What's a Writer's Greatest Tool?

What is a writer’s greatest tool?  No, it isn’t your PC, your laptop, your tablet or your favorite pen.  It’s right between your ears, and yet as large as outer space itself. It is where all your ideas come from, the fount of all our symbols and images.  Sigmund Freud called it the subconscious, and Carl Jung called it the unconscious. I put it on 2 different levels, and call it the sub/unconscious. We are only dimly aware of the subconscious.  It comes through in our dreams, and some of the things we say when we are not thinking. The unconscious comes through literally when we are unconscious, under anesthesia or from an accidental blow to the head, or the hallucinations of a schizophrenic or under the influence of LSD or shrooms.  

They are different for everyone, and are the sum total of everything you’ve ever experienced, through life experiences, books you’ve read (including the Bible.  A frightening amount of images come from religious imagery) TV or movies you’ve seen. If you are religious and go to a church where an effective orator is preaching, many images can come from listening to that person’s sermons.  All this is uploaded to our own personal mental Cloud, to use computer terminology, and can be accessed almost spontaneously.

In the days before I made friends with my own sub/unconscious, I used to try to scare myself with these images because I was then writing a novel about a woman who was being pursued by something so horrible that she could not even face it.  This will be featured in a forthcoming novel. I wanted to see what was so horrible that one could not even face it. Then there is what Paul Atreides said in Dune to his grandmother the Reverend Mother Helen Gaius Mohiam, “Try looking into that place where you do not dare look.  There you will find me, staring back at you.” I have tried looking into that place which is unlookable to “us, to women.”There I only see a reflection of my own face.

Then, sometime in my late forties, (I am now only a couple weeks short of turning 73) I made the conscious decision to make friends with my own sub/unconscious, and do you know what happened?  The images I used to frighten myself with no longer had the power to frighten me. I could look upon the face of the Christians’ pet thought form Satan himself, and be unfazed. I imagined the bloodiest scenes I could, the better to describe them for my stories, and still I was unfazed.  Now I wonder why this is. Have I become so callous and inured to these scenes that they have no effect on me? Has observing violence on television gotten me so unsensitized that I am immune to any emotional effect? I have a tendency, when things bog down in a story, to start a war or an argument among my characters.  

There are three and a half months until the first Camp NaNoWriMo, and I already have an idea for it.  Where did that idea come from? (See last Thursday’s blog about where story ideas come from.) Superficially it came from a show I was streaming on Netflix called The Pyramid Code, that that idea germ merged with some memories in my mind about Nikola Tesla, and before I knew it, I had a full blown story idea in my head.  Certainly some images from my sub/unconscious must’ve gotten in there and clinched the deal, because soon I was scribbling the story idea in my notebook, which I keep in the bookcase headboard of my bed.  

I urge you in the strongest possible terms to make friends with your sub/unconscious.  Who knows what hidden treasures you can discover between the veils?

Rita

How I'm Coping with Shelter-in-Place and how it affects my Creativity

 I’m currently working on a book I found when I looked at a flash drive I hadn’t seen for awhile.  There’s at least a half dozen novels I haven’t done anything with since I won NaNoWriMo with them months ago.  I’m currently working on “And Love Will Steer the Stars.” I’ll resume working on it in May, after Camp Nano is finished until July, when we’ll have another Camp Nano.  March 31st I’ll have to reread what I’ve done on Intergalactic Encounter  so that the new chapters I’ll write next month will mesh with the first few chapters I’ve already written.  

I may write in a disease next month.  Have the politicians utterly stupid. As a writer, I’m usually pretty creative, and I don’t get out much, but I would like to eat at a restaurant once in a while.  I’m of the generation who cooks, not this lazy generation who orders in. Eating out should be reserved for a treat, not your fallback position. Of course, I’m retired, so I have the time to cook.  Even so, I favor dishes that feed an army, so that I only have to actually cook twice or 3 times a week. Cooking is a kind of alchemy, where you apply heat to “ordinary” ingredients, and come up with something magical.  I even apply the alchemical principle to luftwaffles. I take mix, water, oil, and add pumpkin pie spice and vanilla.. But I want enchiladas, which I can’t make.  

Creativity is somewhat of a compulsion for me.  I noticed about a year ago that the elastic on several pairs of my slacks was getting loose, so I set about  crocheting belt loops for them. It’s a simple pattern, really, chain 3 or 4 inches long, and half double crochet around the chain, working a double crochet in each corner to square the corners.It should take no more than a couple rounds, maybe three, to complete.  I like to make at least seven belt loops for each pair of pants, Sew to the pants a few stitches at each end of the belt loop. If you’re lucky enough to have pants with existing belt loops, you can use these to measure how long to make your crocheted ones.  

What I’m hoping for is enough extra energy to do a little coloring.  Maybe if Facebook gets boring enough, I can swap out my Facebook time for some coloring time.  But the time I spend on Facebook isn’t ALL looking at memes. Outside of funny cats, and stupid human tricks, most of it is chatting with my friebds and acquaintances.   The evening of the 31st of March I’ll be handwriting what I’ll be dictating to my Dragon the next morning. I hope I write a lot.

Well, that is all for now.  If you are in Patricia’s circle of authors, you might write a blog about how you are coping with the shelter-in-place, and how it is affecting your creativity.