I have a stack of deadlines a mile high, but I think I’m also going to sit around with a bottle and just think for a while. The thinking time is essential. At least half of all writing involves just sitting and staring into space. Letting your brain out to hunt down ideas, bringing them back all warm and bloody between its teeth.
The above quote dropped into my email today from author Warren Ellis‘ BAD SIGNAL mailing list. Anybody who pays attention to half the bullshit I talk about knows I’m a huge Ellis fan, between his novel Crooked Little Vein and various graphic novels. Add to that the fact that I just ordered SHIVERING SANDS, a collection of his nonfiction writings over the past seven years that’s now available print-on-demand via Lulu (thanks in no small part to the mechanic and design genius of Ariana Osborne). But what’s really on my mind is the quote above.
I spend a fair amount of time staring off into space. It’s been a habit of mine since I can remember, and it’s been maligned for the same period of time. The prima facie passivity leads folk who haven’t gone through it to throw around the word daydreamer as an epithet, evidence that you’ll never amount to anything if you keep up the practice. And of course daydreaming is always thinking about something pleasurable, engaging in self-indulgence and naivety. There’s also an understated premise that goes along with it, the premise that you do it because you’re lazy, do it to justify laziness. Both the assigned passivity and the laziness always ring false with me.
Keeping a brain full of momentum in a head barely the size of a hippie hand drum leads to nothing but frustration for me. It’s like trying to pretend an abstraction is the real thing. You lose truth and functionality. The system breaks down when we emphasize productivity in writing without regard for engagement. My system breaks down when I emphasize productivity without regard for engagement. Characters become stale plot-pawns, plot becomes ridiculously overstated and moralistic, word count becomes the driver rather than the windshield wipers.
Having a driver isn’t always a good thing. Drivers keep cars on the road engaging nothing but asphalt. My best thinking comes when I give my internal driver a love tap on the base of the skull with a leather slap and let the bus rumble into the woods. Tires grip dirt, rip roots and rocks from the ground, uncover things buried and forgotten. All while I’m sitting and staring at the ceiling or the wall or the label on this bottle of Maker’s Mark.
There’s an important imperative in Ellis’ words, though. It’s a hunt. It’s a frantic chase from start to finish where you encourage your brain to get vicious and go out and kill. We’re not talking about some douchebag in the woods with a high-powered rifle; we are talking about running down and catching between your predator-teeth something that will likely be trying to elude you with all its energy. Bare feet slapping on leaves as you run after the prey, foliage scratching the hell out of your sides, lungs aching with the pursuit. The feeling of lifeblood filling your mouth as your teeth sink in. Engage the idea; don’t just stare at the pretty thing, rip into it and see just how much life it has. And once it’s yours, bring it back warm and limp to harvest.
Daydreaming is for predators.
Tags: brainstorming, dreaming, warren ellis, writing
This is why I will never own a car. Buses are the only thing that forces me to slow down and think.
I often get stuck behind school buses driving home from work at 7am, actually. Makes me all stabby. It’s a good thing they refused to install those machine guns on my car like I wanted, however disappointing.
[...] an interesting abstract run across my virtual desk today with somewhat of a parallel to my earlier post talking about Warren Ellis’ idea of the importance of letting your brain out to hunt [...]