Okay, so things have been awfully quiet around here for a while. A long while. Three years since I posted with any frequency, but, hey, who’s counting?
I miss Outer Life. Many times I’ve tried to start it up again, but my attempts would end in failure, either a stillborn piece that went nowhere or, worse, a piece that got posted but should have been stillborn.
While trying once again to reignite the spark, yesterday I did something I haven’t done before: I scrolled through the archives and re-read some of the posts I wrote back when this place was humming.
I liked most of what I read. Some of it made me cringe, but a lot of it held up well, if I may be so immodest. I remembered how easy it was to write these pieces, that wonderful feeling of a long piece flowing from my fingertips in real time. A feeling I haven’t had in three years.
And reading these pieces, it became clear to me why I can no longer write them: I am no longer the person who wrote those pieces. When Outer Life started I was more self-absorbed than I am now. I’d spent much of my first four decades trying to figure out the world around me. Then, right around the time I started Outer Life, my curiosity turned inward. What fascinated me was me. While that lasted, posts flowed. Then I turned away from the mirror and went back to looking out the window. And the posts stopped flowing.
My muse left me. Very unamusing.
It’s a bit odd that a website called Outer Life doesn’t work when its author looks outside his life. But then that title wasn’t chosen because it made any sense.
I’m not sure what to do. I have the desire to do something, but I’m not sure there is anything I can do. Scrolling through the archives I noticed that my earliest posts were, if anything, even weaker than my more recent posts. Perhaps, I thought, if I embraced my current awfulness, made peace with the rudderlessness, and just got the site going again, maybe I’d find that groove again. Or at least another groove.
I also did something very uncharacteristic for me: I started an Outer Life Twitter account. I have no idea what I will do with it, but being desperate I’m willing to try anything to kick-start the creativity.
So, I’m loathe to promise anything, but if there’s anyone out there still reading this, I’ll beg your indulgence as I start throwing words at the canvas, hoping some will stick.
I'm going through something myself that's similar. Twitter is a good outlet, although I find it is a different sort of thought that gets recorded there. I do more of my professional thinking on Twitter. And my personal thinking has either stopped (yikes) or just moved inward. The urge to blog has subsided a bit.
If you write, I'll read.
Posted by: Scheherazade Mason | June 25, 2009 at 06:42 AM
Welcome to the club of people who think that you're a gifted writer.
You've actually written very well about things that you see out the window (as it were). Your reports from Affluent America — the parental anxieties and lapses of your neighbors and colleagues on the school board (I may have that detail wrong) were as chiseled and observant as anything the Victorian novelists turned out.
The trick is to write as fluently when you're happy as when you're enraged. It isn't easy, and, hey, I still can't snap my fingers (really!). But we hope that you'll give it a shot.
Posted by: R J | June 25, 2009 at 08:43 AM
Yes, still reading! Please continue and fill the void. You have a gift and I hope you find your muse for this stage of your life. We're all on that voyage and things always change. Hope you can find inspiration in your new place. We'll be waiting...
Posted by: Paula Dauterive | June 25, 2009 at 03:29 PM
O.K., Maestro.
The word-throwing. If it worked with paint for Jackson Pollock, I'm sure you'll be pitching something interesting.
Posted by: DarkoV | June 25, 2009 at 04:38 PM
On Ted.com, Elizabeth Gilbert provides a great take on creativity. The Greeks believing creativity a divine creature that visited you, a demon. Or the Romans calling it genius and believing it lived in the walls, coming out only to urge you on.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html
In the movie Coming in the Evening, Leonard talks of following his characters, writing about his characters until they do something interesting, implying most of the time they are pretty boring.
In the blog Why We Write < http://whywewriteseries.wordpress.com> created by the Screenwriters Guild during the strike, the answers ranged from “I have to” to “to get laid”. Each essay carried an equal weight. And a distinct viewpoint.
When I am stuck, I walk. I ride my bike. I go climbing. I head up to the hill for a few laps. I hike up Fairy Creek hoping I run into a grizzly.
In one of the essays in Zen and the Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury says something along the lines of 90% of his best writing happens when he’s asleep.
What is it that compels some of us to write, or the even greater question, why do those that don’t write aspire to write?
Luanne Armstrong said in a workshop “There are three parts to writing. You have to write. You have to re-write, to edit. And, last, you have to share. Put it out there for others to see.”
The last is the fearful aspect of writing. Standing in front of a crowded room, reading a piece of humor for the first time and wondering, “Will they laugh?” Or reading a piece about a close friend, blending into eleven snowmobilers dying in an avalanche, then back to Cory. Climbing together. Skiing together. And his dying, skiing alone, in an avalanche only days before the snowmobilers.
About the void. Daily, we stand at the edge of a void gazing in. Without speaking of the void itself, we write of what we see.
The risks we take. Physical. Emotional. Professional. Just getting out of bed in the morning can be a wonder.
Waking up after open-heart surgery. Your sternum now sawn in half. Your heart was stopped, then cut in half. A little stitch ‘n bitch as he made his way out, patching, nipping and tucking. Hoping he can start your heart again before the final close. Waking, your sternum now wired together. All your ribs broken. Some in two places. And wondering at the pain. Feeling a fire driving down your limbs with every breath. Feeling pain in the very webs of your fingers. Will it ever go away? Can I last until it goes away?
And wondering at the void recently visited.
Three months later, sitting down in the kitchen with a bottle of wine, red, and the clinical report written by the surgeon. Leaving halfway down the first page. Deciding, this is not the time. Let’s just drink the wine.
In the end, I believe there are long frequency creative tides and short frequency personal storms. Equally, they move our writing. The question remains, when you share, will they see what you see?
The answer is simple. No.
The real question becomes will they see anything? Will they feel something?
That question forces us to look into the void again and consider jumping. So we share and hope, with that leap, we will soar on winds we will never see, will never know.
Posted by: keith | June 25, 2009 at 07:25 PM
Throw words our way. Your writing makes more sense to me than most other writing I find out there.
Posted by: Patricia | June 26, 2009 at 03:01 PM
On a bad day you provide more worthwhile inspiration than most of us have on good days. Please don't underestimate your self.
Michael
Posted by: Mike | June 27, 2009 at 06:22 PM
Indulgence granted.
Posted by: Waterfall | June 29, 2009 at 06:57 AM
I was led to this blog by a good friend a couple of years ago... we still race here to see who catches a new post first then shoot a message to the other "OUTER LIFE HAS WRITTEN!!!"
I have a feeling we'll still be doing that when you're 80 :)
Your writing will always have readers.
Posted by: Sesquipedalien | August 13, 2009 at 09:27 PM