Last night while getting my fix of televised movie-star gossip, I saw a preview of a movie about Johnny Cash. A snippet of a scene seized my attention. A man was haranguing the young Cash about what kind of songs he should write. I don't like to be harangued myself, most especially about what I "should write."
But this guy had some arresting advice. What he said to Cash was essentially this: imagine yourself lying mortally injured in a ditch at the side of a highway, knowing these are your last moments. What do you want to say to God about how you feel about the time you have had here on earth? Let that pure immediate force into a song. "Those are the songs," the guy said, "that save people."
I got up off the floor--I was doing crunches at the time--to make a note. It's not a message I want in the forefront of my mind while I write; it would make me too halting and self-conscious, would distract me from the characters and the story. But it's not a bad exercise, to play that last-moments game and see what emerges.
Anyone who has come close to death--and I haven't--probably already knows about this. If this has happened to you, did you find that it changed your work afterwards?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
It's funny you should ask this. My husband is currently obsessed with the phenomena and so we are hip deep in NDE books. (well, okay, I exaggerate a bit with the hip deep thing, ankle deep, perhaps?)
He's fascinated with the stories of people who had NDE's and how it changed their perspectives/lives/entire ways of being.
It just occurred to me I have had one - when I gave birth to my son. I wasn't writing that year, and I didn't get back to writing until my daughter came along and was a toddler, but perhaps something did change -- when I started writing again it was with a drive I don't believe I had before that experience.
Drafts started getting finished instead of abandoned.
Another interesting exercise might be to imagine your characters speaking/acting from that place... might nail some important things that would deepen the story.
Fascinating to think about!! Thanks for the wonderful fodder.
Great idea, Billie! to let one's fictional characters speak from the near-death, ditch moment. I'll try it.
Suze, I like the idea of that third folder for your daughter to find: reviews and check stubs.
Yesterday I went to the memorial service for a mostly-happy and wildly extroverted 69 year-old woman. Her family showed a slide show of pictures from her life, ranging from her as a toddler at Christmas to a recent shot of her on the beach in a not-very-grandmotherly bathing suit.
It was a powerful experience: to see more fully what had been lost. Of course I felt again the shortness of time remaining, and the wealth in having that time.
The family members who spoke were indeed writing from the ditch. And heartbreakingly well.
The mix of comments makes me think of both writing from the ditch and also celebrating what is and has been, and how all these things connect with a writing life, which so often means solitary work, tons of waiting for the opinions of others, and if/when the paychecks roll in, they are not always regular in nature.
A very good friend told me not too long ago that I could not carry forward basing things on "when the book sells," but that I needed to go ahead and find ways to do the important things regardless of the NY publishing world and its whims.
I've been working on that. And it seems to me some of this "writing from the ditch" has to do with facing the whimsy of this business and in a way, managing life in the ditch and on top of the mountain at the same time, if that makes sense. I am too serious on this Sunday afternoon. :)
Hey folks,
Unfortunately, my initial reaction is to disagree.
Actually, my initial reaction was "They're making a movie about the life of Johnny Cash. As if it were even remotely possible. The man (and June and her family) pretty much bared it all in the simplest, most direct terms. You want to 'Hollywood' that?"
I might be wrong.
At any rate, one of my favorite authors, Flannery O'Connor, was once asked something along the lines of "Where do you get the inspiration for your work?" To which she replied (something along the lines of...) "Anybody who has survived past the second grade has enough inspiration to write for a lifetime."
Her reply is biting (no surprise there) and comic (again no surprise), but not facetious. There is a fundamental home truth there.
By the same token, Flannery O'Connor spent a good deal of her adult life dying from Lupus, and died before she reached forty. So, perhaps she did "write from the ditch."
Don't know. But I'm not sure it takes that.
Just my opinion.
Be cool if you can.
It's certainly not necessary, or useful, to be in a dark desperate place to write well.
What I'm thinking about with this writing-from-the ditch idea is having unfettered access to deepest feelings. Having moments to live and one chance to speak would make a person get right to the point, and full force.
The physicist Richard Feynman once said (and wrote a book of this title) "What do you care what other people think?". I believe that this sums it up for me. Whether you're dying in a ditch or writing down the bits and pieces, stop editing them. Give it to 'em like it is. That is what will allow you to say what you really want to say, from the deepest part of yourself. We all have that critic, that editor, who tells us "not to", or what will they think of me if I write that? That's what dying does to people. They cut through the crap and sum it up concisely. I got nothing to lose.
Let go of the critic and let the creation of the Universe flow through you. That way, you may be closer to what you really wanted to say. "Creativity is harnessing universality and making it flow through your eyes" - Peter Koestenbaum. And I say don't worry about what your kids will find later, they might learn something about the REAL you. It could be a refreshing surprise.
I think I now better understand what you are saying. Also think I've been there.
Wrote my Mom's obituary a little while back; I remember having absolutely no difficulty with content or language--it came right through. I was, and am, still proud of that piece, and the sort of peace it helped me achieve.
It would seem very important to keep that in mind.
Yeah, The Jim, that's the kind of moment I mean--when all the ordinary inhibitions have been trampled by something more important.
my NDEs have been mental, rather than physical, which i know isn't really what you are talking about. but without doubt as a teenager i stopped up short at one particular time and The Light was on one side of me and a garbage pile on the other, and i asked myself if the garbage pile could wait until i rested up a bit, and i decided that it could not. the awareness that i carry back through the veil next time, should i choose there to be a next Earth time, i don't want to have my hands full with a mop and broom.
as you know i work with deathwalking all the time, and i have experienced others' NDEs, and their actual transitions. there is no bullshit there, which is what i think you are dipping into. sometimes there are those ego level insecurities and fears when the reality of nonreality sinks in, but they quickly give way to that objective "fear not" higher consciousness when they choose. you know we're doing the 'death travel' segment of Mystery School this time, and it's been interesting to see how their perspectives on life change as they learn how to die =) much less bullshit in life.
Post a Comment