Creative Fear

[annundriel]

The other day I was looking for title-inspiration for "whatever we lose" and my eyes happened to fall on my copy of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, which I read a couple of years ago in Modernism in Art and Literature. It contains a quote that spoke to me so clearly at the time I was amazed:

She could see it so clearly, so commandingly, when she looked: it was when she took her brush in hand that the whole thing changed. It was in that moment's flight between the picture and her canvas that the demons set on her who often brought her to the verge of tears and made this passage from conception to work as dreadful as any down a dark passage for a child. Such she often felt herself--struggling against terrific odds to maintain her courage; to say: "But this is what I see; this is what I see," and so to clasp some miserable remnant of her vision to her breast, which a thousand forces did their best to pluck from her.
- p. 22-23

I get a lot of things out of that passage, and I understand it through my own various experiences involving fear of creative failure, that horrible moment between having an idea and pulling out a blank page to make that idea something more than just a thought, an image in your head. Fear of creative rejection, dismissal.

To borrow a quote from one of my other favorite things, The History Boys, that moment in reading for me was one of these:

"The best moments in reading are when you come across something--a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things--which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours."

I think I've gained a lot more confidence since then. I'm not afraid to start things much anymore for fear they won't live up to the vision in my head. Though I'm sure ginnith would have interesting things to say on my various writing related neuroses and how the have/haven't changed. She's been there through it all, the lucky lady.

Speaking of writing, back to editing I go.

Comments

[marynyu.livejournal.com]

That quote.... that's why I still haven't written a single word for my j2_spn_bigbang. (or in general) I mean, I see it so well in my head, I know what I want to do, I even have some dialogue and descriptions all planned out. But I sit in front of my laptop and I just go blank...

Any advice??

[annundriel.livejournal.com]

I wish I had more or better advice than things you'll hear people say all the time, but just...start writing. Pick a scene - doesn't have to be the beginning - and just go for it. Because that stupid blank white page with the stupid blinking cursor is the worst thing to stare at when you're trying to start something. At least for me.

I used to hate it when people would tell me to just write anything and get started because my brain doesn't really work like that, but sometimes you just have to.

Since you have some dialogue and descriptions planned out, you could pick something there and begin fleshing it out. Get a scene going so that when you look at the page there's something there?

Sometimes I close my eyes when I type. That way I'm less distracted by the actual things around me and can focus more on the scene in my head. Which sounds a bit odd, but really does work for me sometimes.

[redvelvetribbon.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this. One of those perfect desciptions where so many of us just go THERE is what I am talking about!
I sent it to another friend and it blew here away.
V.Woolfes birthday here today as well. :)

[annundriel.livejournal.com]

It's such a great quote, isn't it? I especially love the description of the passage from conception to work being "as dreadful as any down a dark passage for a child." I mean, that is so exactly how I have felt at times in the past only I was never quite able to articulate it fully. And there it is for me.

I've been feeling the need to read more of her work recently (within the past week), so what a coincidence that it's her birthday!