Embracing Contraries: Paradox and the Writer's Mind

Every writer has had those moments when the energy to write is there, the will, the urge, the veritable compulsion to write, but no words come, and also those times when your head is filled with words and scenes and the voice of a character, and you can barely drag yourself to the writing table.  I assume that people in other creative occupations have similar experiences - I know that actors do, and I once listened to a dancer talk about those moments when he absolutely, deeply felt the music

but could not get his body to respond to it the way he felt it.  It is part of the great mystery and wonder of the creative -- these moments of paradox, contrast, and frustration with the contrary.

I was thinking about this recently in one of those rare and welcome moments when all the stars lined up - the energy, the will, and the words were all there at once - that kind of wondrous magic ride every creative person lives for - an  “oh! OH!” moment followed with all the drive and the skill needed for the realization of whatever insight had struck.  I’m sure all of us who have experienced both sides of this have wished for the key, the thing we could use to make that magic convergence happen.

The bad news:   I don’t know that there is one.  Many, many people have studied the creative process and the “aha” moment - how it occurs, what cognitive and physical processes are involved, yet any definitive recipe has eluded them all.  Many “steps” and “stages”  of the creative have been proposed, but none have, to date, been shown to actually induce a creative state.  Probably the most interesting, and the one that rings most true to me, is one of the very early theories proposed by a psychologist and researcher named J.P. Guilford.  He proposed that the creative moment happens in the interplay between what he called divergent thinking (brainstorming, thinking outward, going wild) and convergent thinking (pulling various and apparently unrelated ideas/thoughts together into a related whole).  It wasn’t clear to him how or why it happened, but it was clear that the contrast, and the struggle between these two ways of thinking  somehow and in some way no one as yet understands, creates the creative act, the “aha” moment, and, above all, the original thought.

Some time ago, I wrote here about a retreat I attended in New Mexico where we (the 30 or 40 teachers attending)  learned to use “third things” in our work with students.  It has since occurred to me that there are many other lessons from those retreats I attended that are valuable to writers, including some fundamental ideas in that work about paradox.     In those workshops, we were invited to welcome paradox, to, as writer Peter Elbow has put it, “embrace contraries” for the lessons they bring us, and more importantly, the mindset they help us achieve.

That formation work, as developed and taught by writer/teacher/philosopher Parker Palmer, asked us to work within a framework of nine paradoxes, far too many to discuss in a single post, but I wanted to propose here that writers consider the first one:  paraphrased from that  teacher-formation work - the first paradox suggests that the workspace must be both open and bounded.  In formation work for teachers, that meant that the space had to be welcoming to all participants, but that confidentiality within the space where we were working must always be maintained.  For writers, the principle remains the same, but I think it washes out a bit differently in terms of approaching a piece of writing, trying to bring yourself to that aha moment of creativity with a story or a character.

Your writing space should be both open and bounded.  

I’ll talk about the physical writing space - I call mine my “Writer’s Cave” - in another post.  What I want to talk about here is the mental space you create when you sit down to write.  I’m not talking about methods and strategies for focusing or generative techniques for getting ideas - I’m talking about attitude.  

Being open and bounded at the same time certainly seems like a challenge, but not when you think about it in like  a writer - we must  keep our minds open to new ideas, to new behaviors for our characters, to the idea, the image, the movement in a scene that surprises us, that takes us out of

the comfort zone of what we had intended to write into the possibilities of what we might write.  And, no, that’s not easy, either.  It takes intention.  You have to intend to be open, you have to stop and pay attention to those things that whisk across your mind as you face the page.  So what if they’re not what you thought was going to happen in the scene?  So what if it doesn’t seem like something the character would do?  If it surprises you, it will surprise and engage your reader - follow it.  Let me say that again - follow it.   Not all such excursions will work out.  Some will flounder and then peter out.  But when following that random surprise, that whispery mental voice saying “what if” - when it does work, it is nothing short of magic. Intend to follow it, then do so.

Being bounded is also a challenge for many of us - for a writer, this means, in terms of the paradox of attitude, to keep what happens at the writing table, AT the writing table.  Nothing endangers the authenticity of what you are trying to write like talking about it too much can do.  If you need to talk about it, talk to the page - write backstory, interview your characters, dump about it in your journal, but Keep. Your. Mouth. Shut.   Most of us who’ve done this for any length of time have found that the more we talk about a story or character, the less we write.   I recall a time when I was in residence at Cottages at Hedgebrook - an amazing writer’s retreat on Whidbey Island in Washington State, and the other three writers and I were gathered in the common room one evening.  One of the others asked me what I was working on.  I started to talk about the story, and, two or three sentences in, stopped.  A short silence followed.  Then I said, “I can’t talk about it any more than that - or I won’t write.”  One of the other residents - an internationally known and respected poet who I’d been in residence with once before, laughed and said, “Ok!  I was beginning to worry for you!”   When you find yourself beginning to talk about the piece you’re working on, just STOP.  In formation work, one of the basic principles asks us to respect silence, and, as writers, we must keep ours.

For those of you in writing groups, that last can be a challenge.  Writing groups are essential for some writers, and, if the dynamic is good, they are an incredible resource.  I am not saying to quit your group - though, for the piece I’m working on now, I had to take a “leave of absence” from mine - what I do strongly advise is that you not take anything to your group until you have a full, complete draft.  Do not take partial pieces, or chapters, or unfinished manuscripts, or you may find (as I did) that you find yourself writing for the group instead of for the story.  Also,  if you take an unfinished piece and talk about it too much in group, that could well sap the energy you need for when you are actually ready to write it.

None of this is easy.  For more information on the Formation process as developed by Parker Palmer, I highly recommend his book, “Let Your Life Speak,” and, if you read it with a writer’s mind, “The Courage to Teach.”  (Think of it as “the Courage to Write”)  It will be a process, it will take time and intention on your part to really make the space you hold in your head and heart, the space that is just for you, the writer, into a space that is both open and bounded - but it is worth the effort.  

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For more information on the research done on the creative process, I strongly recommend reading the lectures of J.P. Guilford first.  You will have to Google them, as they are not collected in a book.  You can find references to his work on Wikipedia, but they are brief and only minimally developed.  There is a nice, concise overview of his work in an entertaining book called Maps of the Mind.  

Guilford’s book, The Nature of Human Intelligence, is available on Amazon, but it was written long after his work on creativity, and contains only passing references to that work.  

Who the Hell is Kim Davis and Why (In the name of All That's Holy) Are So Many People Talking about Her?

This is not a political post.  I don’t DO political posts - this is about the writing mind, the way we think, what we should and should not be doing with our thoughts as a writer, as a person.

A while back, I started noticing social media posts about Kim Davis, so I investigated.  My initial response was revulsion, but I didn’t post anything about that.  Heaved a heavy sigh and then went on with my life.  Then, I saw the following post from my nephew:

“If Davis believes the government’s definition of marriage is fundamentally immoral and contrary to her

religious convictions, she should remove herself from the state’s machinery of marriage. That she has every right to do. What she does not have the right to do, however, is serve as a government official and fail to fulfill the obligations that come with that office.”  He was quoting an opinion written by attorney Jonathan H. Adler in the Washington Post.

When it comes to political matters, my nephew and I disagree on most everything, but it’s a congenial disagreement.  I like him, I like his sharp mind, I like seeing the other side of my ideas put intelligently.  And I loved that we agreed on this.

Those thoughts have nagged at the back of my mind for many days now, and here’s why.

When I see social media posts about what’s going on with Ms. Davis, they are for the most part (I’d say over 90%) insulting.  People have posted about her marriages, her looks, her overweight, made a joke of her religion and of herself.  And that, to me, is the problem.

Over and over, on social media, I see friends on both sides of the political spectrum (because I actually HAVE friends on both sides of the political spectrum) posting jibes and evil-stereotypes about anyone and everyone they perceive to be on the opposite side - Democrats about Republicans, Republicans about Democrats, right about left, left about right, and on and on.

And here’s the thing - that PISSES ME OFF.  For God’s sake, oppose what Ms. Davis is doing, but do so on the issues - she is a government employee refusing to do her job.  Not cool.   Oppose what the opposition party is doing, but don’t imagine that they are all evil, dark-hearted, scheming, conniving devils.  I BELIEVE IN THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM - I believe in the adversarial system in our courts.  Both were designed to bring fair, balanced, intelligent debate and advocacy.  THAT is what dialogue should be about.  That is what discourse should be about.  That is what WE should be about.

What passes for intelligent debate on our social media is an insult to thinking people.  It’s an insult to writers - it is part of the reason there is so much incredibly bad writing out there - people are writing - as so many on social media are doing - for the lowest common denominator.  When we believe that intelligent public debate is well portrayed by snide memes about the other side, we FORCE writers (or at least those who need to make a living at it) to write one-sided stories, uni-dimensional characters, and simplistic themes.   I’m not going there.

And trust me, if you can’t have an intelligent debate with those on the opposite side, do not risk bringing up any of these issues with this Irish woman.  I’ll be too busy trying to write something that matters.

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Here is a link to Adler's article:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/09/02/justice-scalia-explains-why-kim-davis-should-issue-marriage-licenses-to-same-sex-couples-or-find-a-new-job/?tid=sm_fb

The "Third Thing" - Magic in New Mexico

They call New Mexico the Land of Enchantment.  If I’d known that before the first time I went there, I wouldn’t have understood why, and would have been skeptical. That’s a particular paradox in my personality - I’m not fond of things that seem to self-consciously smack of the mystical, and yet I am drawn, in a way that feels profoundly mystical, to certain places, feel connected in a way that I wouldn’t even attempt to explain to anyone else - it just is.  But the desert had never seemed like such a place to me.  I was born in the high parts of the Rocky Mountains, grew up surrounded by blue slopes, green hillsides, lakes settled in deep valleys.  Long empty flat spaces didn’t (mentally) draw me.  Until the first time I visited New Mexico.

I had been sent there by the President of the college where I worked, for a retreat at the Mabel Dodge Luhan house in Taos.  I flew into Albuquerque and then rented a car and drove to Taos.  When I landed in Albuquerque, it was nearing sunset.  I walked out of the terminal to head down to the lot to pick up my rental, and stopped short, my breath taken away by the beautiful reds, pinks, oranges, and roses in the sunset in the very far distance.  I stood there for a while.  When I think of it, it reminds me of a scene from a movie I saw later - “Off the Map.”  (I recommend it if you haven’t seen it).  A young IRS agent comes to audit a young family living off the grid in the New Mexico desert.  When

he steps out of his car, he is confronted by the vista of the afternoon sun lighting the desert in front of him.  He is transfixed.  He stands and stands and stands.  I was like that, that day in Albuquerque.  In the movie, the young man never leaves.   Which is how I felt in that moment - just stand there, just take it in.  Don’t let it go.

The drive to Taos that night was unremarkable - it was dark, and the most that I could see was the road in front of me and an occasional road sign letting me know that I had not (yet) gotten lost.  In the five years that followed, though, I made that trek to Taos once (sometimes twice) a year for those retreats, and more often than not did the drive in daylight. The first time, I found myself pulling over my car time after time to just stand by the roadside and stare at the mesas and the canyons and the broad expanse of space that is the New Mexico desert. I thought that, on subsequent trips, I would not be so enchanted, that I would be able to drive casually by like so many of us do in the places we live, taking for granted that which we have seen before.  I was wrong.

I arrived at the Mabel Dodge Luhan house (a place once frequented by the likes of Thomas Merton, Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams, and many others) in time for an evening gathering around the fire, and then found my way to my room - a sweet small room with stucco walls and arched windows that looked out over the desert.  As is often the case when one goes to “an event,”  I lay in bed with a busy mind, thinking of the three days to follow and what might be expected of me.  And then the moon rose over the desert, and all thoughts of the retreat vanished.  The next evening, after a day spent in workshops and discussions, we were sent out in the early dark to write in our retreat journals.  What we were assigned to do doesn’t matter (I’ve never been very good at doing what I was assigned to do) - I stood at the gate of the House, looking out across the desert at that moon, again low and silver in the sky, and wrote in my journal:  “THIS is what magic is.”

There was an awful lot of magic in that trip, but nothing quite so powerful as the magic of the place itself.  I bring this up, and take so much time with it, because of one of the lessons I learned there that helped me a great deal as a writer.  I was there to train in a process called “formation,” - it is a technique normally used by spiritual advisors, but a wise and wonderful man had the notion that many of the methods could be effective for teachers, and he, along with a few others, founded a movement to bring formation strategies into education. One of the techniques used in that work is something called “the third thing.”  In a conversation, or a counseling, or a guidance session - or a lesson - there is one person giving, another receiving, and, in formation work- a “third  thing” around which they build their thoughts and relationship. It can be a poem or a story or an object.  

We trained in ways to bring this idea into the classroom, to make the things that we offer to the students for learning a “third thing,” a focus for the interaction, rather than an end in themselves.  It is very much like the idea of a catalyst, or something that provides catharsis. In the process, though, I came to value “third things” in my process as a writer.  

It is quite different than finding inspiration - when we are waiting for inspiration, we are waiting for the thing that strikes us with fire to write.  It can be a long wait.  The “third thing” process is active.  Using a “third thing” as a writer means you reaching out to find that thing, and to take it in.  You focus all  your attention on it, and open your mind to what it may mean to you, at this moment, in your process or in your learning.  What, you may ask, is the right third thing, and how would I ever find it?   To quote my old Zen teacher - it is what is right in front of you.

That night, in the New Mexico desert, the place itself became a third thing for my writing - an opening to a beauty I’d never anticipated, and a willingness to be humbled by it. Today, the writing of this piece became a third thing for my writing, as the consideration of those magical desert nights brought back another memory that keyed, for me, the heart of a character that had been eluding me.  It was like silver light on the floor of the desert.

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For more information on formation strategies and third things, See:

To Know As We Are Known, by Parker Palmer

The Courage to Teach, by Parker Palmer