Write Read Feel

I write. I read. Then, fingers crossed, I feel.  This is my process. If I don’t feel it, or feel anything (e.g. contemplative, encouraged, moved to tears (it has happened), warm and fuzzy, happy...the list is endless) I rewrite, I reread and then hopefully I feel it.

If the writing doesn’t connect on a human level, if it doesn’t evoke an emotion—why bother?

As much as I enjoy the comfort of home and my deep grey sofas (if you know, you know)...I love going to the cinema to watch movies.  To me, the cinema setting magically transports me to another world. I find the experience fully immersive. And that’s how I believe all art should be—immersive and experiential. It seems my best mate C.S. Lewis and I have this in common.

“We do not want merely to see beauty...we want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it unto ourselves to bathe in it, to become a part of it.”

C.S. Lewis

If I’m in a gallery, at the theatre, a concert or the cinema I always invite the art to affect me. I send out an invitation saying, ‘Make me feel something.’ because I want to be involved with the experience of the art.  I send out the invitation because emotions are a gift—they reveal my heart, my passions and beliefs. They centre me. They ground me. They tell me where I’m at. And they remind me that I’m human; that I’m alive. They also cause me to think (See my blog on Defamiliarization), because the next step is to ask ‘Why am I feeling this?’ And you explore. And  you learn.

And to add another layer—this quote from journalist and author, Susan Orlean.

“The genius of story is not the feeling that it’s original, but the feeling that it has existed all along.”

Susan Orlean

Imagine your art doing that, giving that feeling, that it has always existed. I want to be a creative writer whose work feels like it’s always been alive. Art that sends out an invitation for involvement.