I have recently been thinking about the dire effect of writing on my conscious life - and how much easier it is to bury oneself in the work - and not negotiate with recalcitrant children, creditors, clients etc.
Today I heard Deborah Moggach talking about how it was quite a good career to have for your children, because you were at home, but at the same time another writer had said that it wasn't really "you" who was there, but just a husk, because you were too busy thinking about something else. I laughed, because that just about describes it, and I am also much more impatient when I am in writing mode.
But extrapolating a little from that, and throwing in my recent observations about how my rational/intellectual side is being progressively more sidelined by this dreamy, unconscious "creative" function, I suddenly realised that some of the more bothersome thoughts that I have are simply part of this - the ideas that won't go away, and the mild obsessions have seeped out of that unconscious bit.
I had vaguely supposed that the rush of ideas that seems to occur when one writes was a sort of "creative" unconscious - but that it was very much something that one used for work, and left well alone the rest of the time. Of course one's unconscious is full of all sorts of other stuff, repressed memories, desires, horrors, bad experiences, things which one wants to keep a lid on. It now seems that by liberating the "creative" bit I have also given the other bits a bit of an outlet that they did not have before, hence the vague upwellings of anxiety or love or discomfort or embarrassment that occur more frequently now. But perhaps the good thing about this is that I should not worry about it too much, some of these feelings are no longer real feelings, just memories of former feelings, so should not worry me any more. I feel much better about them now that I think I understand what's going on.
It remains to be seen whether this is a good thing in creative terms. What I am clear about is that this kind of writing, the blogathon, ought to be the more rational stuff, and I seem to be managing it tolerably well. My inventive writing ought to be even better - except that I have been doing very little this week (trip to my father, stinking cold, shop minding and even - heavens! friends and family have all impeded writing this week.) And at present M is doing his utmost to to impede this spot of late-night blogging.
Today I heard Deborah Moggach talking about how it was quite a good career to have for your children, because you were at home, but at the same time another writer had said that it wasn't really "you" who was there, but just a husk, because you were too busy thinking about something else. I laughed, because that just about describes it, and I am also much more impatient when I am in writing mode.
But extrapolating a little from that, and throwing in my recent observations about how my rational/intellectual side is being progressively more sidelined by this dreamy, unconscious "creative" function, I suddenly realised that some of the more bothersome thoughts that I have are simply part of this - the ideas that won't go away, and the mild obsessions have seeped out of that unconscious bit.
I had vaguely supposed that the rush of ideas that seems to occur when one writes was a sort of "creative" unconscious - but that it was very much something that one used for work, and left well alone the rest of the time. Of course one's unconscious is full of all sorts of other stuff, repressed memories, desires, horrors, bad experiences, things which one wants to keep a lid on. It now seems that by liberating the "creative" bit I have also given the other bits a bit of an outlet that they did not have before, hence the vague upwellings of anxiety or love or discomfort or embarrassment that occur more frequently now. But perhaps the good thing about this is that I should not worry about it too much, some of these feelings are no longer real feelings, just memories of former feelings, so should not worry me any more. I feel much better about them now that I think I understand what's going on.
It remains to be seen whether this is a good thing in creative terms. What I am clear about is that this kind of writing, the blogathon, ought to be the more rational stuff, and I seem to be managing it tolerably well. My inventive writing ought to be even better - except that I have been doing very little this week (trip to my father, stinking cold, shop minding and even - heavens! friends and family have all impeded writing this week.) And at present M is doing his utmost to to impede this spot of late-night blogging.
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