Beginnings: A Brief Interview with David Abrams
This is the first in a series of short interviews with writers about the emotional and psychological processes involved in creative writing. I asked David to talk about what comes up for him when he is starting new work:
If I stare at them long enough, blank screens (formerly known as "blank pages") terrify the shit out of me. There is so much empty space waiting to be filled, all that acreage primed for words--words which are still trapped in my head, words which are hiding around the corner, cowering under bedsheets, refusing to come out into the light. Blank screens fill me with self-doubt and second-guessing. Blank screens are the arch-enemy of productive writing and should be avoided at all costs. Therefore, it's best to populate them as quickly as possible, even if it means typing the word "The" and letting it sit there all alone in that white space while you summon what follows. That "The" buys you some time while you wrestle the anxiety and try to tamp down the fear of beginning a new story, novel, poem or essay.
David, this is brilliant. I love the idea of just writing "the," of filling up a page with nonsense. I’m going to try it myself the next time I have trouble getting started.
The image made me think of going to a party filled with people one doesn’t necessarily like, just to not be alone. I once met a woman who had been widowed for about a year and still was unused to the isolation, both in her home and in her social life, since she and her husband had entertained mostly as a couple with other couples. She told me that when things got really bad she would go to the emergency room of her local hospital and sit there among the people waiting to be seen; it brought her back to humanity just to be around others.
This made me wonder how much of a role loneliness or perceived isolation plays in reluctance to begin a new work. Writing is such a solitary activity; the decision to plunge in entails accepting long stretches of complete aloneness, especially before we have our fully formed characters to interact with. Do you think filling up the page with nonsense might be in part a hedge against this aloneness?
That's a very sad image of the widow going to an emergency room just to connect with people--especially when you stop to think that ERs are packed with people at their worst moments--in pain and feeling very vunerable. I can think of safer, quieter places to mingle with humanity. But, on the other hand, if she sat in a coffee shop, nervously sipping her brew and moving muffin crumbs into shapes of continents with her fingertips, she probably wouldn't connect with anyone else. They'd all be too busy chatting with others at their own table.
But I stray from your question (avoidance technique!).
In truth, I'm never alone when I write. This will sound a little Jekyll-and-Hyde-ish, but I'm always at war with myself when I sit down at the desk. One half of my Self--the louder, bullying half--is always trying to convince the meek, compliant (and lazy!) Self to do anything but the task at hand. I sit there for long stretches doing a lot of Not Writing. Until finally, through guilt or reason, Mr. Meek rises up and gives Mr. Bully a swift kick in the teeth. So, I don't really surround myself with my characters as entities; I don't really converse with them or wait for them to "arrive." I'm enough company for myself. As they say, I'm my own worst enemy.
I should also note that physically, I can only write when I'm alone. I set the alarm for 3:30 am every day and, half-asleep, go down the stairs to my basement office where I spend the next two to three hours in solitude. The silence is only broken by the hiss of the furnace, my hungry cats' plaintive mews, and the classical music coming from my computer speakers. It's very difficult for me to write in a public place. I could never sit in a coffee shop, for instance, and work on my novel. I'd be too distracted by all the chatter and movement--not to mention the muffin crumbs which need to be patted into continents.
David Abrams' stories have been published in Esquire, Narrative, The Literarian, Connecticut Review, The Missouri Review, The Greensboro Review and several other literary journals. His novel about the Iraq War, Fobbit, is forthcoming from Grove/Atlantic. He blogs about the literary life at The Quivering Pen (www.davidabramsbooks.blogspot.com).
Next week: Masha Hamilton on beginnings.
Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. She can be reached at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.
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