On Writing:
No Pain, No Gain
Copyright © 2007. 500 words.
"Pain, instead of being something to avoid, can actually bring us closer to the truth."
Pema Chodron
The most startling thing that I've found about the writing process is that it is all about tapping the unconscious well, going to that deep dark place where cave spiders dwell, and which exists in every one of us. There are those who have a hard time with that idea, who want to deny that they have a dark place, and they are certainly have the right to own that. But I have always, and with no apology, courted the caves in my creative realm, undoubtedly stemming all the way back to childhood, when my Magical and Wounded Child Archetype was in full throttle, inventing and befriending monsters and demons, as a way of coping with emotional wounds. Its a developmental device that often follows us into adulthood. And I believe that it completely takes the wheel when we begin to be creative beings and enter the realm of imagination. Even when we have no intention of plumbing depths with our writing, even when our exterior motives may be something lighthearted, funny, or warm, without even realizing it, we're plumbing. That is the beauty of our primal intuitive; for while our ego may be afraid or unwilling to go to the caves, our primal intuitive is always fearless, and is a part of that higher consciousness whose instinct it is to strip away attachment (such as the attachment to prettiness and uncomplication).
A friend once asked me why my novels always seem to be about death or violence, and he asked in a manner that betrayed his genuine concern for my tendency to court nightmares. I tried to explain to him that it wasn't about finding fashion in a kind of bleak chic. I also told him that I thought it was more accurate to say that my novels are always about people who are damaged in some way. And that it is my deepest belief that the damaged nature of humanity is where the truth of the human condition lies.
We all seek peace and bliss in our lives. I simply believe that the path to peace of spirit is through the dark, tangly, weedy forests. And what greater way to forage through than by way of our creative endeavors. In art, depicting a life of perfect lines and scrubbed corners and sweet confections serves no real purpose other than to anesthetize, which is a perfectly valid agenda. But when our agenda is to be sparked by something, to have our thoughts and ideas provoked, our own realities upturned, this is when the examination of the damaged nature, and facing it unflinchingly, can result in a deeper understanding and appreciation of beauty.
Beauty, for me, is what Heaven is for the religious. It is what we all strive to experience. And it is my belief that all roads lead to beauty. Not just the pretty, idyllic ones. But the rocky, weedy, foreboding ones, as well. And frankly, the rockier the road, the more triumphant the arrival.