I am someone who seems to always be writing. At least according to my Facebook and Twitter posts. Whenever I see a friend out and about they always say, "So it sounds like you've been writing a lot lately." I nod yes. I have been writing a lot lately. Lately being the past several years. Before that I had a job and a boyfriend that were really demanding. So I wrote, but I didn't write every day.
I used to hate it when professors of mine used to say, "To be a writer, you have to write every day. You have to set a schedule. You have to dedicate yourself to it." I was always of the opinion that the muse would hit me when she hit me and then things would fall out. Because I am stubborn, it's incredibly difficult for me to admit that my professors were right. But when I was in grad school, I had friends who took this too seriously. I had a friend who was on her Winter Break and was home in Seattle from 9 AM to 5 PM in her parents' home office, just sitting there. Even if nothing came, she was committed. She had to be there. But in a way, it felt like she was waiting for the muses too.
I always felt like I needed to live. "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death," goes the famous quote from Auntie Mame. It's true. You can't have anything interesting or substantial to write about if you're not living. I was just watching the Public Speaking documentary that Martin Scorese did a couple of years ago about Fran Lebowitz, one of my favorite writers and personalities. She said that it's the writer's work to hang around and talk, to do nothing. That's how writing gets done by talking to other people. It's the exchange of ideas. And I tend to agree with that. But Fran has been in a writer's block (or as she says it blockade for the past thirty or so years).
I exist somewhere in between the two. I do think that the routine of sitting in front of the computer is good because that's where the work happens. But if the work is not happening, then what the fuck are you doing? Go see a play! Go see a movie! Go see friends! Go blow somebody! Do something that fills you with life and inspiration. Go outside! Go for a run! The work will be there for you when you get back. And it doesn't help to just hit your head against a wall.
I think the reason I get so much writing done is that I also get a lot of TV watching done. I watch a lot of documentaries. I love documentaries. They put my brain on rest. In a similar way, that's why I love reality TV, but that's another conversation. Documentaries are just straight info. It's not necessarily fictionalized, so I don't have to think about how I would do it better. They give my brain a rest, but they are also thought-provoking sometimes. I love fashion documentaries and I love art documentaries. Documentaries are the thing that I'll watch over and over again. Maybe it's because I love to hear people talk.
But the point I'm trying to make here is that I can get a lot of writing done because I shut that part of my brain off sometimes. The baby-making part. The creative part. Watching something that's not a piece of scripted material allows me to just relax and enjoy. When I watch a movie, it's either for research or it's something that I have been told I need to see. And whether it's planned or not, I end up studying it--or taking it apart.
But the only things I really seem to get excited about are documentaries. There's the Karine Rothfeld documentary, Mademoiselle C that's coming out soon. She's the former Editor in Chief at French Vogue. I love how over the top that world is. I love how they talk about art and fashion (or fashion as art) in a way that's so elitist and rarified. It's so full of optimism and hope because it exists in a world where money is not an issue. So it starts out as something superficial, but it also says something deeper about what people desire. It's entertaining and it gets me to think about things that I like to think about. That's the best form of art and/or entertainment for me.
But the magic happens because I am able to have a relationship to a piece of art: a painting, a sculpture, a film, a play, whatever. Then that dialogue gets me thinking about my own work. Sometimes it's a boring conversation that allows me to wander and then I think about what I could do better. That happens a lot. And I'm okay with that. Any way for the art to happen, right? Just as long as the wheels start turning and the fingers start tapping away on the keys. Sometimes the muses descend on you and sometimes you need to set out on a mission to find them.
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