As many of you know, my next novel, called THE DREAM LOVER, is about George Sand. I loved reading about her and was inspired by so many things she thought about and said. One thing I liked a lot was this: The work of the spirit is not just using the brain, but the legs. This was in a letter that she wrote to a frustrated Gustave Flaubert, whose work was going much too slowly; but I think its something that might be said to everyone. I hear stories all the time of writers who sit motionless before their empty pages, waiting for inspiration to come. But all thats needed, sometimes, is for us to leave our desks and go out into the world for a look at nature and the interactions of our species. Who knows what lessons can be taught or metaphors inspired by a simple turn around the block? Into your begging basket [thanks, Betsy Woodman, for sharing that concept with me, begging basket] go snippets of conversation you overhear, the variation in leaves, the sight of a kid hanging by his knees on the jungle gym, a very old person gamely pulling open the door of a cafe, a young couple walking hand-in-hand, dreamy eyed. And its not just writers who profit from turning away from work to get AT their work: Richard Feynman, the great theoretical physicist, said he solved problems by playing frisbee. There is something about the rhythm of ones own footsteps, the movement past things familiar and not familiar that is centering and calming. It makes your mind open up. Maybe when you come back to your desk, youll write wonderful pages, or solve a problem that had you stymied. Maybe not. But you will have furnished your soul with things that work against isolation and abstraction and tightness, and move you toward appreciation and connection and wideness.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 15:26:08 +0000
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