Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 24, 1994 TAG: 9410250003
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Lately, I keep hearing myself say that. It just sort of pops out.
It could be my excuse to the world for all the time I spend rambling through the woods when I should be at my desk.
But it could be true, too.
A friend and I were talking about this the other day. She said that when she gets stuck while writing, she makes herself sit staring at the computer screen until something else comes.
Me, I turn the blasted contraption off, grab my jacket and head for the trees.
Whether my method really works better than hers is certainly open to argument. But I betcha I have more fun.
The Victorians, reportedly, walked miles and miles every day. Thackeray, Dickens, Browning, the sisters Bronte, they were always striking out across the hills or the moors, whatever the weather.
And certainly they wrote a lot. Thackeray alone wrote more than 30 books. I'm sure some doctoral student somewhere has examined in detail the cause-and-effect relationship between their walking and their work. Query: Might you predict a writer's worth by inspecting the soles of her shoes?
Maybe. In his wonderful book "The Courage to Create," Rollo May tries to account for ideas that "just pop up ... out of the blue," ideas that "dawn" or "just suddenly hit you."
Most folks, creative or not, have had this experience. Some nagging problem is solved while you sleep. Or - wham! - the answer just comes.
Folks who rely on their creativity for their livelihood not only know about this process, but they try to define it, too, so that they can harness it.
That's what Rollo May does in a chapter he calls "Creativity and the Unconscious." After examining a number of "insight" experiences (his and others'), he concludes that such experiences share these characteristics: They come suddenly and against the grain of "what one has clung to in one's theories"; they are vivid, brief, concise and immediately clear; and they most often come in a moment of rest following a long period of intense concentration. They come, that is, "At a moment of transition between work and relaxation."
When, for instance, you turn off the blasted contraption, grab your jacket and head for the trees.
Shake off the gloom of confused indecision and listen, instead, to the birds.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. But always, the woods are sweet. And wordless.
That's probably the key for writers. A point Dorothea Brande makes in "Becoming a Writer." "If you want to stimulate yourself into writing," she says, "amuse yourself in wordless ways." Go to the symphony or for long walks. Take bus rides, sit alone on a park bench, or lie in the grass. Knit, play solitaire, go fishing, ride horses, embroider all your hankies.
Recreate wordlessly. "It is to be noticed," Brande concludes, "that successful writers, when talking about themselves as writers, say little about curling up in a corner with a good book. Much as they may love reading (and all authors would rather read than eat), they had all learned from long experience that it is the wordless occupation which sets their own minds busily at work."
So, staring at the blinking screen will work. But walking's mighty fine.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB