Writing With The Black Dog (Feb 1, 2010)

(This is a repost from the old VOX blog - apparently a few of those didn't make it to here when I migrated.)

"Writing won't banish depression. But depression doesn't have to banish writing. If you can manage to write through a depression, you will be in distinguished company. And you will very likely write something of worth."

-Susan Shaughnessy, Walking on Alligators

Many creative people suffer from some form of depression. The poet Byron referred to depression as "The Black Dog", as did Mike Wallace and Winston Churchill, but the phrase may have originated as early as Roman times. The idea of having 'a black dog on your back' has been around a long time, and it seems artists represent a large portion of the population of depressed people. Writing when depressed is very difficult. When you feel as if you're worthless, that you'll never succeed, that the future is a bleak and empty landscape with no light and no joy, it can be nearly impossible to put pen to paper, paintbrush to canvas. But it is possible to write through it.

This morning I found myself desperately wishing to avoid the day. I dozed off for an extra twenty minutes, then hopped out of bed to make up the time. I received a troublesome piece of news in the mail on Saturday (why do they always send them on the weekend?) and though I fought off the funk in order to enjoy my weekend, on Monday I'm reminded that the issues I ignored for two days are still there and still need to be dealt with. I wrote in my Morning Pages, despite not really wanting to, and discovered therein a silent, non-judgmental friend. I've written Morning Pages for many months but never had this sense of 'whatever you want to say, I'm here to listen' before. It was a great relief, and I finished all three pages and came up with a potential story idea to boot.

I'm a little puzzled by my success, though I'd never say I'd beaten the Black Dog. I don't think it's possible to 'beat' it. You have to learn to live with it, and each day typically brings a new struggle. But here I am, writing for my blog, when really I wanted most to just hide somewhere until the world got a little less scary. The world doesn't change, though; it's up to me to adjust my view and make plans to sort out my problems, where applicable.

That said, I'll point out it's easy to say such things when I'm feeling alright, like I am right now. I have a cup of hot tea and since WRTI is doing a membership drive (I'd love to become a member, but my money needs to go other places just now, guys, sorry) and therefore doing more talking than music-playing, I've got Gustav Holst's "The Planets" symphony in my earbuds. It's very nice. I just heard "Neptune, The Mystic" and now "Venus, The Bringer of Peace" is playing. I feel tranquil and content. The sun is shining and though it's frigid outside, it's comfy here in my study. I've pushed past the Black Dog and am letting him follow me, though not close enough to nip at my heels. Not now. Not today.

Attack of the black dog and other metaphors

Lately I've had a big heavy weight on my back, a weight which makes it all but impossible for me to do much of anything. Laundry? Half-done. Cleaning? Feh. Writing? You have got to be kidding. Even my brief foray into art via Yupo paper last week, while fun, was too little too late.

This happens to me from time to time. It usually lasts a few days, maybe a week, then fades away, leaving me to pick myself up from the floor, dust myself off, and get back to things. I wonder if it's better to give in to it when I know it's coming. I fought it off last week with fair success until the weekend, at which point I was swallowed by the wave, pushed underwater to tumble and spin in the fury of my own emotional turmoil. I know I'll resurface in a little while, but in the meantime it's oh so easy to get down on myself for not writing/painting/working/cleaning/whatever.

Maybe I just need a few mental health days. Am I allowed? The black dog says no. But it's easy for him to make decisions from his position square on my back. Would someone please throw a stick for him to fetch or something? Honestly, it's old already.

Not Quite Making It

Recently much of my creative energies have been sucked up by a role-playing game I'm playing. My weekly group has begun The Dresden Files RPG and it's a lot of fun. I had planned to sit down this weekend and do some writing based on our adventures thus far, but I didn't quite make it.

I'm doing a lot of not quite making it lately, and I don't like it. I didn't quite make it Friday, when I missed posting an article in here. I had some paperwork to prepare for a meeting, and then I had to go to the meeting, you see, and by the time I got home it was time for lunch.

I do my best writing in the morning, I feel. It's the designated time for it in my schedule. Having a schedule is good. Having so strict a schedule that it doesn't occur to me to write at any other time of the day is less good. I've also fallen out of the habit of writing. Julia Cameron quite correctly points out, in a lecture I listened to, that when creatives are working - writing, painting, acting, whatever - they're in much better moods than when they're not. That day a couple of months ago when one of my characters seized me by my figurative lapels and stuck me in my chair and demanded to be written was wonderful. I felt great the rest of that day. I had written a lot of words and I felt accomplished. And I had a living, breathing character who, while rather bossy, was very real to me, and made the writing easy. Less like I was writing her than she was doing what she does and I just wrote down what I saw. My best writing is like that.

It occurs to me that I wrote that bossy character into a scene during the afternoon. But that morning I had sat down to write fiction on purpose, darn it, and it seemed to have primed the pump, so to speak. After lunch I sat down at the computer and wrote a few thousand words.

It comes back to discipline. If I want to write, I have to sit myself down and write. I'm not the greatest at that. And when the black dog comes around, it's even more difficult. But I pledge to try harder this week. We'll see what develops.

Bus Stop Sketching

This morning as I was writing my Morning Pages I decided to sketch the kids at the nearby bus stop on a piece of watercolour paper. It's hard to see details from this far, looking through the screen in the window of my study. I tried to get basic shapes, quick sketches, and made notes ala Gabi Campanario as to the colours of things.

I think a better plan would be to use a sketchbook and just do a bunch of speed sketches of various things the kids are doing, then later use one or two of them as the basis for a painting.

It's hard to sketch kids at a bus stop at 8 in the morning. They're in constant motion, save this morning for a few minutes when they clustered around the crossing guard to investigate what I think was a dog. It's a whirlwind of colours and shapes that's nearly impossible, so I believe, to represent in mere two-dimensional art.

They chase each other back and forth. Though I can't hear what they may actually be calling to each other, their voices drift to my ears over the noise of my loud print server and other street traffic. One child, presumably a girl, judging by what I could make out of her clothing, stood out near the curb away from the others, her arms pulled inside her off-white sweater, swinging from side to side, flapping the empty sleeves in the breeze. I've seen kids do this before. I've more than likely done it myself in my childhood. But the image was intriguing - the light coloured torso, turning back and forth, with flapping fabric waving wildly through the air. It's clear in my mind, but, I suspect, will prove difficult to capture on paper with my sketching pencils.

It feels good to be able to sit here and type all this today. I've been underwater for a week or more, held just under the surface most of the time. The sun is breaking through the clouds and I have a plan of action today. The trees and bushes are budding, the flowers are blooming. It promises to be a nice finish to the week in my part of the world, and I pledge to take advantage of it.

A Rough Week

I feel kind of like a hack today. The latter half of the week has been rough for me. I've been plagued by old enemies from within, been driven down (and allowed myself to sink) into that bleak bog where dwells the Black Dog.

It's so easy to get down on myself when I've not done my writing for the day. Even if it's just writing for this blog, if I haven't touched it in a week, which is nearly true as of today, I feel like a supreme slacker. Monday I looked into joining a critique group with the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group. I'm also considering going back to the Montgomery County Community College's Writers Club, who have a critique group twice a month. I just don't know if I can stand having a room of bright-eyed new writing students circle every single adverb in my piece. There's an article I've been meaning to write for Associated Content about that. "Show, Don't Tell" is about more than adverb usage.

Yet "Self Editing For Fiction Writers" claims to agree, at least in principle, with the idea that adverbs are bad. They contribute to weak writing, the authors say. I believe in moderation. I believe that adverbs are not your enemies as a writer. They're easy to reach on the writer's shelf, but it's best not to get carried away. Don't dump the whole container on your story, but you can sprinkle a 'quietly' or the like here or there without spoiling things.

I've found "Self Editing" to be a very good manual so far. I've read through the first three or four chapters and gone through the exercises provided, and every time I pick up the book it makes me take out my novel manuscript. Which is a good thing, because March is National Novel Editing Month, or NaNoEdMo. I'm not officially participating, but it's a great reminder to get editing/revising. NaNoEdMo demands fifty hours of editing in a month. Having never edited on the scale of a novel before, I have no idea how much that is. With NaNoWriMo I know that 50,000 words is a pretty big deal, especially if you're a member of the "Indiana Jones School of Writing" and fly by the seat of your writerly pants during November.

I had hoped that if I could get my writing legs under me again today I might feel better about life in general. Looking at this post, I think that's a fair bet. Sometimes the best cure for writer's block is to write. Sounds backwards, I know, but having this blog is probably the best thing I've done for my writing life in a long time. I sometimes wonder who's reading this, whether there's any point in my doing this at all. But there is a point, even if I'm not being read. I'm writing. This blog has replaced my daily writing stretch that I did for a few weeks before I realised it was producing something worth sharing sometimes. It's a great way to stretch my writing muscles and grease the wheels of my writer's mind.

I need to remind myself of that now and again.