Writing Diary #1: Mischievous Clay

There’s been a lot of writing today—more than usual. Something is shifting. It feels as if I’m moving with a current, yet my feet are tangled in the sludge of the riverbed.

Generating ideas has never been a problem. In fact, I’ve probably got a lifetime’s worth stashed up already, especially if I work at the pace I do—slow. But something is shifting. Cogs turning. I’ve never related to that flavour of “writer’s block” where you can’t find inspiration. If anything, I could use something that deflects new ideas so I can focus on the ones I’ve already got. I could use a mental security guard, a bouncer who stands at the door of my thoughts and says, “Sorry, love, you’ve reached capacity. Come back next week.”

Of course, I’m making fun. I’m extremely lucky to not have that issue—yet. Don’t count your chickens! No, my “writer’s block” comes later, it seems.

What I’m working on this week is a little exercise with a writing group, where we’ve been tasked with ghostwriting for each other. It’s been going well—I enjoy asking people questions about themselves. There’s plenty of information to go on, plenty of thoughts and ideas to juggle. But here’s where I’ve hit my first snag. Faced with all of this—especially noting its quality—, I feel the need to freeze. Play dead. Don’t move, lest the ideas come toppling down, get muddled up, roll under the sofa never to be seen again.

The only thing I can really liken it to is a bizarre, amorphous lump of 4-dimensional clay. It’s made up of many components—the story, the timeline, the ruminations, the reflections, and the relations to the world and society as a whole. I’ve been working on flattening it out, but it keeps springing back into its original shape. There are links all over the place that have the whole thing clinging to itself. I keep trying to remind it that it needs to, at some point, become a piece of writing, and that means it has to line up somehow. But here’s the thing: I don’t just want it lined up. I want it woven! I want these links to stay in place but also move through and around each other. Getting that balance right, though, is proving difficult.

Have you ever wallpapered a room? Entered into a battle with the roll to stay open while you measure it out? One wrong move, one accidental touch, and it all folds in on itself.

I think what might be going wrong is my approach. So much time gets spent freaking out about starting, and then freaking out about not starting, that I end up with very little time to actually...write. So, I try to work quickly to make up for the time lost, but the clay is cold. Better to slowly mould it, bit by bit, over a longer period of time. That way, it would become far more malleable and compliant.

It’s a change of tactic, like coaxing a scared animal. If quick, sporadic movements don’t work, then offer something gentler, something consistent. Maybe even a carrot. It’s challenging that underlying assumption that if I change a word, or a sentence, or whatever, it’ll all crumble. Because from the few experiences I’ve had so far, I’m starting to see that the text actually softens to my touch. It warms, and slowly, it offers the solutions I’ve been asking for—as if they were always there.