I dislike hate chaos. Very much. Who doesn’t? But it’s an essential state if you want to write fiction. Messiness of the mind is the sine qua non for writers. But, when a piece is finished, it looks so orderly that we – when we first dream of becoming writers – think the process must also be orderly. We have no idea about what happens before that book is neatly printed and bound and settled in its right place, waiting to be to read.
Malcolm Gladwell – he of The Tipping Point and The Power of Thinking Without Thinking – says creative people have messy brains (here’s an illustration of mine: a noticeboard in my study):
And, of course, writing and all creative work is the making of order from chaos. But it’s such an uncomfortable vile feeling that I resist it every day. It’s why I procrastinate. I don’t want to feel that churning, frightening, I’ll-never-make-any-sense-of-this feeling. I don’t want to fail to make order. I hate looking at all the notes I make when I’m not at my desk (conversely I love making them) in their higgledy pile because I don’t know how I’m going to make a story from them. It’s why, on the worst, days, I wish I had a job at a check-out: it would be so very simple (and orderly). But the joy, the indescribable joy, of pulling something through the chaos, finding there really is a working story and a story that works, that joy, that sense of fulfilment, is worth a great deal of uncomfortable chaos. So finding a way to live with acute discomfort of the psyche is essential.
Malcolm Gladwell suggests we creative folk embrace the chaos. Because, he says, if you’re selling soap you have to focus on selling soap and throw every irrelevant thought or idea out, otherwise you won’t be a very good soap-seller. But in the creative world the opposite applies: we gather everything and anything, anything that appeals, anything that sparks an idea or that might work in a story, anything that might become an essential key to a character. But then, naturally, we end up with a pile of chaotically disconnected ideas.
I was talking to a friend the other day – just after the funeral of another friend, so we were in sad and thoughtful mood – and she asked me if I ever felt a sense of chaos when I was writing. I said, ‘Often.’ And as soon as I said it I realised I’d never said it to a single soul before. And so we started talking and thinking and now here are a few more thoughts. And a few conclusions: find a way to embrace/accept/not-run-from the (inevitable) chaos. Know that it will lead somewhere, eventually. Know that it is an essential part of the process. Know that without it, creation cannot happen. Trust the chaos … .
And the thing I would love to have made in a parallel universe where time is infinite and anything is possible, is a beautiful bookshop. At the end of August, Literary Hub published an article about the most beautiful bookshops in the world. Have a look. There are several illustrations, including this bookshop, in Maastricht:
Boekhandel Dominicanen, Maastricht
Doesn’t it make you want to go there immediately?
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