Back Stories: On Writing, by Jack Stanza

ON WRITING:

Jack is the father of the main character, Strix, in 0w1:believe. He was known as the ‘toxic poet’ for his acerbic political poetry and became a victim of the Security Services, but that wasn’t the end of his stories.

losing weight

In one sense, as a writer I feel that after a project – a novel, a book of poems – is completed, it is like losing weight, because you have off-loaded all these thoughts, ideas and clever yarns. It was as if we carried a burden that needed to be exercised or exorcised and as the words fall on the page, we are somehow lightening our load.

It’s a burden, because writing has to cost us something, or it’s just worthless tattle; easy come-by ideas. A hobby and not a conviction.

However, if it’s a burden then it is going to cost us something. And then, and this is where I contradict myself, wiring can be weightless. For all that this idea or concept needed to be expressed, it needed that we became channels.

Now this isn’t some mindless automaton thing, because to be a channel there has to be the intent to clear all extraneous nonsense, mindless chatter and clutter, from your heart and mind and make sure that the channel is free to allow the flow.

For there is no point being in the stream of consciousness if you cannot channel it. Sometimes of course, clearing the channel of emotional baggage isn’t easy. We writers sometimes need a lot of inner work.

the hobbyist and the career writer

That is the difference between the hobbyist and the career writers, those who have a calling and have found their vocation; the outlet for that calling. The called artist is the one who has learned to suffer and to bring, to carry that suffering into their work. Not as a form of self-expression, something art should never be, but so that when developing a story, we can plummet the depths to find the great pearls of character-building and defining.

The hobbyist is happy to find a little time in their busy schedule to put down their thoughts. There are no visible scars here, no nail marks or spear marks on them, no torn skin on the brow from royal mockery or rejection; no sorrow that casts a shadow across their soul.

The sharing of that shadow over the soul, is where deep empathy comes from, not only for the characters they have drawn, but for the readers to share in and connect with. I’m sure that this is what makes the good writer stand out from the hobbyist; the reader’s and not the writer’s response is what makes the writer great.

The great Russian filmmaker, Andrei Tarkovsky, said that an artist has no right for there to be a separation between what the artist creates and their social convictions. Sadly, we have reached a time, a cultural time, when much of the Arts lacks that connection to social conviction.

Back to the cleansing of the channel, of the writer. In this, I am affirming the mystical writer, the writer that who continues to have the inner work done, and understands that as a conscious wordsmith, their responsibility is to bring that consciousness to others. That is their sole obligation; not the response to their work, not a manufacturing of consent, nor a persona; public or otherwise, the mask is the last thing a writer needs. Their aim is to connect with their readers and to begin a journey together towards the light within.

the channel

The channel then, needs to be clear to allow this to happen, not to manage it, because that is what the persona, the egoist self wants.

My practice perhaps uses three things to achieve this:

• 1. silent contemplation and the cultivation of stillness.

• 2. listening to Coltrane, Tyner and Miles Davis – this has had a great effect on me.

• 3. reading the mystics – Rumi, Rohr, Finlay, Bourgeault, Bell and the mystical scientists, O’Murchu, Zohar, Lanza, Goswami and Bohr.

Then the writing process is one which we might call kenotic, or self-emptying. That is how we lose the weight of the ego, which is a great cause of writer’s block, but is something that I’ve never struggled with. Why? Because the ego will try and tell you that it’s all down to you to write this darn novel or screenplay, but it’s the self-same ego that is causing the blockage.

However, if you as a writer are prepared to cleans the lens, to cleanse the channel, then you will find that inspiration comes when you are open and not getting in the way of the flow.

the operation of consciousness

This short essay came from a single seed thought of a writer losing weight when they had finished a project.

Writing is the operation of consciousness, but not every writer is conscious.

A final word about kenotic practice, of emptying yourself as you write. Why is this important?

Consider that the inspiration you receive is akin to a seed thought. A seed not only has the DNA for ‘seed’ within it, but also for what the seed will grow into, or become. But for that to happen it needs to be planted in some good soil and once it dies, something new comes from it.

This we might say, fills the writer, once they start to plant the seed and let it die, it then becomes something much bigger. Not just a concept (seed), but what it needs to build the world for the concept to grow into. This is part of the creative process, the weight of it; hence me asking if a writer loses weight after they have emptied themselves of all that stuff, out on to the page.

Without it, there is no room for anything else, so I try not to cling to what has been given, but hold it loosely and let others into this new world. Then and only then does it come to life again, in the imagination of others.

Jack Stanza

Words of life, from a fellow poet.

Joy Harjo – “I've always had a theory that some of us are born with nerve endings longer than our bodies.” 

“I know I walk in and out of several worlds each day.”

“Someone accompanies every soul from the other side when it enters this place. Usually it is an ancestor with whom that child shares traits and gifts.”