Vox Newman
And When I Get That Feeling | May 18, 2011
I’ll probably write on or at least mention this topic often, because when I first discovered what was happening, it was a total “Aha!†moment. The moment occurred shortly after I wrote my first novel in 2005.
This novel still sits as a manuscript because it’s 500 pages long in Microsoft Word and I haven’t gotten around to editing it despite the mammoth effort by my friend Corinne to proof-read it for me. She’s been totally helpful over the years and was there to help me again for my second novel and I did actually edit it. I really couldn’t have got it into paperback form without her help. Everyone needs friends like this.
In regards to that first novel, I was unemployed at the time and decided to remain so at least until I finally forced myself to get down to it and actually write at least one novel. I didn’t know if I had it in me, because I was convinced I was better suited to short stories. But luckily I set a goal and had the help of a nagging mother. The goal was to treat it like a job. I started writing at 9 am each morning, took two 15 minute breaks, a 30 min lunch and ended each day at 5 pm: 5 days a week from the beginning of May until mid-June until I was finished.
This was my first explicit lesson on writing: if you really want to do it, then just do it. This is why I don’t believe in writer’s block: I’ve noticed that the only times I actually feel like I can’t write are when I let life get in the way of writing. On the extreme end, a full time job (especially a corporate middle-management one) can sap your creative energy and on the other end, a failing relationship can steal your focus. Not having these factors affecting me anymore allowed me to discover that I am, in fact, a novelist.
What I discovered next, when I was living in a new place with my old friend and one-time roommate Jared, was that there is some sort of biological response to creating ephemeral art; he was writing music and I wanted to learn how. In one of our discussions, I discovered we had a similar reaction to creation: I mentioned to him that when I write, I quickly get into a zone and then I almost seem to ‘black-out’ (not in the sense that I pass out, but I find it hard to recall things in that moment) and when I finish a scene and come ‘back to reality’ I feel just like that moment after you puke.
You know the moment: leading up to it is all this nausea and some pain and then suddenly you feel euphoric. You’re not actually doing amazing at this point, but you’ve made it back to normal and never realized how great normal can be until it was taken away from you.
That’s what I felt, and so did he.
In addition to that, I’ve spoken to other creators (but also read of a spoke to those who meditate) and many of them report the same feeling. And over the years, as I’ve thought about this feeling and where it comes from, I’ve come to rely on it to let me know if I’ve written something amazing, something ‘true’ and/or something that needs to be shared. This lets me go back and edit what I’ve written and allows me to work the characters, theme, plot etc into something whole.
In my case I guess I’ll call that feeling the wordgasm.
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