There are times when I am writing that I relish being alone and knowing that my brain or my mind will simply come up with a story or the next step.
It is quite extraordinary to observe this process.
I cannot claim to live in the realm of geniuses, but here is what Dorothea Brande says about the artist’s coma and the writer’s magic.
Whilst Dorothea Brande is referring to writers, I believe this can refer to all who create. As we know, creativity is expressed in many ways.
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The true genius may live his life long without ever realising how he works.
He will know only that there are times when he must, at all costs, have solitude, time to dream, time to sit idle.
Often he himself believes that his mind is empty.
Sometimes we hear of gifted men and women who are on the verge of despair because they feel they are going through a barren period.
But suddenly the time of silence is passed and they have reached the moment when they must write.
That strange, aloof detachment has been called the artistic coma, by observers who were shrewed enough to see that the idleness is only a surface stillness.
Something is at work but so deeply and wordlessly that it hardly gives a sign of its activity till it is ready to externalise its vision.
The necessity which the artist feels to indulge himself/herself in solitude, in rambling leisure, in long speechless periods is behind most of the charges of eccentricity and boorishness that are levelled at men and women of genius.
If the period is recognised and allowed for, it need not have a disruptive effect.
The artist will always be marked by occasional periods of detachment, the nameless faculty will always announce itself by an air of withdrawal and indifference, but it is possible to hasten the period somewhat and to have it to a limited extent under one’s control.
To be able to induce at will the activity of that higher imagination, that intuition, that artistic level of unconsciousness—
That is where the artist’s magic lies and is his only true “secret” ”
A few years ago, when I started on my writing journey, I was still teaching Yoga classes. One of my students said that he always went off to Spain for two weeks every year to write. He went alone. He also mentioned he had done a course with Hilary Mantel. She had recommended the book by Dorothea Brande.
It was first written in 1934. “Becoming a Writer”
Hilary Mantel sadly passed away a few years ago, but there is now a book award in her name for emerging writers.
Enjoy whatever you are creating this week
Pauline
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