for you. It’s likely you’ll never
be a writer.
The Writer’s Space is a book of excuses, a book for dreamers.
There’s nothing wrong with having a dream. I dream
I’ll be a revered writer. It would also be nice to be revered and rich but I’d
sacrifice the latter to be the former.
The problem comes when you’re not prepared to risk
the dream for the reality. The dream is too important to lose, you’ve invested
too much in this delusion to try and fail. Better to believe there’s a novel in
you and some day you’ll write it
and it will be a best seller. That, of course won’t happen until you’ve found
the perfect place, are in the right space, and have mastered creative
mindfulness to access those self-help neurons, and how likely is that? So you continue to dream, continue to
make excuses.
I suggest you don’t need another online course, how-to-write
book, conference, seminar, lecture or any of Maisel's 'preparations' to write.
Buy a notebook and carry it with you at all times. Then instead of reading the
horoscope while you’re on your coffee break, jot down some dialogue.
There, you've written something and saved a whole lot
of money as well.
From this initial creative endeavor I can guarantee
you two things: the first few lines you
write will be crap; the second time you write something it will be
better, and it will get better and better...
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