The video above shows Riusuke Fukahori preparing works form his exhibit 'Goldfish Salvation' that appeared at the ICN Gallery in London last winter. Fukahori painstakingly paints a layer of the work then covers it in clear resin. He then paints the next layer, and the next, and so on until he has a shockingly realistic work of sculptural painting.
You are probably expecting me to make some sort of parallel between my writing and Fukahori's work. And I easily could. The comparison is right there.
Writing is a layered process. It is slow. You add a layer and then another. Between are bits of mortar. The work is unseen, flat, lifeless, until you add that final layer of glue on top.
I could leave it there and we'd all be happy about it. But I don't think it works like that.
I view writing as a long-form game. Like history. There are maps and charts, and plans, and budgets and steps along the way. But there are also lengthy periods of not much happening. It's those moments that I think matter the most.
I don't write for half the year.
That fact alone probably discredits me to many as a 'serious' writer. As I mentioned in the first post on process, I also don't really plan. These two admissions together make me look a little sloppy in the seriousness department. I recognize this fact and I respect the opinion in it.
Honestly though, I need that time off. After undergrad I didn't write for 6 months. I panicked over it, went without sleep, spoke to my friends, my teachers, I actually thought I had 'lost it'. That mythical thing that brings the words to the tongue. I feared the death of my muse.
Then I started again. Just one day. I picked up a pen and started. And then wrote some amazing stuff for about 10 months or so. Then I broke away from it again.
And I realized after a second moment of panic that this was my method: I sponge for a bit, then spit it out.
Take my novel (the one I'm trying to get an agent for). I thought about it for over two years. And by thought, I mean had the idea sitting there. I didn't actively think on it, but it sat, collecting mind dust until I had four months free to spit the thing onto paper.
And it felt good. It felt like the right time.
Or course this method could lead to things sitting for years. To things not happening. But that happens to people who write every day also.
I did that write every day thing. I know I can. It also felt like work, like a bore. It felt like something I had to, not wanted to. It felt as wrong as a thing could. So I stopped. It took three years, but I did.
So what is my point?
That I think my process of disorganized writing is perhaps closer to Fukahori's process of painting than I initially allowed. That my process is certainly layering. That the time between layers is very drawn out as I wait for the resin to hold. That the paint looks flat, lifeless, definitely unreal. Then I add, eventually, the final layer and it pops into focus. It spins into life.
Lately there has been a problem with my brains. They are not firing on all cylinders. Or some other metaphor for things working slightly off-kilter.
In general, I'm a lazy person. By that, I mean that I am not likely to shower or dress unless I have to. Unless I am going to work, and even then, I may wear dirty pants. I like my personal space. I sit and listen to music and read or write most days. When I'm not writing or reading I'm watching Jessica Fletcher kick crime's ass.
She'll kick your ass so hard you'll thank her.
Lately though, I've been so unmotivated that I'm starting to call it a block. A strange success block. Like I'm afraid of it.
I mentioned in Friday's post that I was looking for an agent. For the novel I wrote. And I sent to 12 agents in a burst of magnificent energy three weeks ago. It was beautiful, hopeful, I wrote a query letter and sent it. I got 4 rejections and the rest are ? for now.
Then I turned off.
I do this with submitting poetry. When asked about it I say things like 'I hate the game of it' or 'It's just so heartbreaking' and it is true that the game is sort stupid and I do find it soul-crushing/saddening.
But that is no excuse for not allowing myself to become the great American writer I know that I am. But I cannot seem to reignite the fire that I had when I was 22. When I was sending poems out all the time, by mail. Collecting a stack of rejections that I treasured with the utmost sincerity. They were markers on the road to something.
Today I cannot tell you where those letters are. The beautiful one Brenda Shaughnessy wrote me from Tin House. The terrible slip of laminated paper from Poetry. All gone.
What happened? When did I become someone less interested in this supposed writing career that I ran away from home at 18 to go get? Am I in danger of being one of those people who 'used to write'?
I hate rhetorical questions. That creepy hook of a ? hanging there on the car door of a sentence just inches from the young co-ed that is my thought process.
But that process has vanished for me. Right now I have a finished novel and hundreds of poems just taking up hard drive space and instead of sending to magazines or fighting for something more than the 100 or so page views a day I get here. I am thinking about a plan B.
And it isn't even because I don't have faith in the work.
Your poems are ho shit.
I love my poems. When they are good they will kick your poems asses and then tell them that they liked it. They pity da fool that is your iamb or whatever stupid shit you're working on these days because frankly they are just too damn good to care.
I just don't appear to have the ability to kick my own ass. So I need to figure that out. Suggestions?
