For All Artists, Especially Writers

For about a year now I've been reading the same book, From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction by Pulitzer prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler. It's taken me a long time not only because I am an extremely deliberate (i.e., slow) reader, but also because I'm studying and applying principles as I go along. It takes a while to absorb.

The back cover explains the premise of the book well: "From Where You Dream reimagines the process of writing as emotional rather than intellectual. It proposes fiction as the exploration of the human condition with yearning as its compass, and reinterprets the traditional tools of the craft using the dynamics of desire."

While outlining the book, I discovered the following list which I extracted from the paragraphs of Chapter 1:

What an Artist Does:
1. An artist encounters the world through his or her senses.
2. An artist recognizes that chaos is at the heart of everything.
3. An artist has in intuition that behind the chaos there is meaning - and a deep and abiding order.
4. An artist lives moment to moment through the senses.
5. An artist recombines sensory experiences into a book (painting, sculpture...), allowing others to experience those sensations for themselves.
6. An artist is able to express his or her deep intuition of order.

Butler stresses that real art does not come from ideas - it comes from the unconscious. He says that if you analyze your way into a work of art, you will be at odds philosophically with what art is and where it comes from. The point of contact with the reader (or viewer, in the case of the visual arts) is emotional and sensory.

I loved the quote that opens the book:

To be an artist means never to avert your eyes. - Akira Kurosawa, Japanese Film Director

On Procrastination

Why is is called PRO-crastination? It certainly isn't PRO-active.

Pro*cras*tin*a*tion
The word first appeared in print in the 1540s (a very old vice)
Pro means "for"
Cras means "tomorrow"
Thus procrastination means "for tomorrow" (makes sense)

1.To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness.
2.To postpone or delay needlessly. (American Heritage Dictionary)

From an interesting web site called babeled.com, here is a brief statement about procrastination:

In a 2007 study, Piers Steel, a University of Calgary professor, noted that 26% of Americans considered themselves as chronic procrastinators. Dr. Steel attributes procrastination with a rise in the distractions that affect most people. With the increasing diagnosis of ADD and SLOT, people have more reason(s) to procrastinate. Just remind yourself that when you are procrastinating, you are really planning on doing it tomorrow, not next week.

I thought I might as well study the phenomenon of procrastination because I am becoming quite expert at it. At this moment, I am over eight hours overdue with a newspaper story and still not knuckling under to write it. Am I rebelling or procrastinating? I'm not sure. If I am rebelling, what it is that I am rebelling against?

Four weeks of Census training schedules and deadlines, I think. But my part of the Census is over now and things should get back to 'normal' as soon as I get this story written and take care of a few other odds and ends that were neglected while I trained enumerators, many of whom, by the way, are still waiting to be contacted for actual Census work. Ugh!