Holidays seem to decimate the secret island i find and utilize for when I am writing all my stories. No matter which holiday it is, it is almost always the exact same story for me now: In the weeks leading up to the day, I will be steadily working on a series of stories ... oftentimes, one that is particularly long.
The few days prior to the holiday, I will be in what I call a "state of trance", existing, if I am lucky, for as many as 6-7 hours a day, in the "Netherworld" that I am creating on page. This state of trance is incredibly hard to reach...solitude is almost absolutely necessary to achieve it.
And then, of course, what happens, but the rotten holiday arrives, where I am forced to go out and mingle, for hours, about all sorts of real world topics, with rather judgmental and questioning family members I have not seen, since the last holiday. Every time it starts, I tell myself I'm not going to care, or let it effect me. "I'll get back home to my space here...i'll drift right back in..." It never seems to happen, however. There is literally always a major period of what you could call "decompression" after the holiday. I am never at all able to immediately get right back to my stories. In fact, I now see that I actually have to wait as much as a week, or even two, depending on the holiday and the level of stress that goes with it, before I get my energy to write back.
In some sense, the holidays really tend to remind me of being forced to make a dangerous pit stop, as I'm flying. It's like landing on some extraterrestrial planet and I never really know what to expect or what I'll get. The conversations that endure with the people , however, since they go onwards for quite awhile, and often tend to become quite heated, tend to be of the kind that aren't easy to forget. In this way, it's as though every holiday is literally acting like a "scrambler in my brain". It's bizarre because I am fully able to recognize what is happening but I am also not, at all, capable of stopping it. As I say,as much as I should like to not be effected by the holiday scrambling of my mind, it always still happens.
No matter what attitude I land the plane with, the holiday planet always ruins me for, bare minimum, at least 4-5 days afterwards. It's as though 6 months worth of creative juices just get sucked right out of me by vampires. I will even tell you that I often feel as though I have no awareness of "Who I am" after holidays are over. I feel deeply insecure, uncertain,hopeless, angry, intensely sad, depressed, melancholy, many things. Often, at best, I am reminded solely of very "ancient" childhood memories, and tthough the reader might think this is relieving, I don't seem to find it relieving at all. Mostly because remembering childhood is like remembering a time in life when, as I say, I didn't know who I was. I don't feel like a Writer after the holidays.
It's worth noting of course that, with a family like the one I have, I wouldn't truly be permitted to talk at length about any of the writing projects I'm working on, anyways. More likely than not, discussing the ideas of a fictional world, like the one I create on paper, would just send them all into an absolute frenzy --- which is basically the effect any conversational topic seems to have on them, period. I do not believe there is a single topic, whether one is discussing a garden hose or a boat or a pirate or anothr country, that the people in my family can calmly discuss. Tranquility seems to be a foreign concept to them... indeed its very easy to see how wars begin around the holidays....
Mostly of course, its not about the family, its more just about heavy socializing of any kind and the effect that it has on that "Netherworld" an imaginary writer must enter into, if he or she wants to be a success. I don't think many people understand just how hard the imagination has to work, in order to create, sometimes, even a simple scene, and this is especially the case when one is discussing writing a story set somewhere besides our own time. It's often so engrossing to slip off into the magical world that, after I am fall out of the trance and look around, it's as though this world is the foreign one, and not the one I was writing about.
I begin to feel out of place, and maybe even ill equipped, to handle the real world, after a long session of imaginary writing. But of course, as i say, it is then often so easily lost ...this "magic trip"...and entering back into it can be so hard, once you've fallen out. In fact, this is the real reason I have so many incomplete works: Creating a world is indeed hard, but entering back into one that you created some time ago, is even harder. The characters are like puppets in a closet you have not opened in a centurys worth of time. YOu forget their names..their roles.. everything. Hence, often, if you don't get back fast enough, you might lose the "portal" forever. I really do see it this way, as a writer....
So, yes...its been approximately 6 days now, since I have truly sat down and written anything, on my latest story, which is dealing with a multitude of interwoven storylines about pirates. 6 entire days have passed and all i really wrote were a few careless poems, mostly complaining about Jennifer, who (i'll gleefully tell you) seems to be nearly 75% forgotten, in the chambers of my mind. I suppose now I will pour myself some much needed coffee and, if i am lucky, I will be able to enter back in. As always of course, I'm not sure it'll happen, because when the writers grief sets in, often nothing can break it, no matter what.
Well, maybe I shouldn't say "no matter what", because I have often thought that more play acting "outside" the book, might be able to help me. For example, if I had a full pirate costume, a pirate sword, and a room that was completely devoted to pirate memorabilia (like some boats in bottles), I bet I could easily drift back in over and over again. Alas, I do not have such a room, so my imagination is forced to "self create" the portal from this rather dull area in which I am forced to live my life. I am forced to create the story as I sit here in a pair of pyjama pants and this old ruined sweatshirt... I have no costume to take me deeper into the trip...but believe me, I am convinced a costume would help significantly. I understand that for some people, a costume might seem ludacris, and unnecessary for a writer--but you would be surprised. Essentially, if i was able to wear the pirate costume as I wrote, I feel as though I could think like an actual pirate of the 1700s time period who was simply "jotting down diary notes". And then too, imagine if I had another person with me, who was willing to completely play along with the fiction, for a weeks worth of time? Some girl who was also dressed like a pirate, and who would agree to call me by my fictional name, and who would come and tell me fabricated tales of what she saw going on "outside the house". My entire life would be as a dream then....
Oh well. I have gone deeply off topic. Enough for now. Hopefully I can make the trip, even in pajamas!!!
-- Ciao.
No comments:
Post a Comment