Tucked away at the moment up a mountain with my writing and without good internet access, I'm not having many thoughts beyond the images and ideas of my WIP. It's interesting that, in these days when an author's job increasingly involves promotion, I feel a certain guilt about this, rather than the immense satisfaction I'd probably have felt once upon a time at being fortunate enough to have a solid period of concentration. Actually, no, I think, once a upon a time - even, or maybe especially, when I had small children - I thought it my duty to my art (if that doesn't sound too pretentious) to bend over backwards to carve the time and peace to give it proper attention.
And isn't that what true art needs? Not that I'm claiming to be producing the greatest art here or anything, but here in the mountains, where there is only the sound of the wind and the stream and the buzzards calling overhead, I am sinking into my work in a way I haven't managed for a good while, seeing the scenes with new richness and clarity and making new connections, the latter often coming to me in the evenings when I'm walking by the sea (and when in Manchester I'd be catching up on internet stuff). Silence and peace. Isn't that what we need for deep thought? And isn't that why libraries were always places of silence?
But don't we now despise libraries as places of silence, and fill them instead with activities? Aren't we now, via the internet, developing a culture of buzz and quick response which militate against deep contemplation? And what will this do to our literature?
A poet I know lives permanently in mountains where he can't get broadband. He is one of the most thoughtful and talented poets I know. But will his work get lost because he can't - or chooses not to - gain visibility for his work via the web? Will all such writers be silenced? And what kind of literature will we have then?
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12 comments:
Interesting thoughts, E... use the time well!
I suppose thats why I travel all the way to the west of ireland to write at a retreat - somewhere where even if there was a panic at home, I'd take a day to get back, so somehow that allows me to switch off and mentally hand 'home' over to others.
I write much better there. And when I analyse what I mean by 'better', it is that I dont grab at surface images for speed, to get it done at any cost. But I wait in the quiet, and write what seems to come from somewhere else.
Maybe the writers response to the instant gratification issues will be that they learn to access all the layers faster... and we will be the rearguard of the older types, who found it necessary to find peace...
Example. One place I can write well is on a busy train journey. Surrounded by clattering, chatter, people hefting bags up and down, tinny ipods, ... Im learning to blank it all out. White noise.
I'd love to comment on this interesting and germane piece, but I've first got to blog myself, respond to any comments, update my Facebook status, tweet, plan my book launch, arrange some local readings, conduct an interview, respond to interview questions, contact local press about launch, finish posters for launch, approach lit fests for 2011... Sounds like you're doing proper writing. Give me mountains and buzzards any day.
Yes, interesting. I do think, though, that background noise such as that on a train is easier to blank out than the demands of promotion. No-one's trying to peak to you directly on a train, or needing anything from you...
speak, I meant, not peak!
Ah Tom - very succinctly put!!
You are so right. The fact that I feel as if I have to -- and am preparing myself to -- do NO CREATIVE WRITING AT ALL in this year when I'm promoting my new novel, is crazy. But I don't see any way around it. As you know, promoting a new book is a full-time job. I think about your mountainous poet-friend and I think either he's brave or crazy, and how crazy is that?
Oh yes, silence! Well, actually, a certain silence, perhaps not the decibel kind. I am finding more and more that I work really well in cafes, like V mentioned, that white noise - and the distance from my TV, the fridge, all the other chores - works as a sort of "retreat" for me, enables me to focus inwards. So I guess one person's hubbub is another person's silence! But re marketing, how wonderful to just ignore that completely, like your poet friend. I envy him. He clearly doesn't care about what people think about his work, or the chattering masses on Facebook. Well, I guess I don't want to assume what he does or doesn't care about, but if that works for him, then that's wonderful. Leaving FB was the best thing I've done. I still haven't managed to get started on my New Project, I let so many other distractions get in the way. It's more a question of self-discipline, isn't it? We shouldn't need to go anywhere to do what we love doing.
Sue, yes it is both necessary and crazy...
Tania, the trouble is I don't think my poet friend is exactly happy - he does care what people think of his work and that people read it, and he's very aware that nowadays the web comes into that. But he is where he is (where he was before all this happened), and needs to be there to produce the work he wants to. Dilemma, really.
Interesting post, esp your musings on literature. Is literature dying or just changing its form?
Writing is so very easy in many ways if we just express directly through our souls, and not tangle up the elements and entities that are connected 'to' writing. A written piece is just a written piece really.
Great blog.
I decided to comment on this post because it raises an interesting question for a class I’m taking – we’re learning how to promote ourselves on the web while studying to become better writers. Of the blogs I’ve read the last week, with the advice for fiction writing – practice, courage, and even clothing – none has mentioned silence. The blog I chose last week talked about jotting down an idea while riding a train, or in the back of a cab, definitely not silent places.
My favorite time to write is first thing in the morning, sitting on my back porch listening to the birds and the soft chatter of the leaves. I don’t remember the last time I did that. Yet I am learning and watching all the time, all day long, and doing it in traffic and online. I’m writing for school at midnight or later, and reading about writing during breaks at work. I scribble down ideas while I’m in the car, or eating dinner with my toddler, or just before I fall asleep at night. I haven’t found it, but I’m looking for it – balance – the balance between learning, schoolwork, and just writing. When I’m finished with school it will be different, I’ll be learning how to balance between writing and promotion. I’ll still be learning, I hope I’m always learning, but my focus will shift to promotion, and probably most of my promotion will be on the internet.
How much silence do we need as writers? Where do we find the balance? But maybe the most important question this author raises is – what does the internet mean for literature? You paint a picture of the thoughtful and wise poet creating beautiful art in the contemplative silence of nature and solitude. And while it’s true I need a certain silence to write my best work, it is a silence of the mind that I’m attaining, not necessarily a silence of place. As writers, we can’t run from the world around us to create “art,” we have to face our world and write about it. And our world increasingly means an online world, an instant world, one where we can find information and connect with people at lightening speeds. Our literature should reflect the world around us, confront that world, and reckon with it.
I also think it’s an exciting time to be a writer. The internet gives us power in ways writers didn’t have a hundred years ago. We don’t have to wait on publishers and agents to find us and promote us. We can publish on the internet. We can learn how to market and promote ourselves, and if we use it wisely (and we write well) we might find success without a publisher. Writers are going straight to Amazon and Kindle and putting their books (or literature) out digitally before they go to print. Authors have their own websites. We have the opportunity to reach audiences directly, to establish blogs to voice our thoughts about our work, and to hear feedback from our readers. I don’t believe we have to retreat to the woods to create literature. I think it can be useful, I think there may be times when a story calls for our complete and devoted attention, but I also know now is the time to reach and connect with an eager audience that is at our fingertips.
Thanks you for this, Jess.
I do think it's important to make a distinction between physical silence and the silence of the mind, and I think it's the latter we truly need for writing - although personally I do sometimes find it hard to think noisy environment whatever I'm thinking about - and traditionally that's accepted, which, as I say is why eg we have silence in exam rooms. Maybe we can train ourselves to think in noise, as I feel you may be indicating, but in any case we can only do that if we have silence of the mind in the first place.
The point I was trying to make is that I think the internet and the new demands of promotion interferes with the silence of the mind - I think many writers, including me, find it difficult to 'cut off' into our writing when there are the constant pressures of everything we need to do now to promote our books - eg all the things that Tom Vowler lists above, and to keep linking in to Facebook and Twitter to network etc. (I think it's no suprise that traditionally publishing houses had a dedicated publicity director with two or more assistants, one of whom would spend her whole time working on only two or so books at a time).
Certainly I have found myself so immersed in promotion recently - and yes, I agree, it's a wonderful new power for writers - that I found it was only when I more or less lost access to the internet that I found the silence of mind I needed again. That's the crucial thing, I think. Yes, I'm up a mountain and for me the physical silence is conducive, but the fact that I simply can't get on the internet for much of the day has made it necessary for me (and has allowed me) to cut off from promotion, ie to get silence of the mind for my writing.
I'm not promoting the idea that writers should cut themselves off - as far as I'm concerned, writers of must be in touch with contemporary society, and as a writer I wouldn't live permanently anywhere but the city. But I do think that the new pressures on a writer's attention are something we need to attend to. Maybe, as you say, we can train ourselves to cope with the new pressures, but certainly we need to discuss whether and how we can.
Huge apologies for the typos above - being up a mountain I get panicky about losing the connection and press publish before I should!
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