In recent weeks I have had a hard time writing. The novel I am working on is stuck. When I recovered from coronavirus, I got a burst of creative energy and was convinced that this was it – the floodgates opened.
But as the weeks went by, the flow had slowed and the words had become fewer and fewer, and had it not been for the weekly Coronavirus Diaries input I would have been doing nothing more than do my other gig, in journalism.
But this is never fulfilling. Journalism, especially political news, is like spilling a glass of water on a huge fire: not only will the water not do anything to extinguish the fire, the water will evaporate as soon as they leave the glass.
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This week D. asked me why I find it so easy to write on things that are foreign to me but have a hard time writing on things that are dear to me and so familiar.
I told her that my journalistic pieces are on something or someone that exists. Foreignness makes things smoother. When you are detached from the subject, you can see it in its fullest form. You can hold on to something.
In personal writing, you have nothing to hold on to other than yourself. You are both the subject and the predicate of what you write. You create your work and your audience, you are the architect who builds the theater as the play is being performed.
The answer I gave her was not enough, for me at least. Everyone knows that creating something ex nihilo requires great inner powers and a heck of a lot of sitting down. But what are the elements necessary to reach such a situation? What has changed in me or in this world over the past two months?
At first glance, nothing. The apartment is the same apartment. The office – likewise. The desk and office have not changed either.
But every time I have tried entering my study over this period, I have felt that it is jampacked, has no air, and that it has become a very pressuring cubicle.
The element that has gradually withered over the past several months is the space: not just the personal study, but the mental and emotional space, a private space in my head, where I could grow and develop ideas – beautiful, scary, crazy and sincere. A place in my heart where I can get the courage to express my ideas with words.
I recalled that I started writing my novel during a different kind of lockdown. A year ago I was at an artist residency in Vermont.
I lived at a nature resort for an entire month. The fridge was stockpiled with food, the wine in the pantry never ran out, and my only duty was to wash dishes. But that can't explain why I managed to write. What explains it was that I was out of my normal routine: out of my apartment, out of the city, our of my daily chores.
A space had been opened up into which I could mold something new, personal and pristine. I understand that I gave too much space for coronavirus and protests, for Zoom meetings and twitter debates. I did not let my writing grow. All those months I was captivated by all that's been burning.
Albert Camus wrote that in order to understand the world, you sometime have to turn away from it. I need to rebuild my own personal space. How can I trun my back on the world that is ablze? Perhaps the only way is to tell myself: Yes, it's ok to put down the glass of water for now. I will fly to Israel. America will continue to burn when I return. But wait, what about the flames in Israel?
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