Happiness

As I mentioned in an earlier post here, I've shared the podium at writers conferences with authors who tell the audience to ‘not even try' writing a book. I've heard the quote, "Writing is like cutting your wrists with a rusty razor" more than once. I have absolutely no idea what these authors are saying. It makes no sense to me. Why would you do something that painful, when it really doesn't matter to anyone else?
     Writing, painting, making things with your hands; these are things we do to fulfill whatever parts of us are in need of fulfilling. I love to write books. I'm always writing books, even if it looks like I'm doing something else. The way a bird flies past, the sound the wind makes, all the little things that make up a story. I've read about how some people spend a year researching their characters, writing down lists of things they like and don't like, and I don't understand that, either. Do we need to fill a character out before we can ‘know' the character? Maybe, but it would drive me nuts.
     We all create differently. I'm not saying you can't learn to write ‘better,' how to know when you've finished, lots of things. But writing comes from a personal place. At least, to me. I write because it's impossible not to write. It's the same with music.
       Luckily, I have Maggie and we have our duo Lucky Mud. We play festivals, bars, concerts and clubs, both here and in Europe. Anywhere they'll have us. We've shared the stage and a home for 40 years. We'll play a four hour gig without taking a break because we forget to take a break. And we don't really want to, anyway.
     We call it ‘the Groove.'
     When we're in the groove, we and the audience share a ride that is absolutely effortless. The energy produced is returned equally. The joy goes both ways. Stopping means losing the Groove, and that means having to find it again.
     That's why I write the same way I play. When I begin a story, or a chapter or a page...it doesn't matter...all else disappears. I may write ten minutes, if distracted, if I can't find the Groove - but once I find it I simply disappear. I'll write for days, for weeks without stopping except to eat or sleep or pee. And all the while I'm doing these incidental things I'm still in the Groove. I'll stumble over things. I'll forget where something is, though I put it there a minute before.
     To write, you have to visit the place you're creating. You cannot, absolutely cannot write a story from a distance. If you don't know that character, or that one-page walk-on enough to keep writing, to stay in the groove, then stop. Close the computer, put down the pen. Close your eyes and imagine the place. Imagine the person, the incident you're creating. Take a breath. Take several, then begin again. If you make mistakes along the way you'll always come back later to correct them in your edits. If you're lucky, like I'm lucky, you'll have someone close enough to you who will tell you the truth. Even when it hurts. Because we blind ourselves in this compulsion to create, and sometimes we blunder without knowing it. We need someone we can trust. Someone who will never let us down, because they're in the same groove.
     That's happiness.


(Tim Fik and Bridget Kelley joined Maggie and me on the Under the Oaks stage at the 2012 Florida Folk Festival Memorial Weekend )