Writing as a Means of Living: A Small Meditation

Writing is a complicated business. It cannot purely be thought of in such rigid terms as structure, theme, narrative, or character. These are terms describing what writing forms if done well, but these are not what writing itself is and they do little to illuminate the process. 

In its incipient stage, the process of writing for me is a dull endeavor. There is just not enough in my head that stirs the energy required to take on any serious commitment. One idea emerges, only to be quickly replaced by another. To begin a work from one of these ephemeral ideas, I must first be in the throes of a powerful mood to even justify further meditation. I must hurt beyond consolation, or smile of an ineffable joy; stirred into a kind of transcendence only once in a year, or in a lifetime.

It is only once I spit out the gunk upon the page in such a reflexive and uncomfortable manner, so that it becomes a force of mechanical habit, that something else stirs inside. I believe it is at this such point, that writing really occurs. I call this stage the weaver’s stage. A weaver, harnessing raw material, endeavors to turn the mechanical output into cohesive art. 

He notices one corner appears to pattern or elongate in one way, and he compels himself to accommodate the appearing form. Doing so requires an appreciation of a whole that isn’t there, but for me, I cannot appreciate without some semblance of form. 

At about the halfway point of a novel (25,000-35,000 words usually) something takes root. I see my character as someone real. They are alive, even if I have not allowed them to be sensible or consistent. I must now align them with themselves. 

Why would my grown character behave in such a manner if, as a child, we did not see him in such a way? Why would he fall in love if he'd previously held suspicions of feminine allure? This indeed is what writing is—the process of conjoining the disjointed. Sometimes, it means I have to erase a jagged point, or give a glinting gem some rust. 

Whatever the case may be, one cannot truly write without being, in a greater sense, alive himself.