Thread: Don't write; just sit.

I wanted to share this. It's an essay from a monthly e-newsletter I receive from Glimmer Train, a quarterly fiction anthology published in the US. Not only is it a lovely piece of writing, I found, but it struck a chord with me. The number of times I've devoted time to thinking about my writing instead of thinking about it while I'm driving, or in the shower, or doing something else; or just let the thoughts come to me--I barely do it and yet I know it's important. The essay is by a young author called Daniel Torday.

A Portrait of a Writer as a Young Parent

A number of years ago when I was working on a novel to finish the MFA I was taking up in Central New York, my advisor was a certain platinum-haired writer whose short stories I'd always loved. The year before, she had been nominated for the National Book Award for her most recent novel. I'd been slow to coming around to the idea of spending three years only writing, but now here I was—meeting monthly with one of my favorite writers, my only responsibility finishing a novel. She was funny and genius and genuine and suffice it to say that whatever she suggested, that I did.

Immediately.

We met in her office or at a well-appointed hotel restaurant, and once she came in after reading a hundred pages of the book I was working on and said, "This is good. I mean, it's fine. The language is nice. But to be honest, I think you just need to sit more. Sit and think deeply about these characters more." And I thought… how exactly does one do that? I took anything this writer suggested to heart, but for the first time in the three years I'd known her, I was stumped. I'm too much a neurotic for such stuff. Where would one sit, exactly, to do this thinking? And how? Relaxed? Stiffly? More important: What was I to do with my hands?

I finished the manuscript without ever having sat or thought deeply, took the degree and lucked into a teaching job. I moved to Philadelphia. My wife and I bought a house. We had a kid. We named her Abigail, which in Hebrew means "a father's joy." She was born the last week in March, and so after my wife took maternity leave, I spent the summer at home with the baby. As with all babies, it took some doing to get her to sleep for each nap, but once she was down she was a great napper. Two, three, sometimes even four two-to-three-hour naps a day: lots of writing time. Pre-parenthood, I'd been very, very rigid about my writing schedule: three hours a day, every day. Never less, never more. But now that changed. I had to write when the baby was asleep. Instead of opening a Word file at 9am (not 9:01! 9!) and then closing it at noon, I'd just leave my computer open all day. Writing happened when baby slept.

This transition was smoother than I expected. Maybe I was blessed with an easy kid, or maybe I'd been waiting for something I didn't know I needed. I read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and Happiest Baby on the Block more times than I'd read The Writing Life or Aspects of the Novel, and with a greater sense of urgency. Early on I would hush diligently in Abby's ear like I imagined the womb must sound, rock her from above one of my ears to above the other. But soon it got easier. I relaxed. I began to trust myself. One mid-June day, I found I was just swaying back and forth with her in my arms, her sweet face against mine, for a half hour (forty-five minutes? an hour? I don't know—I was thinking deeply), and she'd gone to sleep. Here I was, in Abby's nursery after a morning grinding out a story. Instead of worrying, I was walking her and bouncing her for the time it took to get her down for a nap, and something new happened:

I was working the piece over in my subconscious. I wasn't sitting quietly, thinking, exactly. I was more like standing. Swaying, quietly. Thinking, but not thinking. At some point I looked down and in my arms, under that white, blue and pink blanket they send you home with from the hospital, I saw the lilac lightning of veins struck through Abby's closed eyelids.

She was asleep.

Later that same mid-June afternoon, when I got down to writing, it was like I was translating the thoughts from that time with Abby in my arms. Now, as one of my favorite of Raymond Carver's characters says, I was cooking with gas. And the answer to my silliest but truest question, the question that one of my favorite writers then and favorite writers still had made me ask when I was trying to write a novel, was: Hold a baby. That's what you do with your hands when you're thinking deeply about your characters.

I'm going to have to give that a try. Just sit and think. I don't have a baby nor one I could borrow. However... there is the hospital I volunteer at on Fridays. Hmmmm...

I never force myself to write, but then I don't have to, I write because I do. Ideas come to me when they will, in the shower, shopping, driving across London, whenever - the trick is to remember them, or remember them at least long enough to write down. I did, for a while, take the view that if the idea was good enough, I would remember it - Wrong! I lost a few good ideas that way. When it came to daughters, I never read a book on childcare, attended a pre-birth class, or a post natal one come to that - We were designed to have childrem, it is the natural state of humanity, so I let nature take its course. If I wanted her to go to sleep I would lean back and lie her on my stomach, my resting pulse is around 50, and I breath slowly, so she was soon asleep and my mind free to roam. Interestingly, my wife never heard her if she cried in the night, so I would take care of her - More time to daydream, rather, nightdream...

Weeding, it's mindless, ideal for thinking. Potting on isn't bad either.

Excellent. Off I go to steal someone's baby. : D

Kind of Zen-like, wouldn't you say? An activity with a meditative quality to it.

I believe writing, creatively at least, stems from a lack of urgency. The more you try to force it, the more it pulls away, like a shy creature. It's only when you ignore it completely that it feels neglected and jumps into your lap, demanding to be noticed.

I find that sitting outside on the porch, watching the cars go by, has that effect on me. As for what to do with my hands, well, I'm a smoker. Sitting and thinking about my characters is sometimes an expensive habit.

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

Weeding, it's mindless, ideal for thinking. Potting on isn't bad either.

I thought 'twas "weed" not "weeding" that did that. Either way, one has lucid intervals.

Originally Posted by KyleColorado

Excellent. Off I go to steal someone's baby. : D

Kind of Zen-like, wouldn't you say? An activity with a meditative quality to it.

I believe writing, creatively at least, stems from a lack of urgency. The more you try to force it, the more it pulls away, like a shy creature. It's only when you ignore it completely that it feels neglected and jumps into your lap, demanding to be noticed.

Therefore, I submit, writing is like cats.

Originally Posted by Tiamat10

I find that sitting outside on the porch, watching the cars go by, has that effect on me. As for what to do with my hands, well, I'm a smoker. Sitting and thinking about my characters is sometimes an expensive habit.

I quit smoking. Instead, I watch cats. They don't stay lit as long as cigarettes, and are arguably not as bad for you. They will sit on the porch and watch cars with you.

I thought 'twas "weed" not "weeding" that did that. Either way, one has lucid intervals.

Weeding on weed and potting on on pot then? Grass cutting doesn't work though, too active and noisy.

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

I thought 'twas "weed" not "weeding" that did that. Either way, one has lucid intervals.

Tonight, on It's the Mind...we examine the fascinating phenomenon of Deja Vu...sorry, Olly, but it was right there in front of me.

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

Potting on isn't bad either.

Surely one would need to be employed in a commercial nursery for potting on to become mindless? When I do it, my mind is filled with all the variables. Is the proportion of potting mix to soil correct? Are the roots well=spread? Have I used the right-sized pot? Is the tie on the stake secure? And so on.

Porch sitting is great, especially if you have a warm and furry animal to mindlessly stroke. Dogs or cats work good here, horses, not so much. Warm showers are perfect for reciting poetry you are working on, great accoustics. Though you may get strange looks from your family when you finally get out of the shower.

I can often just sit and think without doing anything else.

I can often just sit and think without doing anything else.

I can do it without even thinking sometimes.

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

Surely one would need to be employed in a commercial nursery for potting on to become mindless? When I do it, my mind is filled with all the variables. Is the proportion of potting mix to soil correct? Are the roots well=spread? Have I used the right-sized pot? Is the tie on the stake secure? And so on.

I suppose there is an element of that. I am thinking of when I plant out a tray of something like tomatoes, I end up with forty cubes, most of which have a tomato plant in, I mix up a big heap of compost, then pot them on into three inch pots. A bit later, when they are established, I chose the dozen best for myself and give the rest away. That gets me 100% good plants and a reputation for generosity, which means people save pots for me.

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

I can do it without even thinking sometimes.

Oh yeah I can do that one too