The other day, my brother-in-law asked me if I was writing. It was one part artist-to-artist (he's a musician) "how's work?" and one part parent asking "did you clean your room?" or "did you check your oil?" I'm sure I'll be hearing this question a lot, since the great fear is that MFAs stop writing when they finish their programs.
I answered with: "a little, not much...well, I've been writing in my journal." Actually I've written two poems since school let out, so I'm not so terribly far behind. I, like Jeannine, am more of a wait-for-inspiration poet, so I don't feel like I'm slacking off because I haven't been glued to the blank page lately. But the question got under my skin. Maybe I should be trying harder, forcing inspiration instead of waiting.
But then there's this--I can't find the article so I can't give direct quotes, but I believe the piece was written by Donald Murray, one of the few composition scholars I can really stand behind, and he wrote that what many people call writer's block isn't. He calls it the "essential delay" and explains that when experienced writers aren't writing, it's not because they don't have the ideas, or the inspiration, it's because it isn't the right time. People need time to process information, to do mental cataloging, and to deal with the internal editor before they sit down with pen and paper (or laptop and blank screen). A writer can sit on an idea or project for a week, a month, until the last possible moment before the deadline, but they're not procrastinating, they're processing. I love this idea. (I apply it to my academic writing all the time--I need a lot of time to think about my research before I can come up with a good, arguable thesis.)
Maybe it's just a fancy, academic excuse. But I'm sticking with it. For me, the essential delay is in this transition between my thesis and whatever comes next. Like a rebound relationship. I'm afraid that anything I start now won't stick. I need to finish, I mean really finish my thesis--to the point where it's no longer my thesis but a manuscript I'm circulating--before I can get serious about project #2. So no, I'm not writing much these days. But that doesn't mean I'm not thinking. That doesn't mean the poems aren't writing themselves in the back of my mind right now. There's not a lot of new work piling up on my desk, but that doesn't make me any less a poet than I was this summer cranking out 10 pages in a weekend.
So, what do you think? Is the "essential delay" a fancy excuse, or does it happen to you, too?
Poem: Far Gone
2 days ago
5 comments:
Yes. It's a fancy excuse, but one I hold up with all my being.
I agree. It is a fancy, "academic" excuse --- but it's one I use, and one my students use, although they don't call it "essential delay"!
I have to write poems in my head--at least a quarter of the thing--before I even bother to write it down.
I'm a percolator.
That said, I do have more productive times than others. I like writing poetry when I should be doing something else.
I'd come at it the other way -- trying to write before essential percolating time is done can easily scuttle a project for me. I actually visualize different projects as pots simmering on a stove, and self as giving a quick stir or tossing in a new ingredient, in passing, as they simmer.
Essential delays are essential I think. My longest was 4 years, so don't sweat it. The soul creates when it creates. Create a life that lets it create. Live a life that lives.
Happy new year from another state,
brent
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