Letter 22: June 2, 2008
THE TYPEWRITER
A reader told me (thanks!) about an item from the BBC. All praise to the BBC! Let's take every chance to say nice things about the world's biggest commissioner and purchaser of new writing.
So what admirable thing have they done now? Here it is: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/magazine/7427237.stm . It's probably still available to you, some of their news stays up for years. In case it's not, though, here's the heading: "Why typewriters beat computers - they're clunky, dirty and can't access the internet, yet every year thousands of people buy typewriters when they could probably afford a computer. Why?"
Read the feature, and you learn that although typewriter sales are very small these days, Frederick Forsyth and a list of other people stick with their old machines. Philosophy professor and typewriter collector Richard Polt is quoted as saying "There are so many distractions with the internet, it is also so easy to change and delete what you have written. It is too easy to dither."
To prove Prof. Polt's point, go to his own rather lovely website (http://staff.xu.edu/~polt/typewriters/index.html) and see how long it takes you to break away.
So here's support for something I've said before: the Internet is such a diverting place that the best thing we can do is to remove ourselves physically. At least pull out the blue cable. But you may have to go out to a coffee shop where you don't have a WiFi membership. Yes, go out.
However, let's think about this a little harder. There was writer's block before there was a 'net, wasn't there? And even before there were computers. I once researched the origins of writer's block, and as far as I could tell it had been invented in the nineteenth century. No Internet for Coleridge, but he still had a problem.
So, as with everything about this subject, every truth comes with an opposite truth. The net is the major distraction, and the net is not the only major distraction.
THE TRICKSTER
We finally got around to organizing some books onto the bookshelves that I finally got around to building, and I was surprised to find that I own a copy of Allan Combs's Synchronicity. He links coincidence with the work of the Trickster - that demonic god who makes odd things happen. Three or four years ago (it seems) I wrote a marginal note suggesting that synchronicity might be the same thing as creativity - the coming together of things that don't obviously go together.
In fact my idea wasn't true, for various reasons. One of them is that synchronicity is about things coming together which do obviously go together but which you didn't ever think would ever find each other.
In the last few days I'd been reading a friend's new book - more details of that after it's published - which is very much about the Trickster and how to prevent him from helping you to get in your own way. And then the only other book about him that I've ever enjoyed falls into my hand. How's that for coincidence.
Something you can try today: hey, let the Trickster play with you. Have the net on, look at some distracting sites and work anyway. Just as some parents realize it's ok to have music or tv on while doing homework. Just as some people prefer working in a busy noisy public place. Maybe distraction - letting the Trickster bring in some surprises - will be good for creativity.
David
David Jung McGarva
+1 (818) 707 1871
Write me: david at todayiwrite dot com
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