Let Me Tell You a Story: It's a Good One!

Has anyone seen Walk the Line? It’s a great movie that tells the story (or a version thereof) of the life of Johnny Cash. Yes, I know: not everyone is into country music. This movie, however, is an intriguing insight into the life and work of a troubled artist—an artist who was a genius in this blogger’s humble opinion. Anyway, grab the DVD and you can make up your own mind.

There is a scene in the movie in which Johnny is about ten or so. He’s talking to his brother who is maybe 14. The brother is studying the Christian scriptures (he wants to be a preacher when he grows up, but dies soon after in a horrific accident) and Johnny says, ‘Why you studying so hard?’ His brother looks up from his reading and says,

‘You can’t help nobody if you don’t tell ´em the right stories.’

Yes, I thought when I heard that, you have to tell them the right stories. But, what are the right stories? It’s a good question but, fortunately, there is a simple answer: they are all the right stories. For us writers, visual artists, filmmakers or other tellers of stories, there is only the need t tell the stories, whatever they are, whenever they emerge.

The ‘them’ of poor brother Cash’s reply are those who get to hear/see/feel our stories. They may be the intended audience; they may be people we have, at the time of telling, no idea about. This is especially so for anyone brave enough to post their creative output on the internet. And that’s the joy of it don’t you think? We tell the story (in whatever genre or using whatever medium) and it takes off all by itself, impacting on who knows who, in what ways we can’t say. And where and when it lands? Well it has its own life now: it’s no longer in our control.

I just wrote that ‘all’ stories are the right ones. I don’t mean by that that I think anything goes. I have my moral and ethical standards that dictate what stories I tell (and what stories I choose to hear). Of course we all do don’t we? Having said that, I do not suggest for a second that I can judge what stories you or anyone else should or should not be telling. That’s also up to you. I may not agree with you, nor you with me, but that’s life.

And it’s also true that the stories that ‘help’ people come in all shapes and forms and are about an unlimited variety of subjects. Then there’s the matter of timing. How often have you read something inspirational just when you needed some guidance or advice? Or what about those times when you are feeling a bit low or under the weather and you come across a story that makes you smile or otherwise lifts your spirits? I’ve often been in need of a good cry only to come across a sad movie or story or a moving tale of one kind or another.

So, let’s keep telling stories. They are all the right ones for us to tell. Somewhere, just the other day, I came across another quote (forgive me: I don’t know who said it, or even remember where I found it) that reads:

If there is a way to improve the world, it is by telling a good story.

Now, once upon a time on a dark but not so stormy night ...

PS I saw the movie in Dharamsala India. On a postcard home I wrote a little rhyme about some writing work I was doing on local environmental issues for a local magazine:

He walked the line
did Johnny Cash.
But here in Dalai Lama Land
my words will help reduce trash.

I did say stories come in all shapes and forms didn't I?

    

Oh My Art I Vow to Thee: A Promise You Want to Keep

I’m going to see Ravi Shankar in concert (check out this Youtube video to hear this amazing man play) in a couple of weeks. It’s a birthday gift from my partner. Last year we saw Leonard Cohen. Yes, I know, I am very lucky: I may not go to many concerts, but when I do, they are the biggies. And I am grateful for the chance to see these extraordinary people.


So, because Ravi Shankar is coming up, my eyes are open for anything in the media about him. Sure enough, just this last weekend there was a profile piece in the paper. It’s a fascinating story, his life. But what really caught my eye was Mr Shankar’s final comment to the interviewer as he left the room. His remark was about his one regret in life:

This, mind you, from a genius who is about to turn 90 and who has been performing, writing and composing since he was in his 20s. And before that, he was an accomplished dancer. His creative output, his gifts to the world, put most of us so-called creatives to shame.

‘I wish I had been more creative. My mind is always working on new ideas. I wish I had done more.’

But, of course, any creative person will always think they have never done enough; there are always ideas that don’t find their way into the light of day. And if that’s the feeling people like Shankar have who never stop creating, what does it say about those of us who aren’t quite as productive? What about all the time we spend complaining along the lines of, ‘I can’t write/I’m blocked/the words won’t come/blah blah blah.

Well, it does feel like blah blah doesn’t it? Here we are literate, full of ideas and with the resources to express them (ie pen, pencil, computer ...), and still we go on about how hard it all is. Well, let me say that from now on, I am going to spend a lot less time complaining about not being able to create, and a lot more time on actually creating—or at the very least focusing on the creative process whatever that might entail.

Now, I know what you are thinking; it’s not always so easy, creativity isn’t a tap you can just turn on and off at will. Well, that may be true, but I wonder what would happen if we really make an effort to devote ourselves to our art/craft/whatever we call it? We might still be blocked, we might still have trouble translating our ideas into words or pictures (or whatever we do), but at least we are going to be on the right track. We will be in the zone, as they say.

Not only that, but we will have no cause to regret not being creative. Of course, I think what Mr Shankar is really saying is that he hasn’t had enough time to manifest all the creative ideas he’s had. And it is certain for most of us that this will always be the case. But if we devote our lives to our art (and that means spending time thinking, reflecting, observing, being - all the things creative people do to live a creative life, even if it's not actaully 'creating'), then what we are meant to produce, we will. Simple as that really. Or at least I am thinking it is simple.

I have on my wall a mandala I coloured in with pretty colour pencils. I’ve made a kind of collage of it with a few bits and pieces stuck on (I’m a word person really, not so hot with the old visual arts thing). Across the bottom of this ‘creation’ I have written:

Oh My Art, I Vow to Thee

And I try to honour that vow, every day.

Let's Get Back to Kerouac: #8 Belief & Technique for Modern Prose

Yes folks, it's time to get back to Kerouac and his writing tips. All you legions and hordes of readers of my riveting blog will recall that a while ago (when was it?) I set out to write up a commentary on the a list by Kerouac called Belief & Technique for Modern Prose List of Essentials. My plan at that stage was to do one a day-and I kept that up for a week. Alas, I found it too much for some reason at that point. I think probably I was wanting to think of other things (not to mention my need to rid myself of the compulsion and rigidity when it comes to aims, goals and things I set out to do).
So, here we go again. This time it will be more of an occasional revisiting of the list. Well, I expect we will eventually reach the end: there are only 30 items in the list. But they are pretty wild items, and really get you thinking about writing, and your role and place as a writer. For the tiny minority of blog readers who haven't seen my commentaries thus far, please feel free to go back and read the Introduction, which is followed, of course, by posts which include my commentaries on the items I've covered up till now. Now, here we go folks.

Write what you want bottomless from the bottom of your
mind.

Now, don't say you always write what you want: who does in reality? Well I guess there are some people who just write what they like for themselves for fun kind of thing. Then there are the obsessive journal keepers (cest moi!) whose meanderings will never be viewed by another. Of course, for my part, I plan on leaving mine to some library: must be somewhere a library which collects the journals of people other than the famous ones.
But, for most of us, writing is about having it read. After all, isn't that what writing is about? A vehicle to communicate ideas, stories and other stuff to a wider audience? And few, very few of us can claim that all that we've written is exactly what we have wanted to write without exception. After all, even writers gotta eat, right?
What Kerouac is saying is just write what you want. That's it. Forget eating. Forget the requirements, restrictions and other freedom killing dictates of the world and its money making minions. See? Simple. No crap. Just write. Like I'm doing here I guess (gee how lucky can you readers get? Should be charging you for this stuff!)
Bottomless? I guess this one's self-explanatory, you think? Not sure it is now I think about it. The first 'bottomless' I think could translate to something like, let it all hang out, just write without limits imposed by, well, anything. The second one refers to the writer's (that's me, maybe you too?) mind. Dig deep, try to get your internal censors out of the way, at least for the first draft type stages, you dig?
But it isn't only about the ridding of our own censors and even inhibitions when it comes to allowing our fingers to fly their own ways. It's about digging deep in terms of finding what is there. Long forgotten memories, old ideas, snippets (cool word: snippets) of conversations or of people's faces from the past that rise to the surface from time to time without warning and with no explanation. All these things reside at the bottom of the storage box in our heads.
You can dig deep as in a kind of proactive exercise where you go hunting for stuff. Or you can simply grab hold of the odd things that you see poking up asking for attention from that bottomless pit (I mean that in the nicest possible way of course). How do you put yourself into the right place to be picking up this stuff, seeing as it's buried pretty deep in that pit?
Of course we all know and have heard many times about taking notice of our dreams, writing them down etc. This is a great way to pick up on stuff that is trying to rise above that bottomless place. Then there is the old 'walk on the beach/in the forest/around the lake/wherever' method of getting the whole system open to creative input and it sure can jolt up that bottom dwelling stuff like memories, old visions, and all.
How's this for an idea? Get a friend or someone to write you an opening line. Doesn't matter if it's of the 'Dark and stormy night' variety: the key is to have it written down for you. Then you sit in front of a blank piece of paper, or a blank document in Word, type the line and don't stop. That's right: don't stop, don't 'think' with your conscious mind or whatever you call it. Just type (or write if you're using paper. Blimey, imagine that? paper!).
Many writers have stories that have come out of such an exercise. I wrote one that got a distinction in a course i was on that started with NOTHING but the line, 'This day had been a long time coming'. Nice story too. Quirky and it brought up memories of a friend from school who'd had a hard time, thought life would be over by 21, so he was going to kill himself. (he didn't: he ended up moving states and joining the Socialist Party. Which some might say is a suicide of a kind).
And there must be lots of other ways to either actively access this bottomless place in our minds, or to have ourselves made receptive to what might rise from the surface. The key is to realise there is a bottomless place that can be used for our writing.
Write what you want, from the bottom of yourself and without limitations. You may not be able to use the resultant words to sell to a publisher (though of course you might be able to), but you will have helped yourself unleash (I was going to type untether. I think I like them both, those words) that part of yourself where creativity, truth, honesty and freedom live.

A Possibly Amusing Picture and Poem Combo

Quite a while ago, 2005 to be precise, I was a student sitting in a poetry class, when the teacher gave us an exercise. 'Write a job advertisement looking for a muse in the form of a poem,' she said. Now, I wasn't really much of a poet (still not actually), but it was a groovy right brained balance to all the other non-fictiony, grammary, computery kind of classes I was also doing. So, as it was really just a class exercise, I thought, yes, I can do that. Mmmm.

Anyway, I didn't like the result, but the teacher and my fellow wannabe poets had a good laugh, and a couple even clapped. So, does that mean it's good or bad or just funny? Who knows? Who cares?

I came across the poem in a notebook the other day and typed it up. Better late than never I guess. Then I had a brilliant poetic kind of idea. I have a lot of photos of a statue called The Three Muses which is in a town just up the road from here called Deniliquin, or Deni to us locals. You dig? My big idea was to somehow put the poem together with a photo of the Muses. Cool eh? So, thanks to Photoshop and my lovely laptop, here is the result. You might like it; you might hate it. Why not tell me? A bit of fun anyway, and it got some creative juices flowing that have been pretty stagnant of late.

Enjoy!

Are we there yet? I'm sooooo bored!!!!!

Boredom. Don't you hate it? Nothing to do, and if there is something to do you've done it a million times. Nothings happening, and you are bored, with a capital B. Now, I'm not going to get into a rave here about how, at least those of us fortunate enough to be able to read this blog (I mean no immodesty here: I refer to the access many of us have to the marvel which allows us to read it should we choose...and who wouldn't really?), live at the most materially prosperous, the most technologically advanced, the most information rich time in human history. I read a cool sentence the other day: We in the 'west' live in a culture of distraction. (While slightly paraphrased, it is still a very groovy description of our glutted, rich materialistic lifestyle don't you think? But that's a different story than the one for today. So, no lectures about getting over the boredom and enjoy your riches ... whatever form they take.

No, I am inspired today by a report I read today about a study put out by East Anglia University in England. Seems they did some heavy duty research into what the article called 'decades of studies on boredom'. If you ask me I can think of very few things more boring than studying boredom, but hey, whatever gets you interested, or whatever gets you the research grants, right?

Anyway, the report says that they published a paper last year that concluded,

'boredom should be recognised as legitimate human emotion that can be central to
learning and creativity'.

I think it's easy to see where they're coming from here. What happens when you come to be bored by something? I mean apart from complaining about it like I know I do sometimes. You try and change things; you try to fix whatever it is that's causing the boredom. Of course on a long train ride, let's say, you're not going to be able to make the train go any faster simply by wanting to relieve your own boredom. Hey, far out example eh? (not!)

But, for writers, boredom is an opportunity. It often strikes me when I'm 'not in the mood' for writing', or when I'm blocked, or when I'm tired. Whatever and whenever; it still hits hard sometimes. So, what to do? Well, I wouldn't mind guessing that I'm not the first one who's ever said to you, 'if you're bored, find something to do'. Am I right? Sure am.

Can't write? Then sort files, or 'shuffle papers' as a friend of mine use to say. You just never know what treasures you'll dig up. I found a poem, over a year old and long forgotten and neglected, the other day just by leafing through a notebook in a moment of idle boredom. (It isn't a treasure ... not yet anyway). Not in the mood to write? Then don't try; read a book, go for a walk, watch TV (please take care with this last piece of advice). Sleep even. The Dalai Lama said, according to my trustee daily Dalai Lama quote widget on my home page: Sleep is the best form of meditation. And we all know that Robert Louis Stevenson actually dreamed a lot of the stuff in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. When he was asleep that is.

Boredom is a powerful tool for creative types: I guess it can relate to what I was writing about yesterday: being driven to complete something, being overly goal oriented when it just isn't flowing, can lead to boredom. Better to stop pushing and just groove on the boredom; see where it takes you. Going with the flow I guess.

And boredom can strike anytime and anywhere. I think it can even happen when things seem to be going really well: the words are coming out, but they just aren't saying it. Know what I mean? Pretty scary when a writer is bored by her/his own stuff even while it's being written. Probably time to stop, give it up. Give into the boredom and leave it alone; do something else for a while.

So, I guess those researcher wallas might be onto something: boredom should be recognised as legitimate (sure feels that way when it hits don't you think?) and not denied or pushed through. A recognition that it can lead to a way towards creativity and its expression, will help us to acquire this recognition and acceptance more readily.

Now, I don't know about you, but I am starting to bore myself. So I am out of here. (Not really, it's just that we have a DVD to watch, and I am soooo easily distracted by such things)

Almost No Post today; Boy, are you lucky or what?

Yes, that's right: almost decided not to write a post today; I just couldn't be bothered. Tired I guess and it's been a long busy day. But, you see, I am a driven sort of person. Not that I write a post everyday; even the most casual of readers will be able to see that. It's just that today (and the last little while I suppose) I said, got to do a post. So, here I am. No real subject in mind of course, but there you are.

Perhaps we can think about being driven and what it means for a writer to be so inclined. There's the school of thought that says being driven is good: it's being determined, persevering and all that jazz. For me, being driven is a nightmare of stress, pressure, guilt when I don't do something and generally speaking, a real downer. Oh, here by driven I mean obsessive or fanatical or full of push push push. I don't mean the driven as in being driven in a car or taxi or whatever from one place to another. That kind of driven is very nice thank you very much. Of course it depends on who is doing the driving I guess.

But, back to driven as in being crazy possessed to get stuff done. What's the point? If it isn't coming, it isn't coming. Shouldn't we switch direction and put the pen down, close the laptop lid and pay attention to something else. Of course it's okay for that something else to be connected to whatever it is we feel driven to do: reading, thinking, going for a walk, making coffee or tea (tea for me please: trying to cut out the caffeine for now), or whatever else caters to our creativity or feeds our muse (mine also drinks tea and makes sure I don't drink coffee).

So, why am I doing this blog post? Well, I did eventually say to myself, no, you are not doing it; you have nothing to say, you are tired and you are just wanting to watch TV or do other quiet non-demanding stuff. Okay, then I went on and checked out a couple of sites I'd been meaning to look at, read a couple of emails (didn't answer them though) and just took it slowly for a time. Then, out of the blue, I opened up this blog, and just clicked on new post, and there we are. Or rather, here I am.

You see? All that mucking about, doing other routine stuff somehow got the creative juices flowing and as I said, here I am.

Cool eh?