The Zone

Creative people often speak of having "entered the zone", a place where time loses importance and the focus is exclusively on the creative process. They allow the muses access to their subconscious mind, to freely dance and play with their own words, longings, and experiences. Furthermore, they trust that some beneficent force will act as a screen, filtering out negative influences while allowing the cream of the collective unconscious to flow in.

Those of us who are amateurs wait hopefully for the muses to guide us into the zone. Sometimes we manipulate the time of day or our location or the use of tools (a computer or notepad?) to seduce the muses into giving up their inspiration. Other times we grit our teeth and close our eyes in an attempt to force the arrival of anything that might pepper our blank slate.

I confess that I expect the muses to arrive by way of a mail order catalogue. I will read every entry in the writer's book club flyer searching for "The One", the book that contains the secret to writing and will reveal itself to me for $19.95 plus shipping and handling. More often than not, I'm disappointed when it arrives. Either it demands work ("develop your craft") or attempts to entrap me in structure and terminology when all I really want to do is write something worth reading. It's not likely that I will, in this lifetime, do anything worth being written about by someone else. So the remaining alternatives for me seem to either be forgotten or to write.

Often these books on writing are a collection of personal experiences of writers about how they "broke into publication." One entry in one of the several books like this that I own is my favorite. Both the title and the entire article is "Just Send the Damn Thing In."

I also like to read quotations from writers. The Nebraska Center for Writers has on their website (http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/ncw/quotes.htm) an extensive list of quotations that are categorized according to craft, editors and critics, publishing, reading, teaching, and the writer's life. I could spend days perusing this website. It's loaded with wisdom and inspiration.

For example, Alice Walker said "Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence." She lost an eye when her little brother shot her with a BB gun. Maybe what she intended was that writing saved her from doing violence. That I understand completely.

Grace Paley, a proficient writer who died within the past year, said, "The best thing is to read and write, no matter what. Don't live with a lover or roommate who doesn't respect your work. ... Write what will stop your breath if you don't write." I have learned the hard way to avoid talking about writing to anyone who is not supportive. It's bad enough to have an inner critic but when it becomes externalized and tangible, even writing may not be enough to save me from doing violence.

I like the Nebraska website. It's free and I don't have to pay for shipping and handling. However, it's cost is in spending time outside the zone. It's only during the time in "the zone" that I can't breathe unless I write.