Writing about nothing

The irony of this blog will become apparent as you read it. But the main point I want to make in it is actually one worth making. I want to address the question: What does a writer do when he or she has run out of ideas? And yes, this blog was prompted by a moment in which I myself wanted to sit down and write a blog but had completely run out of ideas. Hence the irony.

But then my mind kept ticking and I realised I knew the answer to this question.

You see, we live in an amazing, God-given world, a world brim full of incredible facts, experiences, ideas and stories. The problem is never that there is nothing to write about. It is only that a person (such as myself) has somehow found themselves in a place that is hidden away from the world that is there. Perhaps this is through sheer exhaustion (for we all get tired); perhaps it is through spending too long in a boring, colourless place; perhaps it is through simply forgetting to “stop and smell the roses,” even though the roses are right at your fingertips.

Whatever the reason, the solution is obvious. A writer—such as myself—has to re-engage with the world, even if it is only in very simple ways. So here are my top four simple “methods” (what a ghastly, managerial word) of re-engaging.

Firstly, get outdoors (preferably walking). Literally “smell the roses.” In fact, use all your senses to connect with the world that is there. Look at it, listen to it, feel it, smell it, taste it. If you do, you will have a thousand things to write about.

Secondly, read (voraciously). Find a book that inspires or challenges, that reveals new things or reinvigorates old ones. In recent weeks I have read C.S. Lewis’ God in the Dock and The Abolition of Man, A.A. Milne’s poetry, Anthony Horowitz’ Stormbreaker, two books about the future of artificial intelligence and one about the history of philosophy, and the Bible’s Mark, Ephesians, Hosea and more. All contained radical, inspiring things, and sparked all sorts of thoughts, like water splashed vigorously over a toaster. (Please don’t try that at home, but the metaphor is apt.)

Thirdly, spend time imagining. If you’re a writer like me, you’re probably something of a creative tragic. Allow yourself time to imagine and dream, preferably with pen and paper handy. Ideas, characters, landscapes and stories will somehow materialize, and all sorts of possibilities will begin to present themselves.

Fourthly, converse with really interesting people. Fortunately there are still a reasonable number of such characters to be found, in spite of the horrible march of commercialisation. But you still have to make the effort, once you have met them, to talk about interesting things (otherwise what is the point?). Yet, if you do, well again it’s like the water and the toaster. Sparks will fly. Ideas will form.

So there. I set out to write about “writing about nothing,” and I actually wrote about something. It only goes to show that the world really is relentlessly interesting, if I only allow myself to notice what is there. I think I’ll go for a long walk.

(c) Peter Friend, 2019

The lazy writer

Most of us, I guess, get lazy. We like to sit down in an easy chair, with coffee in hand, and do nothing. Or we watch TV, which is worse than doing nothing, because it feels like someone is doing something on the screen—but of course it’s not us.

But if you’re a writer, then there’s one thing that you have to actually do, otherwise you’re not a writer. Yes, you have to write! And that means that you can’t just sit in a chair and do nothing. You have to put words on a page. Lots of words. You have to think too, for words flow out of thought; there has to be a certain logical flow to your words, with decent connections, and an overall shape.

Now, I’m a bit afraid that this blog is simply stating something that is really, really obvious. But, if my own experience is anything to go by, it’s an obvious truth that bears restating. For there have been long periods of my life as a writer when I haven’t actually written anything. I have let days, weeks, even many weeks, slip by without writing anything new. I have generally had excuses for this. I have been busy on other things, like my job as a teacher, for example, or administration (even administration connected with my writing). The one thing I haven’t been doing as a writer in those times is actually writing.

And so I have found I have often had to stir myself to “get writing” again.

Yet, when I have done so, I have discovered an interesting thing. The very act of “getting writing again” sparks ideas. It is not as though you have to always have the ideas first (although it works that way too). It seems that the purposeful act of writing forces ideas to coalesce and take shape. Ideas come to life as you write them down. Sentences, once written, suggest more sentences. And paragraphs, once formed, suggest yet more paragraphs.

I once sat down to write a kids’ story with nothing in my head but vagueness. I scrawled a first sentence. I wrote: “A funny thing happened on my way to school this morning.” That was it. When I wrote it, I had no idea what funny thing had happened! But simply writing that first sentence got me engaged. A next thought came, and I wrote a second sentence: “My trousers caught on fire.” I still didn’t know why my trousers had caught on fire. But now I had a scenario that begged to be explained in my story. So I pressed on, intrigued as to what might have caused this odd event. And the story grew and grew, and was eventually published in a kids’ magazine (Touchdown) as a short story called “Late note,” illustrated by the great Andrew Joyner.

But the point is this. I would never have written that story at all if I hadn’t just started. If I’d been lazy and hadn’t written that day, the story would never have been birthed, and would never have grown into a published piece.

That’s why I often simply force myself to write—because each sentence, once written, grows into the next. And new pieces of writing somehow eventuate.

The alien at the bus stop

In my last blog I wrote about how writing “anywhere” has become a major feature of my writing life. I don’t need a special place to write. I just need some place to write (although a special place is always nice)

This phenomenon is well illustrated by a story I once wrote at a lonely country coach stop, a coach stop that will forever be associated in my mind with a certain inter-planetary alien.

Let me explain.

I was in the little historic town of Gulgong in country New South Wales, the birth place of the poet Henry Lawson. I had gone there for a few days on a bit of a writing trip, observing the heritage-preserved buildings and visiting a few quiet museums and galleries. I had taken lots of notes. On my final day, I had hours to fill before my afternoon coach, and I had already checked out of the cabin that had been my accommodation.

So I sat on the bench seat of the coach stop, alone. And I wrote for hours in the open air. I had with me the beginnings of a short story that I had started at home. I suppose that’s the first thing to note about this particular episode. I was prepared, at least on this occasion. I had a piece of writing I could work on no matter where I was.

It was a fun story called “A question of identity,” and it had nothing at all to do with Gulgong or historic Australia. It ended up being published as the cover story of a kids magazine (pictured above, and superbly illustrated by an artist called Craig Phillips). The story was about an alien creature—a Zark.

The Zark was (intentionally) a bit of a mystery. In the beginning of my story, it was found just wandering about near the space drome on a futuristic Earth. But it wasn’t from Earth. In fact, it wasn’t to be found on the official database of one billion known galactic species. So the boy who found it had to take it with him to school, since the authorities (like authorities everywhere) didn’t want anything to do with it, because it wasn’t on their list.

It was this odd set-up that I was playing with while sitting at the coach stop in Gulgong. So I suppose that’s the second thing to note about this episode. It’s possible to be in one place in the real world, and in quite a different place in your imagination.

The Zark became clearer in my mind as I wrote. It was roughly the size of a large dog, and it was covered in long green fur; in some respects it was reminiscent of a sloth. But beneath the fur, as the boy in the story found out when he stroked it, the creature wasn’t warm like a dog or a sloth. No, the skin beneath the fur was reptilian and cold. And its feet were like those of a large bird. But the most striking thing about it was its head. It had a large beak, shaped like an eagle’s but five times as large—as large, in fact, as a pelican’s. The beak was razor sharp. It looked like it could rip open an elephant!

Was the creature safe? This, I decided, was the key point of tension in the story. The creature had followed the boy quietly to school. It seemed tame. It didn’t seem dangerous. But what exactly was this creature that wasn’t on any database? And why was the huge beak so sharp?

Without giving too much away, I can at least tell you that the Zark did turn out to be a member of one of the most dangerous species in the galaxy! It really could rip open elephants if it wanted to. The rest of the story was about what happened in the boy’s classroom when the Zark’s true identity was discovered. (I can also let you know that no kids or aliens were harmed in the making of this story.)

By the time the coach arrived I had pretty much finished my Zark story. I edited it once I got home. And so far this story has been published by that kids magazine not just once but twice. It remains one of my favourites. But it also remains a prime example in my writing life of writing something “anywhere”.

Writing in all the wrong places

I suppose, if you’re like me, you probably dream about your ideal writing spot. Perhaps it is an antique study, with an old cedar desk and walls lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases (neatly dusted). Perhaps it is a room by the sea, where a gentle ocean breeze blows through a window and the sound of seagulls slowly soothes your ears like a distant song. 

However, if you’re actually like me, you don’t have a place like that at all! Instead, you live in some noisy house in the suburbs: the TV blares, the phone drills at your ears, and the washing-up glares at you in an ever-increasing tower. All the talk in how-to-write books and seminars about constructing your perfect hideaway where you can quietly write day after day, month after month, seems like a cruel joke.

And so I have learnt, over the years, to write in all the wrong places. I am writing this sentence, in fact, on a busy commuter train, with announcements blaring (but I have mostly tuned out of those) and people getting on and off every few minutes. It’s surprising what you can do when you have to. I find that the very act of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) creates a mini-environment of its own. The words form—and such is the power of those words that they draw me in. I listen to the sentences as I construct them, and the linear form of the sentences draws me on into the next sentence and the next. 

It doesn’t always work like clockwork, of course. Sometimes I run into a blockage in my thoughts, and then my actual environment reasserts itself. It means I’m jolted back to the packed train. My attention wanders through the windows to the fast-passing buildings. My storyline is gone. 

Yet writing “anywhere” has worked for me so many times that it has become, over the years, a major feature of my writing life. (I have got off my first train now and am sitting on a platform waiting for my next connection. But I’m still writing.) It makes me think of all the odd places I have scrawled out sentences at different times.

I have written at bus stops and train stations. I have written on ferries and long-distance coaches. I have written in noisy food-courts in shopping centres (where the hundred conversations become mere white noise). I have sat on the sand writing on the beach, or perched on a clifftop looking over the sea. I have set up a rickety old desk in a shearing shed in the country. I have sat writing on logs in the bush. And of course—but this is a no-brainer—I have written in coffee shops and libraries.

Many of my published pieces have come from odd places. I’ve written poems by the sea, and parts of a novel staring at rugged cliffs. One of my favourite short stories—about an alien creature—was substantially written at a lonely coach stop in rural New South Wales. But that is a story in itself. I’ll have to tell you about it sometime. 

So these days, I’m again taking opportunities to write anywhere and everywhere. I’m finishing these sentences on my second connecting train. I’ve barely noticed the trip. It might not be the “right” place to write, according to the experts. But it’s worked for me more times than I can remember, and I’m not about to give up yet.