Zen in the Art of Writing

spectroscopic reading.

Then, you, a new Element, are discovered, charted, named!

Then, wonder of wonders, you may even be popular with the literary magazines, and one day, a solvent citizen, be dazzled and made happy when someone sincerely cries, 'Well done!'

A sense of inferiority, then, in a person, quite often means true inferiority in a craft through simple lack of experience. Work then, gain experience, so that you will be at ease in your writing, as a swimmer buoys himself in water.

There is only one type of story in the world. Your story. If you write your story it could possibly sell to any magazine.

I have had stories rejected by Weird Tales that I turned around and sold to Harper's.

I have had stories rejected by Planet Stories that I sold to Mademoiselle.

Why? Because I have always tried to write my own story. Give it a label if you wish, call it science fiction or fantasy or the mystery or the western. But, at heart, all good stories are the one kind of story, the story written by an individual man from his individual truth. That kind of story can be fitted into any magazine, be it the Post or McCall's, Astounding Science-Fiction, Harper's Bazaar, or The Atlantic.

I hasten to add here that imitation is natural and necessary to the beginning writer. In the preparatory years, a writer must select that field where he thinks his ideas will develop comfortably. If his nature in any way resembles the Hemingway philosophy, it is correct that he will imitate Hemingway. If Lawrence is his hero, a period of imitating Lawrence will follow. If the westerns of Eugene Manlove Rhodes are an influence, it will show in the writer's work. Work and imitation go together in the process of learning. It is only when imitation outruns its natural function that a man prevents his becoming truly creative. Some writers will take years, some a few months, before they come upon the truly original story in themselves. After millions of words of imitation, when I was twenty-two years old I suddenly made the breakthrough, relaxed, that is, into originality with a 'sciencefiction' story that was entirely my 'own.'

Remember then that picking a field to write in is totally different from slanting within that field. If your great love happens to be the world of the future, it is only right that you spend your energies on science fiction. Your passion will protect you from slanting or imitation beyond the allowable learning-point. No field, fully loved, can be bad for a writer. Only types of selfconscious writing in a field can do great harm.

Why aren't more 'creative' stories written and sold in our time, in any time? Mainly, I believe, because many writers don't even know about this way of working which I have discussed here. We are so used to the dichotomy of 'literary' as opposed to 'commercial' writing that we haven't labeled or considered the Middle Way, the way to the creative process that is best for everyone and most conducive to producing stories that are agreeable to snobs and hacks alike. As usual we have solved our problem, or thought we solved it, by cramming everything in two boxes with two names. Anything that doesn't fit in one box or another doesn't fit anywhere. So long as we continue to do and think this way, our writers will continue to truss and bind themselves. The High Road, the Happy Way, lies between.

Now – are you surprised? – seriously I must suggest that you read ZEN IN THE ART OF ARCHERY, a book by Eugen Herrigel.

Here the words, or words like them, WORK, RELAXATION, and DON'T THINK appear in different aspects and different settings.

I knew nothing of ZEN until a few weeks ago. What little I know now, since you must be curious as to the reason for my title, is that here again, in the art of archery, long years must pass where one learns simply the act of drawing the bow and fitting the arrow. Then the process, sometimes tedious and nervewracking, of preparing to allow the string, the arrow, to release itself. The arrow must fly on its way to a target that must never be considered.

I don't think, after this long article, I have to show you, here, the relationship between archery and the writer's art. I have already warned against thinking on targets.

Instinctively, years ago, I knew the part that Work must play in my life. More than twelve years ago I wrote in ink on my typing board at my right hand the words: DON'T THINK! Can you blame me if, at this late date, I am delighted when I stumble upon verification of my instinct in Herrigel's book on Zen?

The time will come when your characters will write your stories for you, when your emotions, free of literary cant and commercial bias, will blast the page and tell the truth.

Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through. That is all Plot ever should be. It is human desire let run, running, and reaching a goal. It cannot be mechanical. It can only be dynamic.

So, stand aside, forget targets, let the characters, your fingers, body, blood, and heart do.

Contemplate not your navel then, but your subconscious with what Wordsworth called 'a wise passiveness.' You need to go to Zen for the answer to your problems. Zen, like all philosophies, followed but in the tracks of men who learned from instinct what was good for them. Every wood-turner, every sculptor worth his marble, every ballerina, practices what Zen preaches without having heard the word in all their lives.

'It is a wise father that knows his own child,' should be paraphrased to 'It is a wise writer who knows his own subconscious.' And not only knows it but lets it speak of the world as it and it alone has sensed it and shaped it to its own truth.

Schiller advised those who would compose to 'Remove the watchers from the gates of intelligence.'

Coleridge put it thus: 'The streamy nature of association, which thinking curbs and rudders.'

Lastly, for additional reading to supplement what I have said, Aldous Huxley's 'The Education of an Amphibian' in his book, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

And, a really fine book, Dorothea Brande's Becoming A Writer, published many years ago, but detailing many of the ways a writer can find out who he is and how to get the stuff of himself out on paper, often through word-association.

Now, have I sounded like a cultist of some sort? A yogi feeding on kumquats, grapenuts and almonds here beneath the banyan tree? Let me assure you I speak of all these things only because they have worked for me for fifty years. And I think they might work for you. The true test is in the doing.

Be pragmatic, then. If you're not happy with the way your writing has gone, you might give my method a try.

If you do, I think you might easily find a new definition for Work.

And the word is LOVE.

1973

… ON CREATIVITY

GO PANTHER-PAWED WHERE ALL THE MINED TRUTHS SLEEP

Not smash and grab, but rather find and keep;