Dancing in the Minefields

"we went dancing in the minefields//we went sailing through the storms//it was harder than it seemed//but i do believe that's what//the promise is for.."

-Andrew Peterson "Dancing in the Minefields"

We take great pride in saying how much we love writing and how we are called to be writers and many things of that nature. Sometimes I wonder if we understand what we have just said. As with many things in our current culture, our understanding of "love" has fallen prey to what C.S. Lewis aptly described as "chronological snobbery":

Barfield never made me an Anthroposophist, but his counterattacks destroyed forever two elements in my own thought. In the first place he made short work of what I have called my "chronological snobbery," the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood. From seeing this, one passes to the realization that our own age is also "a period," and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those widespread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them.

In current terms, to "love" something means that you have a certain fondness for it that--momentarily--absorbs you. If you really "love" something (or someone), you have that fondness for it to the exclusion of many other pastimes and/or people. You might think that, by this definition, you do love writing. As do I. But here's the thing: our chronological snobbery has totally eradicated the true meaning of love. The popular definition excludes the roots of the thing: it makes void all the rich impulses of honor, dedication, fidelity, service, choice. Shakespeare mused: "Is love a fancy or a feeling?" --neither, I'm bound to say. Of course one cannot justly compare the love of a pastime (like writing) to the love of people, but I am permitted to take poetic license and point out the shadowy similarities. 

Inspiration is like romance: it comes and it goes and you can't keep it past its departure date. At some point in a marriage, the warm-fuzzies will fade (at least for a time) and if your love was built off of romance (as too many are) you will find yourself quite out of love. If your concept of being out-of-love includes booting the thing that fell out of love with you, then you'll find yourself with a divorce on your hands. We see this everywhere. In the same way, you begin to write a new novel with great excitement. The plot and characters were made for each other. You just know this time it will work out. You write multitudinous blog posts on how awesome it is to be a writer, you interview your characters, and the whole darn time you're waltzing along without an idea of the commitment involved. See, like romance, inspiration will fade. By the fifty-thousand word mark you will probably be quite disenchanted and ready to "divorce" this novel.

Now we come to the cross-roads of those who truly love writing, and those who are content with being dilettantes. 

"He scribbles some in prose and verse,
  And now and then he prints it.."

Proper love for something requires a choice to be faithful to that person (thing) even when the romance (inspiration) fades or temporarily disappears altogether. It is a choice, not an overwhelming, mystic thing. It is the husband who doesn't care that his wife is out of humor and refusing to speak to him and leaving the dishes undone. It is the writer who feels like doing anything but getting up at six in the morning and writing her one-thousand-word quota and yet hauls herself out of bed and does it anyway. It's a commitment--a promise--and we have to realize the cost.

Are we willing to "love" writing, knowing what it takes?

This is the main difference between published authors and unpublished. Between "writers" who begin a dozen stories and finish none, and the writers who keep at it and mound up full-length stories in their Microsoft Word files. This would be my number one piece of advice to a budding, beginning writer: you won't always feel inspired, and you won't always love your book. But if you truly love writing you will write blindly, knowing that even if you won't, you must. You must because you've promised, and it's time to take a dance through that minefield.

Hamish has a Blockage

I take the stand that honesty is the best policy, and if I am going to be perfectly honest with you, that would result in the admission  of something I've never admitted. To be quite frank, I have what is commonly called Writer's Block. My case probably springs from being out of practice because since finishing the rewrite of Fly Away Home, I haven't put my mind to any particular project, having too much to do before my trip. But I can't really deny the fact any longer:

"Hamish has a blockage."

Joy and jubilation. Throwing of rose petals and all that. I discussed my problem with my all-wise sister-in-law-ish friend, Abigail, and here is our conversation in toto: 

• 

  7:04pm
  

  Rachel Heffington
  

  
  

  I did all the heavy lifting! 
• 

  7:04pm
  

  Abigail Taylor
  

  
  
• 

  7:04pm
  

  Rachel Heffington
  

  
  

  like.literally. . . lifted all the heavy things.

  my drownies are finished and smell comforting.
• 

  7:05pm
  

  Abigail Taylor
  

  
  

  Are you going to go eat them?
• 

  7:06pm
  

  Rachel Heffington
  

  
  

  nope. not finished with you yet.  you wouldn't guess it, but I am in a crisis of faith in my writing. I don't know what to write. only that I must write. which is a nasty feeling.

  ewwww

  argh

  sometimes I wish I did something normal like. . . take a job as a nanny
• 

  7:07pm
  

  Abigail Taylor
  

  
  

  This does not surprise me, since you refused to tell me your project yesterday. It's your guilty conscience haunting you.
• 

  7:07pm
  

  Rachel Heffington
  

  
  

  no, its the fact that I haven't written since January, seriously at least.

  and all my projects seem stupid.

  and I don't know how to make interesting and original plots.

  and I say hang all agents

  and I am penniless and broken down and dull and listless

  I need Vitametavegimen
• 

  7:08pm
  

  Abigail Taylor
  

  
  

  Hmm. let me take case history. How long have you been having this crisis?
• 

  7:09pm
  

  Rachel Heffington
  

  
  

  since getting ready to go to Romania
• 

  7:11pm
  

  Abigail Taylor
  

  
  

  I diagnose that prior to Romania, your experiences had run dry, you were in need of inspiration. And now, post-Romania, your inspiration is still too raw and elusively poignant to translate into adequate words

  Trivial words will not do, weighty words will not come, and there you find your condition
• 

  7:13pm
  

  Rachel Heffington
  

  
  

  oh. that is spot on. how'd ya know? marvelous, for real! 
• 

  7:14pm
  

  Abigail Taylor
  

  
  

  And so I would prescribe a refill on living, and let the words bide their time. Perhaps even channel a bit more drawing and painting for now!

  Trace what won't be spoken

  
  

Her diagnosis was frighteningly accurate. I don't know how she does it, but she does. And so I am going to take her advice, and not try to push the thing. Oh, of course I'll keep writing--my brain explodes if I don't--but I'm not going to push for over-the-top productivity, or pushing out a story that isn't ready to come yet. I am going to wait and live life, and expand creatively in other directions. Sooner or later, I think the blockage will fix itself. But till then? Well, some prayers for inspiration and revived pizazz would not go amuck.

Actually, upon closer inspection, I really do think my writer's block this time comes from having too many elusive, poignant inspirations. A wedged gob of overload. Let's bide our time and see what comes out of this hash!

Now what do you do when faced with writer's block? Let's discuss ideas in the comments below!

Recovering From a Wounded Pen

You may recall a not-too-distant time I confessed that I had been pen-slain. If you need a refresher, you can read about it here. I suddenly felt as if I stood before a mirror and my rosy haze of being an author had been stripped away and I was staring at the blemishes in my words, the flaws in my pen, the tinny ring of my sword in the battle for inspiration. It was a sobering moment, that instance wherein I saw my writing for what it was...young, and inexperienced. There is a charm about it, perhaps. The charm of a peasant child who wears a wreath of daisies about her head and sings a little song while she pours tea into a cup for her doll. She little thinks the pretty daisies will wilt and come to nothing by the morning.
I will admit that my writing has not quite been the same since. Puddleby Lane became dull and uninspiring. I do not think it changed at all, but my perception of it changed. I saw that it was a simple, countrified story. And beside some other writers I could name, among them Jenny, the Penslayer herself, it had paled looked dowdy.
I have not made much headway in Puddleby Lane ever since that August morning. It is truly terrible! True, I haven't had much time for writing, having seven younger siblings, a grandmother, an older brother, and two parents to spend time with and take care of. But I have felt my writing inspiration shrink in a drought of self-doubt. It's not a good thing, this self-inflicted Writer's Block...
And so I wanted to admit that I had been fuddy-duddying along and feeling sorry for myself. Sorry that I was not a stunning author, sorry that I did not have the talent to shoot delicious prickles of delight down peoples' spines, sorry that I had the talent I do have instead of the talent I wish I had.
In the past couple of weeks though, I have begun to realize something that makes me rather ashamed of myself. Two things, actually. One, in order to be pen-slain so fiercely, I do believe I had to have thought too much of my own writing in the first place. I was in a blind trough of petty vanity, I believe.
Second, I am disowning a God-given gift when I doubt and disdain the talent He has given me. That is a sober thought indeed. God did not give me the gift He gave Jenny, or the gift He gave C.S. Lewis, or the gift He gave Jane Austen, or the gift He gave to any of you other writers. He gave me the gift it pleased Him to bestow on me. How can I refuse His gift, for if I believe the Bible, [Which I entirely do]  it is a good and perfect gift. Of course my writing can always gain a little polish, but it is what I have been given, and what I do with this gift is up to me. And so I wanted to tell you all that I here and now pledge to make the most of the gift I have.
My writing has a simplicity and charm and simple goodness about it that, at least I hope, will never go out of style. It isn't grand or glorious or even stunning. But it is cheering, I think, like a hot summer breeze blowing over a ripe wheat field. There are no ethereal lilies or dazzling star-dust about my words. But there are a few blood red poppies and a quiet green glen hidden somewhere in there. There are peasant children making daisy chains and a baby's laughter, and the singing of a fiddle beneath a weeping willow.
I guess I can sum up the lesson I've learned in a few words:
  I have not been given the talent of shaking souls, but perhaps I can touch a heart.

Have a Laugh...at yourself. ;)

As writers, we seem to think there is a certain respectability in having troubles.

No one is more looked up to than when they are in the throes of Writer's Block. Everyone sighs and sympathizes and waits expectantly when a writer announces, with many a grave expression, that their "Characters won't behave." or the chapter "will come out differently" than they'd like.

We are a close-knit, dreamy society, we writers. And because we can, we have concocted a whole list of respectable ailments to bring forth whenever we are succeeding. If our story is taking off on flying wings, somehow, consciously or not, we catch a fever of un-inspiration. If we are thinking, perhaps a bit smugly to ourselves, that our story is not so bad after all, we

immediately hie to the computer and write up a blog-post about how we feel we shall *never* find a publisher! ;)

Of course I exaggerate, but this realization made me laugh. What a funny group we are! Never content with things going well for any length of time, but concocting plights for ourselves that any reasonable person would let alone.

Common sense would tell us, "For pity's sake, if things are going well, don't think about problems!" or, to quote Mary Poppins:

"Don't trouble trouble till trouble troubles you."

But we are so accustomed to "bringing in the man with the gun" for our characters, that we instinctively do it to ourselves, making a hash of any success and contentment we'd been enjoying previously. :) So how can we beat this Big Bad Habit? For starters, I'd say that we ought not to think quite so highly of ourselves. If we stop calling ourselves Writers, and think of ourselves people with a passion for writing, the words will flow. If we stop taking ourselves quite so seriously and laugh at our little airs and graces, the fit will soon pass. When a case a of what we call Writer's Block comes up, poke it in the nose, hug it, and move on. If you truly are uninspired and can't for the love of life write something, do the unthinkable. Don't write. For a day at least, give yourself a break, and do something...unexpected.

1. Take a walk in the rain alone. Preferably with a pretty umbrella, or bare-headed. Go all the way either way.
2. Go to the store, a restaurant, or a coffee shop and speak with your best British accent the whole time.
3. Spend the afternoon with your family, play a hilarious game,(may I recommend Catch Phrase, Balderdash, Imagine If, and In A Pickle? :) and remember to laugh. :) Hard.

So this tangent is my moment of profoundness for the day. You may admire my great mind now. ;) Or laugh at me for being so philosophical about writing. Aren't I a goose? :)

Now I shall move on the two things: One, PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE CHECK OUT THE MERRY AULD ENGLAND WRITING CHALLENGE!!! :) This is a vital piece of "please", for a contest is not a contest if no one enters! And winning a contest is not quite so prestigious if you are the only entry! :D I am warning you beforehand, the prizes will be really great! :)

Now for Thing Two: As this blog is supposed to be a blog dedicated to love of literature, as well as writing, I shall share with you a lovely link. :)

Here is a Historical Hairstyle Tutorial I just finished for Little Dorrit's Wedding Hairstyle! :) It is simple and beautiful! Get to it here.