Finding Silence© by Holly Lisle
All Rights Reserved
We who write or aspire to write make much of place. A place to
work, a room of our own, an office, a nice quiet spot at a corner
diner where the waitresses know not to ask how we're doing if the
pen is moving ... a place in the world to call mine.
We claim this space in the name of writing, and guard it jealously,
because space set aside acts to validate our dreams, and reminds
us of the promise we have made to ourselves---the promise to write.
When we are in our space and writing, spouses need not visit, friends
dare not call, children had better be bleeding or the house burning
down before they interrupt. I have a place, and I love it.
My office is half of a balcony over the living room, a big desk,
a computer and a comfortable typing chair with a firm back. The
desk itself makes up a sort of fourth wall, and it is sufficient
to give me privacy and a sense that what I do is important enough
to warrant space.
Place matters. I hate to think of writing again without it. I've
done it before, it wasn't fun, I got away from it as soon as I could
and have done everything in my power since to keep from sitting
in the livingroom in the middle of mayhem. But place only matters
if we also have the silence to make use of it. And silence is harder
to find.
I'm not talking about the sort of silence you get when the kids
are at school and the spouse is at work and the phone is set to
take messages at the first ring. That sort of silence is fine, but
not essential to work. I've worked in the middle of a convention
with thousands of people streaming past me on either side, all talking
loudly---I knew they were there, but I didn't hear them. And on
many occasions I've tried to work in an empty, quiet house, and
found that the noise in my mind made productive thought impossible.
The silence I'm talking about, the silence we as writers must have
to be productive, is silence inside ourselves. That silence travels
anywhere. We carry it with us as if it were a private retreat in
the mountains nestled next to a crystalline, ice-cold lake, surrounded
by forests and pervaded by peace. And this silence is hard to find
and hard to hold. It is as elusive as a rainbow, as easily shattered
as sugar glass, as rare as a white stag, as skittish as a wild colt.
A single worry about an unpaid bill or an appointment with a dentist
or a remembered argument can destroy this silence for an hour or
a day, and no amount of gritting teeth and frowing at monitor with
fingers poised on keyboard will lure it back.
I have fought my battles with the noise of the mind, and have
lost my own share of time and pages to stupid replays of arguments
and fantasies of future greatness and worries that I can do nothing
about at the moment. I've gradually come to a place where I've started
winning the battle, though, and winning it often enough that I think
I'm on to something.
The search for your characters' voices and your story's action
and the truth of the world that you are building begins in the silence
of your mind. You can reach that silence through training your mind
to stillness---not an easy task, but one that offers tremendous
rewards. While I'm sure people have found dozens of ways to lead
their minds to quiet, I've found that meditation works for me.
I advocate no religious systems and follow none---my meditation
is nothing more than sitting crosslegged on the floor, my hands
clasped in my lap in front of me and my eyes closed, breathing to
a slow count of four. Inhale to four, exhale to four. I slow my
breathing and counting as I begin to relax, I acknowledge stray
thoughts that wander into my mind and immediately dismiss them,
and I sit for fifteen minutes. No more, no less. I have a little
timer that I sit in front of me, and I set it to run backwards---I'm
to the point now where, when I peek at it, I'm almost always just
a few seconds to either side of fifteen minutes, and when my mind
has behaved itself for that long, it seems to be long enough.
For the rest of the day while I write, I can reach that silence
again with a couple of slow breaths while my eyes are closed. I
keep a meditation journal, too, which most days doesn't say anything
more than that I sat for fifteen minutes and more or less concentrated
on my breathing. Some days in the middle of that lovely silence
I have a revelation that electrifies my work. Occasionally while
I meditate I break through a wall that has held me stymied. Mostly
I just sit, and if I only just sat, it would be enough. Because
on the days when I meditate, I invariable finish my allotted number
of pages. On the days when I don't, and when my mind wanders and
chatters and refuses to shut up, sometimes I still manage to succeed.
Sometimes I fail.
Which would make you think that I would never skip a day of meditation
voluntarily, wouldn't it? But I do. The mind resists being made
to behave, and offers all sorts of reasons and enticements and cajoleries
for missing a day, or a couple of days, or a week, or a month. 'You
don't have the time,' or 'you have to pay bills,' or 'you already
know exactly what you want to write today so why don't we just get
to it?' Sometimes my mind is convincing enough, and sometimes I
am lazy enough, that I skip it. And then I regret it.
Finding silence takes discipline, and I'm not always disciplined. It
takes commitment, and sometimes I don't have the commitment. It takes
living up to a promise that I made to myself, and sometimes I don't live
up to it. When I do, I'm better, I'm happier, I'm more productive. And
I keep hoping that the next time my noisy mind tries to get me to skip
my morning silence, I'll remember that. Perhaps what it really takes is
getting smarter. Maybe the silence will eventually even give me that.
Everyday Courage and the Writer>>
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