Monday, September 26, 2011

Writing from Source

The phrase/title has been echoing in my head: What Lies Beneath - because of London smoke-friend and her recent blog post, and yes I know it is also the title of a horror film that I never saw. The blog post speaks about an art exhibition beneath Waterloo station that I would love to see, but it ends today and getting to London is for me in any case, you know, a big deal so I don’t do it much. It is a literal underground place - but also speaks some larger message “about the dank, dirty, unexplored places where art comes from, under ground, under consciousness...”


I have been thinking about this recently in connection to my own writing project (see how I shy away from the word ‘novel’). It draws deeply from my own, early life which was, as I experienced it, full of magic but also full of danger and darkness. In her book, Writing as a Way of Healing, Louise de Salvo cautions against being too casual about dipping your pen into the vein of troubled experience. I picture a manhole, the cover of which is lifted - and out come the monsters and creatures that you never expect to see above ground, and you are suddenly defenceless, disarmed, made small and weak again by their potent presences. I think one of the reasons I loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer was that it covered this terrain and drew on powerful archetypes. At some point you probably, if you are going to Make Art, have lift the cover or go down there because the underground life will undoubtedly find a way of making its presence felt, will emerge from the Beneath and challenge you to engage with it or go dry and wordless - and if you write, you can’t have that. How to do that, and have the right defences in place so that you are not overwhelmed, is a challenge and not for the faint-hearted.


The creativity coach, Eric Maisel says that an artist is someone who must learn to manage her/his emotions and if there is any truth in the notion that artists tend to be several skins short of a a sausage then it is particularly important that they learn to do this sooner rather than later. I am doing it later, but never mind. You have to begin where you are, and I am here, at the tail end of my fifties, raw and undisciplined (still), and I never learned how to kick-box. What I did learn, by hook or by crook, and by deep immersion in fairy tale, was to trust the story - that it would take you to the place where you needed to go, and that it would, if you allowed, stay with you and be your sword; and how, if you undertook to make a journey, you would find helpers en route. And how if you found yourself out in the dark forest completely naked, the stars would see you and throw down their gold.









17 comments:

A said...

I've this feeling - call it a hunch if you like - that a Big Day of celebrations is here either shortly or now.

There will be something in the (old-fashioned and slow) post to go into your sock basket or, er, somewhere. Soon.

You are truly one who has learned A Lot, and kick-boxing feels so very 1980s, somehow, anyway.

Multi mwahs and much love

xxx

Zhoen said...

What lurks beneath.

Reading the Signs said...

Schweeeeestah! Whoop - I have told sock basket what you said and it now full of excitement as well as all the other odds and sods.

Talking about odd - need to go back and check that odd oddity from - name escapes me. Somewhere north and ice-bound - lots of penguins. It'll come to me.

(Daughter had kick-boxing lessons in her teens).

Zhoen, 'lurks' has the right resonance. Yes.

@slangular said...

Interesting definition of an artist, by Maisel! And lovely post by Signs. May the stars throw down their gold, tomorrow and every day and whether you be naked or clad in purple shell suit.

Reading the Signs said...

Thank you, @slangular - I will be wearing something purple today (though not the purples).

Re Maisel: I think he is only speaking about managing emotions sufficiently well to produce the work ....

Fire Bird said...

Liked this post and especially the last line. Resonating away but nothing intelligent to say yet...

Reading the Signs said...

Thank you Fire Bird :)

Mim said...

Gold, yes. Silver will do, as well.

Reading the Signs said...

Mim, in the terrain of the fairytale, I think i will hold out for gold. But here, silver will do nicely - yes.

Zhoen said...

'north and ice-bound - lots of penguins'

Penguins are antarctic. South only.

Reading the Signs said...

Zhoen, yes. The penguin thing is a (whispers it) standing joke between me and A.

there's always one said...

…not meaning to cast any aspersions on your penguin knowledge, Mme Zhoen. But I am the exception that proves the rule.

And all is relative as St Albert said (including, it seems, whether c indeed is the fastest thing there is, which is startling. Must remember to try and keep up with that particular news thread). It all depends on the reference frame. If one goes far enough upwards (being, as we all know, North), one will one day land at - yes, you guessed it - the Antarctic.

Signs? My word verification is andeness, which is when penguins cross the Andes to be with their otherwisely-arctified friends, come what may, akin to that very best of all stage directions of all time: They cross the Andes.

(Although Exit pursued by a bear is pretty damn fine, too.)

x

Zhoen said...

Ah, statistical outlier. I stand corrected.

Reading the Signs said...

Zhoen, between you and me I think it is one of those morphing things, you know, a bit like the wer-wolf at full moon. A wer-penguin, in other words, is what she is. That is my theory anyway.

man, that was a good one said...

Wer-penguin?!

I haven't heard anything as good and accurate (and funny) for some whiles, Signs. I was all set to adopt this title as my official descriptive-name-online identity… but alas. It seems I am not the only one (see evidence attached - it ain't my photostream).

But at least the other one seems to have some sense of humour, too, so that's a relief even in the disappointment of my new name being already, as it were, taken.

Btw - amsyness. This word, I likes. It could be all manner of things.

Zhoen said...

And apparently there is a penguin in Portsmouth.

http://arbroath.blogspot.com/2011/10/penguin-spotted-near-portsmouth.html

Reading the Signs said...

Zhoen, I have had a look and in my estimation, that is certainly another wer-penguin. You just have to look at the expression on its face. And this fits nicely with the link that she-who-goes-by-many-names provided. Clearly there are many of them, and some have Flickr accounts too!