The Writing Room
by ChristaWells
Must.Write.Now.
It’s a bit obvious when the songwriter in this house has stayed away too long from writing, because she starts getting just a LITTLE bit grumpy. A TINY bit irritable. Easily IRKED. Not by political leaders or financial crises or even by semi-big deals like being behind (again) on emails or (chronically) filing paperwork.
It’s much less rational than that. Where there is no solitude, there is much loud exhaling at the very presence of human beings. People and their people-y things, like shoes…hunger…chatter.
It’s not pretty…
So…for the well-being of my family: to writing I return.
…
Where have all the good ideas gone?
The writing road is often a thrill-ride attempt to grab all those great ideas that hover in cartoon bubbles around your head before they pop.
“Except when it’s not.” (Dr. Seuss)
Sometimes I honestly wonder if maybe I’ve written my last good song, because: Where did all the ideas go?!
They arrive through books, blogs, sermons and (yes) conversations (those people-y things). Soak…write…soak…write…soak…
I’ve been soaking for a while now without the wave rising up. These past couple of weeks, I sense the swell coming but something isn’t quite there. And I’m beginning to think it’s not always about the idea…
…….
What’s the Problem?
Sometimes it’s about trying to write in a way that’s akin to taking a quiet bath in the middle of Times Square. And the billboards and traffic? My own brain.
Maybe we fall into Consciousness and can’t get up? Maybe the noise of a thousand tiny people in our heads telling us how to be and sound and watch out for this and don’t do that gets in the way of us carving out something fresh and true?
I forget to light the candle of Intuition that has always led the way …
Any writer can break down a great song for you and tell you why it works…AFTER it’s written. More often than not, we’re not actually thinking about those things during the process. Occasionally, a listener will point something out that looks like great crafting, and it’s a delight to hear, because I had never consciously worked it out.
We practice, study, listen and pack all the structural tips in the back closet of the brain. But the really natural, poignant writing happens in The Writing Room.
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The Writing Room
The Writing Room is not a physical place but a mental Safe Room, where almost everything the writer needs lives. Stacks and drawers of metaphors, images, memories, stories, poetry, vocabulary, rhythm and rhyme line the walls (if you’re messy like me…maybe yours is more orderly).
Self-consciousness is most definitely NOT in the room. Self-consciousness takes up lots of space, distracts from and suffocates art.
On a great day, the process is vertical, spiritual, intuitive. In that space we are free to focus every fiber on serving the song at hand. In that space, every syllable matters, every melodic nuance is measured and shaped, but it happens not in a lab but on a birthing table.
Like any good birthing room, the baby is delivered after hard labor in a safe and relatively serene environment. And she looks a little like her parent and a LOT like a brand new thing that never existed before.
(Hey, that looks like my keyboard – all covered in books and handwritten papers! I thought I was the only one who buried her instrument under composition books!)
Thank you so much for this post. It’s so good, so true. From the first sentence (oh, yes, I have felt that way so, so many times) to grabbing the ideas before they’re gone to the unconsciousness of it all. And focus and serenity – so important! There are times that I need to write but can’t because of all the commotion. (Those would be the times I put in earplugs and retreat to an empty corner.) Thank you for writing all of these ideas out – so many that I think about yet never put into words.
I sometimes think of some of the great reformers and leaders of the church in the past – what made them live lives that were constantly overflowing with writing so profound, so beneficial? As i observe my life, i notice that greatest waves of writing come in the seasons of most intense application of Scripture to my life. The times in which I am rigorously seeking to live a gospel centered life are the times of greatest depth and profundity. As truth collides with life, its like ‘fire in your bones’ (to borrow the words of the prophet Jeremiah) and just cannot be kept inside.
I love this, Chritsa. I totally get that cranky, anxious, irritable feeling when I haven’t had a chance to sit down and labor over words… it’s a strange sensation, but you put it so well… Awesome, my friend. I love this:
“Like any good birthing room, the baby is delivered after hard labor in a safe and relatively serene environment. And she looks a little like her parent and a LOT like a brand new thing that never existed before.”
Yes! Beautiful!!
This resonates with me in a deep place. I have only recently come to understand the centrality of the part of me that God created to be a writer. To open her up to the fresh air and light has terrified and exhilarated me after a lifetime of being tucked safely away in journals. Now it is clear that the need is real, and the effect dramatic. Yes to a little bit grumpy. Yes to the well-being of the family. Yes to a birth in peace and serenity.
That last bit doesn’t come easy in a homeschooling house. I have found that speed matters, and the unexpected conduit to speed is music. How it transports me to another place where I am free to open myself like a thirsty flower to God’s whispery drizzle and even His torrent, to let His rain flow out my fingertips into words.
For you this must be different as music is your language, but I marvel at the beauty that He takes what one of His children creates and uses it to undergird another to also create.
Much that I have not written is groaning for expression and you encourage me to give serious attention to the pursuit of solitude as a means of opening the spring. Thanks for sharing this.
[...] for others. Not hard skill-wise, but hard emotionally/psychologically. I couldn’t seem to enter my writing space while sitting in the room with a total stranger and two hours to come up with a “hit.” I [...]