WRITE NOW (7) – Where to
Write
Some writers are
unable to work unless the environment is suitable, with no distractions. The
desk must face a blank wall instead of the view from the window and there must
be no interruptions from family or friends. On the other hand some people seem
able to write anywhere, oblivious to the surroundings or even inspired by
adverse conditions. When he was imprisoned in Paris during the Reign of Terror,
Tom Paine did not let the threat of execution stop him writing. He went ahead
and finished The Age of Reason. There’s dedication for you! A man who can write in the shadow of the guillotine
is surely an example to us all. Similarly the Letter from Birmingham Jail is an open letter written on April 16,
1963, by Martin Luther King Jr. while he was imprisoned. The letter defends the
strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism. It says that people have a moral
responsibility to break unjust laws and to take direct action rather than
waiting potentially forever for justice to come through the courts. The letter
was widely published and became an important text for the American Civil Rights
Movement.
Unfortunately we
are not all capable of such dedicated concentration. A train of thought can be
disturbed and the thread of it lost by a noisy distraction, especially the
telephone. We are all mentally different. If you are one of those people who
can be creative while all around you the hurly-burly of the world goes on, then
you are fortunate indeed. Those who are not so gifted should find a place to
write where you are happy and comfortable. A place where you know your mental
abilities can be released unrestricted.
A
danger to avoid
It is not a good idea to slog away day
and night for a weekend and then take several weeks of to compensate for work
done. This leads to mental slackness and poor creativity. Better results are
achieved by regular daily production. You may object that you are not a factory
worker to be constrained by regular hours and continual production and that you
can only work when the feeling of inspiration occurs to you. That attitude is
negative and unproductive. So-called writers
with that outlook on the craft will write very little of publishable standard.
Excellent fiction and non-fiction has been produced by writers who sat down and
dredged up ideas. Any staff newspaper journalist who tells his editor that, he
is waiting to be visited by inspiration, would very quickly be told that he was
in the wrong job.
Arnold
Bennett (1867-1931), an enormously successful novelist and journalist, was a
great believer in steady work. He said, “Even mediocre talent, when combined
with fixity of purpose and regular industry will, infallibly, result in
gratifying success.” We can learn much from the life and work of Arnold
Bennett. When he was at the top of his creative form he could turn out about
6,000 words a day. All those words were written by hand with his famous stylo
pen – a forerunner of today’s ballpoint. In his attitude to work he resembled
Trollope, for he abhorred idleness and the artistic temperament which can
easily become an excuse for not writing. He maintained that nothing in life was humdrum
and often talked about the "interestingness" of existence. Enthusiasm like that
shines through a man’s work, for if a writer is bored his readers will be
equally bored because his writing will be boring. In other words, Bennett
emphasised the motto learnt by so many professional writers from their early
years, that the only sure way to write is to apply the seat of the pants to the
seat of the chair.
How
to start writing
The ideas and inspiration to write and
the motivation must, of course, come from within. The only way to start writing
is to sit down in your den and get on with it. If you have difficulty at first,
do not be put off. This is not at all uncommon. A good analogy is to compare
the human brain to a motor car engine. They both work best when warmed up. On a
cold morning the engine can be slow to start and then it chugs along a bit. The
warmer it becomes the better it works. In a similar way your mind will work
better when it is warmed up.
Therefore the answer to your problem is
to start writing. Anything will do at this stage in order to get the brain
functioning and words on paper. Later you may well discard what you first
wrote, but this does not matter if you have achieved your primary objective.
Soon you will find that the ideas flow better. You will be able to express
yourself more freely and put down your thoughts precisely as you want them. No
matter how silly or uninspired or rough your first thoughts and way of
expressing them might be, the important point is that you have started writing.
You can improve and polish your work later.
Writers make the
decision to write a certain amount of words each day/week or they dedicate a
certain amount of time to doing this. There has to be some element of
discipline to accompany that ambition. The novel won’t write itself. You have
to do it, one word, sentence, paragraph and page at a time. In the words of
Louis L’Amour, “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until
the faucet is turned on.”[1]
©Kieran Beville
[1] Louis L’Amour (1908-1988) was an
American novelist and short story writer. His books consisted primarily of
Western novels; however, he also wrote historical fiction, science fiction,
non-fiction, as well as poetry and short-story collections.
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