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24 October 2005
The Galloping Subconscious
Sharman Horwood has published stories in Catfantastic IV, Horse Dreams, Canadian Animals Are Smarter Than Jack, and Departed Family and Friends. In between writing two novels, one of which is a sequel to an Andre Norton novel, she has also collaborated on an alternate history novel, Queen of Iron Years, with Lyn McConchie. She is currently negotiating a contract with TOR to edit collections of Andre Norton's stories.
Ernst Mallin respected hunches; he knew how much mental activity went on below the level of consciousness and with what seeming irrationality fragments of it rose to the conscious mind. His only regret was that he had so few good hunches.... Where do ideas come from? Imagination isn't born in a vacuum; it thrives on fuel. And that, as you know, comes from everything you read, everything you see. Andre Norton gave me the best advice on what to look for, what to read and how to watch people. She herself read magazines, like Archaeology, or newspaper articles about the odd side of human nature. She pointed one out to me: a failed thief who forgot his glasses and wrote an illegible note that apparently said, "this is a roughery." The confused bank clerk directed him to the nearest gardening center. Ms. Norton also suggested I watch people closely, not what they say, but what they do, and the difference between the two. Therein lie the stories. But aside from fuel, there is a second way of promoting creativity, and that is getting in touch with the subconscious. Or rather, as is often the case for me, standing back and getting out of its way as it gallops over me. The subconscious is the part of the brain that voraciously digests material from all your senses and often creates connections between seemingly unrelated things. Like the image of a parrot, and for some reason—probably because both are associated with pirates—a wooden leg. This leads to the idea of a parrot with a wooden leg, and since parrots often speak, it leans over my protaganist's shoulder to tell her she's late for an appointment. As that soup of story ideas continues to stir, I see that it's a computer of the future, and the character in the story has given it this holographic persona . . . and on the story goes. However, in the beginning it was difficult to know exactly how to create a reliable, ongoing—or at the very least, frequent—channel between that subliminal soup of ideas and my conscious mind. Previously, I had always relied on "inspiration," those instants when ideas flashed into my head, often when I was doing something else, like washing dishes. (I can wriggle out of rubber gloves and scramble for pen and paper in record time.) But the moments just weren't frequent enough. Since then, I've found two reliable ways to make good ideas visit more often. Opening the door to your subconscious is a bit like channeling: creating a route by which it can speak to you. But rather than waiting for it to strike when it will, you can encourage it to visit more often simply by habit. Toward that end, I try to sit down every day at 10 a.m. to write, even when I don't have any conscious ideas in mind. I find that when I do that for a solid week, on the day when I don't, ideas pop into my mind at that time just the same. The subconscious is addicted to habit. It also likes opportunity. When I work at writing regularly, more ideas occur to me at the keyboard than in the armchair. In the past, those sudden bursts of inspiration have struck at odd times, but trying to force them to the surface doesn't work either. And I find that if I think about what I'm going to write while away from the computer, I worry about it. As a result of that anxiety, somewhere between the armchair and the desk, words and phrases have a way of disappearing. But if I am looking at a sentence on the computer screen—even a very bad sentence—another one, one that definitely carries on the story line, will often occur to me. I should also point out that as most of you already know, a blank screen is just as lethal as a blank sheet of paper. The subconscious is addicted to comfort, and something about blankness, another sort of vacuum, is inherently uncomfortable. I also find that when I'm having difficulty writing a particular passage, I "feel" more comfortable with pen and paper, and try it out there first. Once I'm done, I have less of a problem transferring that to the computer than the initial creation of the piece. Sometimes not thinking about a story is just as useful as worrying at it. I'm an instinctual writer. I think through the basic plot, but only in a very general sense. When it comes to characterization, the reasons why specific decisions are made, I rely heavily on my subconscious to provide the answers. If I'm having a problem thinking it through, a fatal hesitation sets in. I "hiccup" over key actions, and the words just fizzle away. When that happens, if I leave that piece alone for a time, go do something quite different for an hour, sometimes overnight, I later find that my subconscious has "eased" a solution somewhere within close reach. The subliminal self learns from experience as well. When I started letting it know I was listening to it, it used to hurtle random ideas at me. I was batting down 99 out of 100 of them as simply silly. But over the space of about two years I realized that number was decreasing. Instead of 99 fruitless ideas—most of them obvious—my subconscious was offering 50, ten of them quite useful, another ten good enough to be written down, filed away for future reference. My subconscious was learning the kind of decisions I was willing to make in my stories, what I wanted to say with my voice. In Wildcat Nights, for example, fourteen-year old Plum is learning how to be mature, not an adolescent cutthroat. She uses the wildcats' magic to help her create an illusion, not slaughter the thieves, the first rather ugly suggestion from my all too eager other self. Once your subconscious learns that you are willing to listen, it can get overly enthusiastic as well. Writing is stimulating, and stirs up all kinds of associations you wouldn't normally have considered. (And it doesn't matter whether you're using a computer or a piece of paper, it is the act of creating that stimulates that unconscious part of the brain.) For instance, when I was writing a story about "warding" a kingdom with magic, an idea for a novel on the fostering of a manor ward occurred, one of those complete pieces of serendipity. I wrote it down and put it aside. Then I pulled in the reins, and continued on with the project at hand. But I've kept that note. (I carry index cards with me everywhere.) Nothing is ever wasted. Nor should be thrown away; J.K. Rowling has a chest packed with notes: diagrams, timelines, names, drawings, and plot development, all of it useful in one way or another. The writing habit is a way of life, and your subliminal self is apparently willing to learn from this habit. When it does, inspiration isn't just a random phenomenon any longer. But once you reach that point, hang on—it's quite a ride. |
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