The Shadow Knows
the value of a sidepiece
I am at an arts residency, and time has vanished. What day of the week is it? I have to stop to think. I am alone 22 hours a day and then have a convivial dinner with interesting others. The thirty-somethings hang out at night and are having all the bonding and fun they should be. I am in the older set that takes a walk after dinner and then splits up to head back to our rooms, me to take notes on the day and plan work for the next day. Am I writing a lot? Yes. I have a novel draft due September 1, and I am hoping to hit that mark, if at all possible. I keep reminding myself it is a draft and to set my perfectionistic tendencies aside. This is a challenge. I can’t go the ‘shitty first drafts’ route, that has never been my way. Here is what I do. I write two sentences, then I realize that I have to rewrite them both, possibly in a big way or maybe only change a word, then I realize the sentence that needs to go before the first sentence and I add that, and maybe one of the sentences need a phrase at the beginning to sustain the logical connection between the two, little adjustments are made until finally it feels okay to move on. Two steps forward and then an erratic dance all over the place until it’s done for now, and maybe forever. I am not a fifty drafts person. Less and less so the more I trust the process, as they say. I have mentioned before that I am highly distractible, and I am walking a lot on untrafficked roads, but even with those interruptions I am putting down a decent seven pages a day. The amount of invention that happens under these circumstances is truly delightful. What if he…? What if she…? Would she really? So much fun.
The other day I had a writing experience that is my favorite. I had finished a scene I thought, but suddenly my imagination zoomed in closer, and I heard my people talking to each other differently, more intimately, which created greater tension between them. But it wasn’t what it produced that felt good, it was the zoom in itself, which cuts through whatever artifice is constraining the invention. I compare it to a telescope or a pair of binoculars focusing into a clear vision. I am trying to discover a method for doing this at will. I have been working on these methodologies this year: how to drop into a deep state reliably, how to revise, how to draft, and how to zoom in. To the end I have been paying close attention to my states, noting my irrelevant thoughts and when I am tempted to back off or take a sip of water or pace around, and when I zoom in. What was I thinking/doing right before that happened? I do think it’s possible to produce states on demand, and it’s more than a matter of will power. So much of art is self-knowledge, including about the tricks the mind plays to keep the ego in charge. The zoom in feeling shoots right past the ego. Maybe it gets to a childlike, wondering place, or maybe it gets to the wisdom of the cosmos. Either way, it cuts me loose.
The other night I did a little reading here with three other people. I didn’t read from the book I am drafting, but from the other book I am also drafting, what I call my shadow book. I asked the table the other night how many people were working on two things at once, THE project and then a creature that still lives in the shadows and hasn’t yet become official. The answer was, everyone. The shadow book is a place to jump to if the main project stalls. It is also a dreamy place that may for quite a while retain that sense of wholeness and clarity that the work that is front and center has foregone for the sake of mucking around in the weeds. I pick up the shadow book every so often and add a paragraph or make note of an idea, but it is still a vision rather than a project. It is also the carrot set out in front of my nose (they used to do this to urge tired horses to take another step forward, in case you don’t know) to get through this book so I can make that one the project.
Ach, so many incentives necessary to sit inside all day when it is so beautiful out. Is this a reasonable way to live? No. But it is great, after all.
How many of you have a shadow book going?
Sunday bonus: Here is a wonderful piece of writing and singing and filmmaking by Joseph Keckler, who was recently here. Enjoy!
Beautiful essay. I'm glad things are good there, and that you don't have to dump air conditioning condensation water every 3 hours.....Anyway: yes. Shadow book. It's how I work, and have always worked. Sometimes feels distracting, but most of the time I'm very grateful for it.
about those incredible flashes of zooming in: i feel like trying to figure that out (how to get more moments like that or how to get to them more quickly) is not dissimilar to the way elite athletes try to manage the variables to make it most likely they will succeed at peek levels. what did I eat and how did i sleep and what was i thinking and how many breaths did i take before i did that perfect thing (wrote that perfect paragraph). Yes to writing as an olympic sport!