The Painter’s Trick
Friday, May 2nd, 2008Back in college, when I studied painting, I was frustrated by how much I overworked my pieces until I discovered a great little trick. I could work on several paintings at once. In that way I could spread the neuroses around (so to speak) and be less likely to spoil any one painting.
More recently I’ve been having trouble writing; this is as close as I’ve ever come to having writer’s block. My usual tricks haven’t been working: the timed exercises, the journal writing, even making collages and writing about them. I’ve been reading voraciously, roughly 500 pages a week for the last three months (Hmm, that does feel a little like college…), yet the inspiration just hasn’t been there. Personally I think my muse is allergic to Chicago winters.
In the past I’ve been able to push through it, but this has been a very long dry spell for me. So I’ve been trying to trick myself into writing. I know if I start typing, eventually something interesting will appear; ideas will start to flow. It’s really a matter of persistence. This time the painting trick is working. I’m currently juggling several short stories. It’s a weird feeling not to be immersed in one world, but I have to say it’s intriguing. One hour I’m writing about a barbecue in California, the next a revolution on Mars. Maybe today I’ll go back to the bamboo forest in Japan or will it be the Empire State building on a hazy summer evening? Who knows? Little by little the word counts are increasing. At some point I’ll have a story. Or maybe five.