Writing before the Week Ends

“It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written.” - Robert Hass




I have always had this question: should a writing career be shaped like any other? People work all week, and then take rest at the end of the week. Any kind of writing should be out of bounds during the weekend - theoretically.

Over the years, I have come to realize that, writing, when interspersed with breaks, can be continued for the long haul. After a point of intense celebration, the brain stops making any more sentences. Five/week days is lengthy enough to write extended pieces, like stories and novel chapters. Each day of the week, if it results in a few thousand words, can take the writer a far way.

I have personally stumbled upon activities unrelated to writing to be very useful in rejuvenating the mind. Any hobby is useful. Music, movies, painting, traveling, trekking, boating, dancing, exercise - the list can go on. About exercise, it's usefulness to a writer cannot be overstated. Since writing is cerebral, some form of physical activity, especially, can open up the mind.

I am saying this from personal experience. I have noticed that I am more productive when I fit in some time of stretching or yoga, where the body is put under stress rather than the mind. If I spend more time at the gym, then its outcome is more writing, and, I would say, better.

This topic of resting the brain (not the mind) indirectly also points to the issue of 'writer's block' that is so widely talked about. What is actually writer's block? Is it actually a block, or something one can work around, with rest, recreation, and exercise?

A Light Read

I've read quite a few of Maeve Binchy's books over the years. One that I remember is the very thick and hardbound Scarlet Feather. The other notable one is her first book, Light a Penny Candle. And I've just finished reading Quentins.

For some reason, feel a unity with the quaintness of her books. It is about Ireland and Irish people, in a small part of the world, but which is touched nevertheless by the changes that are occurring globally. I like her easy language and narration, the simple stories she tells. I admire her work for the connection it makes with the everyday life of everyday people.

Maeve Binchy has parallels with the world of the woman writer. She is comfortable with the family lives of family people, with the small worries and tensions, about parents and children, about friends and cousins.

Another interest I've noticed in her work is in the catering and restaurant business. She describes the whole operation of running a restaurant with such ease that it looks like she has had some in depth knowledge and experience in that field.

Most of all it looks like she enjoys describing the catering operations to the core.

Chance

Many years ago, I tried reading Joseph Conrad's Chance. The first few pages were like a scene from a movie. There was a lot of activity, which left me breathless. The conversational style also discouraged me. I found it too complex and narrative. So I closed the book, and went on to read other simpler ones. I tried the same way a few more times, then gave up.

Then, a few years ago, sometime around late 2003, praises about Chance in various write-ups goaded me to try one more time. I picked it up again, as it was gathering dust, and to not read it would be a waste of good material. My illness (I don't remember what it was) gave me the time to stick to the pages and finally I was able to finish it. This time, I was able to understand every word of it. The false starts had ended, and I communed with the thoughts of Joseph Conrad.

At times, the dense prose and the endless deliberations were too heavy on my sick head. But the outcome of not giving up easily was that I read an excellent and evocative story by a master storyteller.

The dark and the sombre constantly hung in the air, with the sad life of Flora getting on to me on every page. At times it was frustrating, as I wanted to help her in some way. Everyone seemed to be ill-treating her. Also, people seemed to misunderstand one another, and no single situation could be comprehended in a simple way. Everything was complex and to make each other understand about life easily was difficult.

Miracles do Happen, I agree

As usual, Alexander McCall Smith, the Scottish writer, weaves magic with his observations of simple life in his novel, Miracle at Speedy Motors.

He writes about this detective agency in Botswana, of all places. A detective agency that solves various problems in a rainless, rural, underdeveloped country, with its cultural values, family system, and specific problems.

In Botswana, the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency, the series to which this book belongs, does not deal with complicated murder mysteries, or million dollar ransom cases. It is engaged instead in finding answers to the issues that people in this small place face. Like Sebina, who is on the lookout for her family, hoping she would find someone to call her own, although she has no one. She might find someone somewhere, if she was lucky. So she contacts the Ladies Detective Agency with a request.

In the book, the interactions between Mma Ramotswe and, the owner of the agency, and her assistant, Mma Makutsi, are so clearly portrayed. And often, they are hilarious, and that made me smile all along.

What am I reading now?

I've loved Margaret Atwood's many novels, and the few short stories, that I have read over the years. Just the way I have loved reading Ian MacEwan.

They are both unpredictable. Which creates that tension that is so much necessary for a satisfying read.

Now, off and on, I am reading Lady Oracle. Such desolate landscape, and the dilemma in the young girl's mind. Wonder what will follow when she grows up. Is she an ugly duckling, and eventually turn into a swan?

I wonder, I wonder.