The value of mindful neglect
Feb. 7th, 2007 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennySo I haven't written a word on Summerdown since last Thursday. Maybe Friday. Obviously, that's in part because I've been busy--CEMs, page proofs, interview, you know, all the usual suspects--but in part it's because I hit a snag at the end of Chapter 3 that turned out to be a muddle, really, at the beginning of Chapter 3, and now I'm thinking even a misstep way back in Chapter 2.
And so all this not-writing--actively not-writing, rather than simply, you know, not writing--has been clearing a space in which I--and the parts of my brain which do all the heavy lifting, which are not necessarily the parts of my brain that wander around calling themselves "I" and admiring their own sapience--can think.
(You know, I've been noticing recently that I punctuate with dashes kind of a lot. Emily Dickinson is my co-pilot?)
There's probably something about negative capability in here something, because I haven't been actively, consciously thinking about Summerdown most of that time. I've been thinking about the CEM of A Companion to Wolves, about Criminal Minds, about how OMG COLD! it is, about a couple of other projects I'm sort of working on and sort of not ... periodically, I've looked over at Summerdown and gotten the mental equivalent of a busy signal: "Nope, still broken, don't talk to me." And I'd leave it alone and go back to playing Zuma.
And then this afternoon, emailing Bear as I am wont to do, the misstep I'd made--back in Chapter 2, remember?--suddenly presented itself to me, properly articulated and accessible. And between the time I'd sent that email and the time I received her reply, I'd found the solution.
Like the cat-flap, now that I've thought of it, it's almost embarrassingly obvious.
And I got to it by letting the book and the problem lie fallow for five days. Now, mind you, I'd hardly advocate this tactic as a general practice, because it's far too close to the Myth of Inspiration. But, sometimes, you do have to know when not to push.
And so all this not-writing--actively not-writing, rather than simply, you know, not writing--has been clearing a space in which I--and the parts of my brain which do all the heavy lifting, which are not necessarily the parts of my brain that wander around calling themselves "I" and admiring their own sapience--can think.
(You know, I've been noticing recently that I punctuate with dashes kind of a lot. Emily Dickinson is my co-pilot?)
There's probably something about negative capability in here something, because I haven't been actively, consciously thinking about Summerdown most of that time. I've been thinking about the CEM of A Companion to Wolves, about Criminal Minds, about how OMG COLD! it is, about a couple of other projects I'm sort of working on and sort of not ... periodically, I've looked over at Summerdown and gotten the mental equivalent of a busy signal: "Nope, still broken, don't talk to me." And I'd leave it alone and go back to playing Zuma.
And then this afternoon, emailing Bear as I am wont to do, the misstep I'd made--back in Chapter 2, remember?--suddenly presented itself to me, properly articulated and accessible. And between the time I'd sent that email and the time I received her reply, I'd found the solution.
Like the cat-flap, now that I've thought of it, it's almost embarrassingly obvious.
And I got to it by letting the book and the problem lie fallow for five days. Now, mind you, I'd hardly advocate this tactic as a general practice, because it's far too close to the Myth of Inspiration. But, sometimes, you do have to know when not to push.
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:)
Date: 2007-02-07 08:09 pm (UTC)I try to stop myself -- but it's just so useful ...
no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 08:19 pm (UTC)I really do have a terribly undisciplined brain.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 11:17 pm (UTC)Isn't that universal? She takes us where we need to go, and then we go back and obliterate the signs of her passage...
no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 11:32 pm (UTC)So, yeah.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-08 08:19 pm (UTC)Yes, I know, I'm a geek.