Earlier that morning, the reigns jingled softly in my hands as we rode along a split-rail fence. A velvet breeze rustled the meadow. Prairie grass rose and fell, rose and fell as eight hooves rose and fell, rose and fell. We would talk occasionally, but never for very long. Cowboys don’t talk much, but that wasn’t the reason why. I didn’t know the reason why.
In the spring of 1965, Bob Dylan was finished, says Jonah Lehrer in his incredible book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. He wanted nothing more to do with the music business. He had just finished an exhausting six month tour. He never wanted to play any of the songs he had become famous for again—songs like “Blowing in the Wine” and “The Times They Are a Changing.” He told his manager he was buying a cabin in upstate New York, was quitting the music business, and was “going to become a painter and a novelist.”
He was only there for a few days when he met what he called the “Ghost.” An “uncontrollable urge” to write came over him, and he basically word vomited into his notebook.
Four weeks later, he and his band were in the recording studio, and after four takes they recorded “Like a Rolling Stone,” the song that would change Rock and Roll forever.
Personally, I can relate to Dylan’s experience. Can’t you?
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been struggling to finish a short story. For weeks, I’ve been wrestling with this story and not getting very far. It didn’t feel as much like writer’s block as life block.
And then Jeff told me this story, and said the secret of creativity is to relax. If you relax better, you’ll write better.
This is a guest post by Mariane Vest.
I recently read a book by Charles Baxter called The Art of Subtext – Beyond Plot. Subtext is what is not said, not told, but is implied.
Plot is a twisting bridge over a chasm, says Baxter, a chasm that, in my mind, contains the hauntings, the past, the subterranean, the things people either cannot or will not say, things that we are only partially aware of.
If you want to write a good (and publishable) short story, start by writing a balanced one. There are five elements of storytelling, and if you focus on one element too much your story can get off-kilter and topple.
These five elements are the building blocks of story, and they are:
I’ve been editing a short story for nearly three weeks and I’m stuck. When I was working on it the other day, I got so depressed I said, “I hate this. I never want to write short stories again. I never want to write fiction again. I suck at it too much.”
In other words, normal feelings when you have writer’s block.
