Backspace and Delete.

“... the vast empty spaces of the blank page appall, and everyone walks into the maze blindfolded.”
-- Margaret Atwood –

I rarely dream.
Rather, I rarely remember my dreams. They fade, and fade so quickly, upon awaking, that they might as well have not existed in my sleeping mind.
This past week, however, I awoke in the middle of the night on two separate evenings, with a lingering dream so vivid and alluring in its remembered detail that I have longed ever since, to write of it. To fashion it into a written story.
I have spent the better part of today trying to do just that, but to no avail. Sadly, the most popular keys on the laptop today have been backspace and delete. It’s just not... working. I’m not satisfied with my product. I delete, because thus far, what has been written is not worthy of the dream.
In a sort of defiant spirit, and with a fresh coffee before me, I have decided instead to write about the process of not writing.
This blog could be subtitled: Where Is The Muse When You Need Her?

Why is it that when I am all primed and ready to go, I can barely write two or three sentences before I want to throw them against the wall? Yet, when most unbidden, when most unsought, sentences and paragraphs knock against my brain... not in an attempt to get in, but to get out! Exactly at that moment when there is no pen or paper, when I am engaged in something utterly unliterary, and even when I am trying to sleep, there she is. Calliope, in all of her untimely rudeness.
Calliope, according to my trusty Thrall & Hibbard (see my blog of May 26th, entitled The Divine Afflatus) was one of the more significant of the Muses in Greek history. Her specialty was helping sweating Greek writers in the area of epic poetry.

Sitting here in the mega-bookstore, escaping the Hades-like humidity of the outdoors, I ponder upon what I consider to be the three prerequisites of good writing.

The first one is idea.
Whether the Muse is there to help you along or not, it is necessary that a writer be able to interact with idea. To write, a person must be able to engage in dialogue with themself. What I mean by this is simply the following: I could sit here and TELL YOU all about my dream, the dream that is begging to be a written story. In rather astonishing detail, even. And it would be entirely comprehendable to you, the listener. This is due to the fact that in verbal communication, 100% accuracy is not required. Hit-and-miss will do just fine. When it comes down to it, in verbal communication we are continually backspacing and deleting, whiting-out and re-explaining. This is why the word “uh” is the most commonly used word in conversation, even among the very intelligent and eloquent. We’re hitting some pause or backspace button in the mind. And for the most part, we find it acceptable, or good enough.
But no one wants to read a lot of “uhs” in a written story. You don’t want to see that on a page. The story has to be much more of a refined product than verbal communication. What ends up being written must be the product of someone talking with themself. (Which, by the way, I see as something quite different from talking to oneself).
I liken it to the concept of a bridge. In verbal communication we can get by with holes in the bridge, as we cross it. As we talk, we can look down and avoid the missing planks, or the broken portion of handrail, and we can make adjustments which avoid our unwanted dive into the water below. But when we read, we want to be able to look straight ahead. We want to trust that the author has foreseen that obstacle ahead and will warn us of it as we approach. Our business is to get to the other side, not ask for directions or make repairs along the way. This, we assume, should have been done for us. When we are reading, we want to be walking the perfect bridge.
We know this, and more importantly, the author knows this. This is their burden. The building of such a bridge.
Hence, when I tell you about my dream (my story) you may respond with something like “Hmmm... that sounds quite interesting. You should really write of it, write it out!”
“I agree. I shall go do that, directly.”
And the other person leaves the room. And now I'm staring at a blank page. The “vast empty spaces” as Atwood calls it. I am no longer dreaming. Or talking. I am all of a sudden blindfolded.
And there’s no way out except plunging headlong into it. Even if the Muse is there to help. When it comes down to it, with all of her generous help down through the ages, she herself has never written a single piece of work! Only you have. Only I have.
And to do so has required that you or I step far beyond the realm of what can (adequately) be verbally communicated. Most people secretly feel that there is a book in them, and there probably is. But to write it.... ahh, those that write it are few and far between, and are always those who have wrestled with the idea until it has become its own entity.

The second factor in the writing process is health.
By this I mean that it is incredibly difficult to write if one is even remotely ill, or otherwise unsettled, whether emotionally or physically. This is quite straightforward and obvious, yet I think that overall health is not factored in to the success of the writing process as much as it ought to be. If you are not feeling well, can you write well?
The history of the arts is replete with stories of painters and sculptures who were bona fide lunatics, suffering from acute mental illness. But I would be interested to hear of writers who were battling similar maladies. I know there must be examples (Edgar Allen Poe? Virginia Woolf? Help me here). I am just saying that I doubt if many great pieces of literature were written in between sessions of vomiting into a toilet! Nothing stifles creativity, like sickness!

Thirdly, I think of time.
Writing takes time. Often disciplined time, or time that is not there unless it is deliberately allocated. I find it interesting to read of the different ways that authors have disciplined themselves in this area. Authors with huge families, with many other responsibilities and time-pressures, have still found the time to write. Even if it is for one or two hours every morning, or night.
Often I lament the fact that my day-to-day work is very time constraining as well as physically demanding, and that by the end of the day there is not much left over for the pursuit of things artistic in nature. And yet, I am aware that in many ways I have more time than most other people do. This is because I have very little after-work time constraints upon me. And I never take work home with me. With the snap of the time clock, I am done with it.
Time, or the lack of it, can never be a valid excuse for my own dearth of literary output.

Nor can health issues. Or lack of idea, and the ability to interact with it.
Then..... what am I waiting for?

Calliope.
When you are at your wit’s end, maybe... maybe she will show up.
After all, this is her, of whom it was said in the High School Yearbook:
Voted most likely to decline an invitation.
Today, thinking of her, I am reminded of the poem by Anna Akhmatova.

The Muse

All that I am hangs by a thread tonight
As I wait for her whom no one can command.
Whatever I cherish most – youth, freedom, glory –
Fades before her who bears the flute in her hand.

And look! She comes... she tosses back her veil,
Staring me down, serene and pitiless.
“Are you the one,” I ask, “whom Dante heard dictate
The lines of his Inferno?” She answers: “Yes.”