In defense of writing rituals
Need a vintage typewriter to feel like a real writer? Go for it!
“They” like to say writing is about showing up to the keyboard every day and punching through your ennui or malaise or laziness and wrestling that starkly blank page into word-covered submission. But for me, this sort of battlefield approach to creative work simple makes me a casualty of my own disorganized brain, personal insecurities, and Facebookified attention span.
Over the course of writing two full-length novel drafts and a collection of short stories, I’ve come to understand that fiction is not manual labor in the sense that one needs to simply “tough it out” and “get ‘er done.” Why? Because the production of fiction is not a practice. It’s a performance.
Here’s the difference: If you’re a marketing copywriter, your work is all about practice. Once you’ve oiled your simple humor machine, flexed your click-bait muscles, and mixed up every other metaphor in the book, you can produce a high volume of this kind of writing almost like a reflex. You’ll find a rhythm, like an Olympic swimmer in a community pool, that will allow you to churn out Top 10 lists all the livelong day.
But when you get home and sit down to “write for me,” you will most likely fail to produce anything of real literary quality. What’s the problem, considering your writing muscles should be warmed up and well lubricated after a full day in the cubicle?
Any sort of performance requires substantial, sustained mental and physical effort — the kind of effort you’re unlikely to have at the end of most work days. Think about it: on the average weekday, how likely are you to play an instrument in a bar band or give a one-hour comedy set at the local club?Maybe once or twice a week, sure. Maybe monthly. But probably not daily. Because no matter how frequently you do it, a performance always requires planning, and preparation, and getting “amped up” in whatever personal, idiosyncratic way you do such things.
Maybe you think I’m overcomplicating this, but artistic expression is in fact a pretty complicated thing. It’s a natural, almost universal urge that takes different forms in different people, but just because it’s common doesn’t mean it’s simple.
It’s easy to say writers shouldn’t need rituals, particular environments, or special circumstances in order to produce good work simply because other writers don’t need this, that, or the other thing. But there’s an emotional and, dare I say, spiritual dimension to writing, too, that we have to channel, just like musicians, or painters, or dancers do. No one would ever tell a veteran drummer that he should be able to drum with his shoes on because other drummers can. No, that drummer knows exactly what physical environment he needs in order to make his body produce the sounds he wants to hear.
Fiction writing is similar. You’re asking yourself to channel a make-believe world, a neutral descriptor for the place we used to call the spirit world. Humans throughout history have relied on rituals and totems in order to channel the spirit world. Why would artists — modern society’s equivalent to shamans — be any different? Even if you’re a realist writer to the most realist-y degree, you are still channeling a fantasy that lives only in your head until your fingers physically manifest your vision onto the page.
Channeling the spirit world is a powerful yet finicky process (just ask any self-professed medium). Bad juju can easily scare away the characters who populate our “other world,” and chemical imbalances can do the same. “Just enough” of a ritualized substance (like peyote or ayahuasca or alcohol or caffeine) can induce the trance-like state in which spirit-channeling can occur, but too much will tip the balance toward chaos and failure. Certain types of noise, uncomfortable chairs, mental exhaustion, and other distractions all have the same disrupting effect on our ability to “go deep” and “find our flow.”
No one would ask an actor to sign a mortgage contract five minutes before they walk on stage. No one would ask a pianist to stop playing a concert performance in order to RSVP to a party. The performance of writing is similar; the actual moment in which a story is birthed into the physical world is an important one and, if interrupted, can be catastrophic to the work. Put another way, when it’s happening, it needs to be protected so that it can happen.
I know, I know: saying that one needs a private, ritualized space in order to write triggers the bullshit meter. But I believe this is ultimately why so few working class and marginalized writers are able to fully realize their artistic potential. Of course some people manage to overcome all odds and to produce extraordinary work under extraordinary circumstances, and we love stories about these people with a fierce, religious fervor.
But art is about honesty, so let’s be honest. Most people do not have the necessary time and space to channel their personal spirit worlds, and so therefore, the channeling never happens.
Telling fledgling writers that they simply need to write in order to be a writer may sometimes do more harm than good, because again, artistic writing is not practice. It’s performance. And for a performance to resonate, it needs things like an appropriate set, good lighting, the right props, and, above all, a talented performer who has honed their craft over the course of many previous performances.
Of course we shouldn’t let ourselves be swindled by those looking to profit off our creative dreams and ambitions. You don’t have to buy a certain desk or computer or notebook made from elephant dung.
But what you do need is your lucky pencil, your favorite coffee mug, and your desk chair set to just the right height. Whatever your recipe, you must follow it. Because remember, this is spiritual chemistry: you need the right elements to mix in such a way where your body is conditioned to produce the trance-like state where you can manifest the artistic spirit that’s inside of you.
When it comes to writing fiction, you can’t “just do it.” Let go of the idea that you must perform every single day. You don’t. Do it once a week. Once a month. Once in a lifetime. But when you do it, do it well. Do it deeply and intimately, in a way that produces a coherent whole.
Do not practice it. Perform it.
*
Sandra Knisely is an American writer in Austria. sandraknisely.com.
