Frame of Mind

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about whether good writing is preceded by a particular frame of mind. Do you write better when you are calm or do you do your best when your mind is moving fast and thinking hard? The question came to me in the midst of some editing that I was doing. There was a particular scene in the book that I knew wasn’t right, my editor knew wasn’t right as well, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to solve the problem. For a couple of weeks there, I wondered whether I would ever be able write again. How do you pull out of that kind of muck? In my case, I was fortunate enough to go on vacation to a warm place for a couple of weeks. I didn’t touch the manuscript at the suggestion of my editor and in the middle of the second week, while I was pouring myself a glass of ice tea and not thinking about my work at all, the idea, the piece that was missing came to me. I think that along with the relaxation, what I needed to recover was a sense of humility – an inner comfort that what I have is good enough to share. It seems now as if I got stuck because I was trying too hard and the manuscript missed a subtlety and naturalness that comes when you write with the knowledge that all you can do is write from the depth of your heart, listening all along to a kind of music that guides you.