I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the intimacy it takes to write.
I’ve been re-reading the lectures of Robert Olen Butler and he talks about how honest writing doesn’t come from thinking or ideas, but from feeling and dreaming. This is a difficult concept for many of us because there is a lot to think about when we write. But it’s possible we protect ourselves through that thinking and never really dig deep into the white-hot center of our work.
Butler quotes Akira Kurosawa, who says, “To be an artist means never to avert your eyes.”
There’s two ways I interpret this quote in regards to my writing. The first is to be brave. To face the intimacy it takes to write. I think we write to explore the human condition, but often we don’t want to look at the hard truths that make our characters who they are. Or we don’t want to let our characters move honestly through their worlds. We protect them. In many ways we are protecting ourselves. We avert our eyes, because really looking means facing secrets about ourselves. These can be personal secrets or larger truths about humanity that challenge our beliefs. Writing forces us to look at issues we may not be ready to face.
It’s scary. It takes courage.
My second interpretation of Kurosawa’s quote is about experience. We interact with our world sensually through our bodies: the taste of papaya, the texture of soft gooey fruit, the tremble of a lip in the face of bad news. The writing I love to read (and strive to write) grounds us in our bodies and its interaction with the physical world. To never avert your eyes is to be in the body of your character from moment-to-moment. It means never glazing over the emotion, but being present to feel the world through your character’s skin. It’s easy to analyze when we write and pull back and summarize. The second we step back and look at the character from the outside, discussing emotion rather than allowing a character to sensually feel it, we’ve averted our eyes from the experience and are labeling it. Controlling it. I think we do this because to truly feel something with our character means we must make ourselves vulnerable.
Robert Olen Butler says: “If I say art doesn’t come from the mind, it comes from the place you dream, you may say, ‘Well, I wake up screaming in the night. I don’t want to go into my dreams, thank you very much. I don’t want to go to the white-hot center; I’ve spent my life staying out of there.”… Here’s the tough part: you have to go down into that deepest, darkest, most roiling, white-hot place … whatever scared the hell out of you down there – and there’s plenty – you have to go in there; down to the deepest part of it, and you can’t flinch, can’t walk away.”
I believe there’s a point in your writing when you will be ready to do this. It’s not something anyone can force on you. It’s your choice. But when you decide to open up and enter this dark place – it will scare you. You might reject it and want to stop writing.
Don’t.
Be fearless. Face the intimacy and bravery your work demands. Don’t avert your eyes. This is the place where your best work will come from.
Photo Credit: Beth Retro Photography, Digital Vision
Excellent quote and very insightful commentary. Thanks Ingrid!
Thank you, this post really helped remind of how need to start writing again.
Reblogged this on Wild About Words and commented:
Ingrid’s thoughts on writing was the perfect thing for me to read over my morning’s cup of coffee. I like how by reading the life writing of other authors, she was able to see something in her own writing life. This is why she and I are good friends. Also, because she’s awesome.
That one line “”Don’t avert your eyes,” hit me right where it hurt. I’ve been doing that. It is holding me back. I also struggle to hear as everything should be heard -my judgment has a way of muting the sound of another’s voice in my ear and later I realize how much I have missed. My characters, my writing, all suffer when I avert my eyes and let judgment muffle the truth. Great post.
Thank you Ingrid. I have been writing about healing the mother daughter relationship and I feel I’ve saved the beest for last – writing about intimacy and vulnerability, guilt and shame. It has taken years of learning to be patient with myself and give myself permission to only write 10 mins if that’s all I can process of a memory that day. The most important thing that has helped me is to let the writing come through me instead of bypassing it through my head and allowing my head to process it. As long as it comes through the heart and out the fingertips fear can be overcome.
Beautiful post, well said.
I’m really touched by all the comments coming in about this post. Writing is hard and intimate. I commend you all for being brave.
I needed to hear this. Thanks, friend.
A nice post, Ingrid. Kurosawa has long been one of my primary mentors.