The Mysterious Magic of Writing
How to face the blank page even when you have no ideas and let words, or images appear magically before you.
Writing, and creating is a thing of magic. It’s also a leap of faith. It can bring unequivocal joy, but it can also be all encompassing, even soul crushing at times.
For me, the worst time would be to not be creating. I guess in a way I feel like I’m only worth the sum of what I’ve made. Sometimes than stretches to an emotional level. Weaving together the fabric of relationships. I find writing allows me to explore the depths of my inner self and find strange and unexpected treasures in my imagination.
Facing the blank page
This is a topic that has been widely discussed by many different people but it can still be daunting for any writer, or artist. It can be an exciting time, when you’ve decided you’re ready to sit down at the typewriter/computer/canvas and you’re psyched up to write, or even draw something brilliant. Well it doesn’t need to be brilliant, but you’ve set yourself high standards — one of the reasons it took you so long to sit down in the first place… (and a big reason why you might well give up half way through the first draft) but never mind. You have some ideas in your head and you’re going to get them down right away.
As a writer: “Wow, there really aren’t any words on this page… Where do I start? So many options… well, maybe I’ll know tomorrow.” but many days, tomorrow comes and passes without a single word being marked on that page. Maybe a few scribbles in a notebook instead…
This is fine. Writing is a process and some (of the best ideas) take time to form in your subconscious. When you are really ready to write something, or start to write something, the words will come.
In my experience it doesn’t matter how or where you begin, what the first line is, if you know how it concludes, if you’ve planned it loads in advance or not. The most important thing is to start.
Once you’ve done that, you can trust that it will all come out somehow. All you need to do is start forming the marble block which you can then chisel away at later on and carve out something truly beautiful. First though, you’ve got to fill up and form that block of marble.
Most of the time when I sit down to write something: be an article, a screenplay or a novel, if I trust that something will come out — as if by magic, words and sentences start to appear on the page and I don’t even really know where they’ve come from.
The same is true for an artist of any kind. It’s perfectly reasonable to put pencil to paper without any idea where you’re going and let the pencil guide you. Make a mark on the page and you’ll be shown the way — trust me on this. Sometimes when you’re completely stuck for ideas, it takes a leap of faith to get to start something beautiful, meaningful and honest.
Why does that happen? Where does this ‘writer’s magic’ come from, and why? When I began writing this article, I thought it was going to be about Pringles! (In fact, that’s a complete lie — I had absolutely no idea. Pringles would have been a better starting point than where I was at.)
Being honest
I’m not pretending to know everything about writing but one thing I’m pretty sure of is that — apart from simply starting — honesty is the key to work that will move people. And stagnant work has no reason to exist, and is therefore never appreciated. If a piece of work comes from a place of your individual honesty — even if it’s a bit rough around the edges… some people might like it, some might not; but it will be brilliant, no matter what. Those are the works of creation that stand the test of time.
This doesn’t mean you should never lie — in fact, this kind of truth has nothing to do with lying at all. It means your work must come from a place of inner truth. It means it must relate to your life and experiences, and usually it means it’s something that for you in particular, is quite difficult to put out there.
Works of real honesty require you to shed your outer ‘thick skin’ and allow your soul to be naked with whom you’re seeking to show it to, and therefore let your guard down. And the more you do that, usually, the more moving the result will be. The more chords will be struck with the reader and/or viewer. This is because it is then an original work, as everyone is different, and our differences are what people can form connections with, and can then relate to.
When you try to be someone else, or do something purely for someone else, you can easily find yourself stuck, or dispassionate about what you’ve ended up creating. The simple fact of the matter is, nobody is going to like it — and it’s pretty difficult to make something nobody’s going to like, as there’s pretty much a place for everything — except for something that’s been made which is untruthful to it’s creator/author.
Maybe your soul is yearning for this ‘honest’ stuff to spew out of you. The more you trust in your fingers to perform, the more it allows your brain to transfer this honesty to your fingertips.
The ‘Creators Compulsion’
If you’re meant to be writing, or creating, you will have to do it. It could take you months or even years to build up the courage to start on your creation, but you will do it, because you have to. You have the ‘creator’s compulsion’! Thanks to this, you’ll summon the magic I’ve been talking about, without even necessarily thinking about it. Even if you don’t know what you’re going to come up with, even if you have no ideas at all, you will feel the compulsion and let it ride out of you like a raving torrent of creativity and mysterious wonder. Then you can start to carve away your metaphorical marble block into something that you’re amazed came out of you at all.
Rules
Everywhere you look, there are millions of books, articles or remedies about it, and they ‘can’ list in much detail all the ‘rules’ you must follow. They can guide you from start to finish, but what they can’t/or shouldn’t attempt to tell you is what you need to put out there.
Whatever anyone says, you should possibly consider, take it in and filter it. Take what’s useful (or more importantly — inspiring in that moment) and then forget everything and do what feels right to you.
Sure, it’s probably a good idea to read a lot about something before you start, so you can avoid obvious ‘mistakes’ others have made, but you should basically regard everything you are told, taught or read as an idea, not as fact.
Sam
