i went to a reading tonight at this FABULOUS bookstore in soho, mcnally jackson. they hold free literary talks/discussions/readings almost nightly. wonderful.
tonight it was daniyal mueenuddin and justin torres reading samples of their [remarkably wonderful] work. at the end in the question and answer session, daniyal talked about his process of writing and his theory then of why so many writers are alcoholics [haha]. "it's impossible to write all day, and so you've written for hours and suddenly it's 11 am and you have the whole day before you. the comfort of warm drink is so tempting."
is it not so brilliant and true? this exhausting process of creation and thought cannot feasibly be sustained for a full day - i mean what can be sustained for a full day? and so i'm wondering about the actual passing of time. i admit i often feel completely overwhelmed by time, by hours meant to be "filled" - even that idea is abhorrent, that time is just to be filled up in some way. and so for artists, how much more difficult? how do you gifted artists who contribute to this blog deal with such a question of comprehending with the very hours that lie before you?
you don't have to answer, i was just so intrigued by the way he put it. interesting, no?
(oh, and lovely xarissa sent me this gorgeous article about david foster wallace, someone who i think thought and struggled a great deal with this question. he's incredible my gosh.)
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With one heart in Burma and a few others in America, this daily sketchboat will sail across that vast, interminable expanse of ocean to bring us happy friends together again.
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3 comments:
I have been thinking about this as well. In fact, there is an interesting blog out there called "Daily Routines" that shows how famous artist and writers have structured their days around their work, what they need to fill their time, how their hours lie before them. Simone de Beauvoir is the newest one: http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/
I know that I only have a certain amount of words in me each day, and if I use them all up too soon, I become sort of incoherent and start to feel useless. But instead of turning to alcohol, I make pastry--which is maybe not healthier but probably less addicting.
i turn to baking, too! or anything that will yield a physical result in a contained amount of time. this means cooking, baking, cleaning, and usually now learning songs on my ukulele. having something that is instantly and materially creative to do helps take the pressure off the hours winding down. after i do something like that i find it's much easier to write. i also have school, teaching, social things, and etc. that help to break up the days. for spring break this week i've been trying to do all my work in the morning, do one social thing in the afternoon, work some more, then another social thing in the evening. it's a rare day when i work for 8-10 straight hours but i definitely had a few of them before my first workshop piece was due. those days are good and exhausting. i totally get into this zone and will not leave my house or even my room except to go to the bathroom.
there's this part in rilke's the notebooks of malte brigge in which malte retells the story of his neighbor. one day his neighbor calculated how much time he had. he counted years, months, days, minutes, seconds. and just before he felt so accomplished with how much time he had left, he realized it started to go down. every second, lost. so he started saving time. seconds at first. he would stop brushing his teeth so long, to save the time. then one day when he felt the passing of time to minutely, he realized that he could feel the swaying of the earth under his feet, and it was overwhelming. so he lied down. and to cover the passage of time, he began to recite poetry.
i think it's sad that poetry became a tool of distraction instead of an instrument of living.
time freaks me out, to be honest. when i think about time, especially ETERNITY, i get anxiety. But I hope it never overwhelms me to the point of utter stillness.
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