The Artist’s Way Week 7: Recovering a Sense of Connection

My anxiety subsides, as it did before, and I’m struck by how many times I have been hearing or reading about the emotional roller coaster upon which we are all riding. I run a mile from clichés in my fiction, but I doff my cap to the phrase which so accurately describes our collective experience. We’d have to sit alone, leave every other row empty, and wash our hands before getting on and after disembarking, but we’re on or in it together and I appreciate the feeling of solidarity which so often eludes the desk-bound writer. I’m looking forward to reconnecting, but with what?

This week’s chapter begins with an exhortation to listen. This should come as no shock to writers who inquire, observe and record, and who carry notebooks in hope and expectation. Sure enough, ‘Art is not about thinking something up. It is about...getting something down’ and I can see how this fits with my work: I am trying to get something down about what it means to be human; to record those moments or emotions which feel unique, but which are universal; and in doing so I am celebrating and making the case for unity. The strangers I used to see in coffee shops, whose conversations I surreptitiously noted, find their way into stories or essays in small or large measures. As Julia would have it, I am ‘tuning in’ in order to invite a flow of ideas. She talks about ‘catching a poem or a paragraph or two of formed writing’ and how, rather than seeing this as miraculous, this is ‘the norm’. I’m not convinced by this, as it puts the writer’s work on a kind of mystical level. For me it is hard graft, like chipping away at a coal face with a tooth pick. I don’t see the benefit – and I find it kind of offensive – of romanticising and ascribing magic to the creative process, but I do accept that my well of ideas will soon run dry if I don’t watch, listen and make myself present in the world; I must connect in order to make the connections that drive my work forward.

I hope the next topic – Perfectionism – will help me address a problem that has crept up on me of late. I think it has something to do with the furious pace my brain is working at, but I have developed a nasty habit of immediate and obsessive editing. I hadn’t given it a name; perfectionism is as good as any. I don’t even need to read on, as I know and will admit that it is causing me to get stuck, and this inability to move forward is stopping me from seeing where my work might end up. As Julia puts it, I am losing ‘sight of the whole’. It’s good to flag this destructive behaviour and during the week I take part in the Writing on the Wall festival’s five minute morning prompts, which force me to relax into writing without concerns about quality or quantity. I am slowly loosening up and suddenly the mini-project I have been working on seems less onerous and more exciting. I appreciate the advice about seeing perfectionism as ‘a pursuit of the worst in ourselves’ and make a note to leave certain stories and projects alone for a while, if not forever. There’s also something to learn here about first drafts – another current obsession – and the importance of getting something down without focusing too much on what that something is. I’m on the point of putting pen to paper on my second novel, so I must remember to furlough the editor for the time being.

A story is never finished, but there comes a point where you have to let it go. I could spend weeks or months changing words and punctuation or I could take a chance and submit to a magazine or enter a competition. Let’s be honest, it’s the fear of failure that makes me lock the story in a drawer or hide it in a folder marked Work in Progress. The chapter has moved on to Risk and I love the dialogue with which it begins: ‘Question: What would I do if I didn’t have to do it perfectly? Answer: A great deal more than I am.’ Actually, I think I’m getting better at trying new things – hence the haiku, the poems, and a sudden interest in the potential of the dramatic monologue – and at failing better. I won’t dwell upon the irony of getting braver in an artistic sense while having moments of sheer terror about venturing forth in the outside world, but I suspect they are connected. Let’s celebrate the fact that in some ways I am less risk averse than I thought.

Jealousy is up next and Julia, bless her, has a new way of looking at it: as ‘a tough-love friend’. I struggle with the accompanying exercises, but only because I don’t feel envy like I once did. Maybe it’s maturity, or the Artist’s Way, but I no longer view this writing lark as a competition. I’m excited by the success of my peers and use it as encouragement to try harder or have a go at something I would have once eschewed. At the end of the week I listen to a play written by two friends and colleagues from my MA and wonder why I haven’t done something like that and, more to the point, how I can do something like that. I’m fired up.

POST-SCRIPT: I have finished reading the novel I had been stuck on for months and have picked up Kit de Waal’s The Trick to Time feeling refreshed and ready for fiction. Bring it on! I have published more work on my blog and am enjoying the response. I changed tack with the monologues and the final two pieces hit the spot. I’m excited about rewriting the first three from a different point of view and when they are done I am going to take a risk and send them off into the world. After that – and this is a promise – I’m going to begin a chapter of my second novel.

Click here to move on to Week 8.