The following conversation is set at a Coffee shop in Philadelphia, the conversation consists of Anna Lamott, Carolyn Chute, Ray Bradburry, and myself (John Page). Everyone is sitting around the table enjoying their Coffee until the Authors start combining all of their ideas to make a more affective way to write. Heres how is started:
Me: So Carolyn, how do you find the time to concentrate on your writing when you are busy with all of your responsibilities?
Carolyn: I can't just switch from life mode to writer mode. Usually it takes three days to get into writer mode.
Me: What do you need in order for them 3 days to be ideal?
Carolyn: Three days of quite non-life mode, lots of Coffee and no interruptions.
Me: What state of mind do you need to be in for an idealistic writing mode?
Carolyn: Writing is like meditation or going into an ESP trance, or prayer. Like dreaming. You are tapping into your unconscious. To be fully conscious and alert, with life banging and popping and cuckooing all around, you are not going to find your way to your subconscious, which is a place of
complete submission. Complete submission.
Me: I like that method, what do you think about switching from life mode to writer mode Anne?
Anne: This is like trying to scale a glacier. It's hard to get your footing, and your finger tips get all red and frozen and torn up.
Me: Can you provide an example of this happening?
Anne: Your relatives pull up chairs in a semicircle around the computer, and they try to be quiet but you know they are all there with their weird coppery breath, leering at you behind your back.
Me: How do you deal with this happening ?
Anne: First I try to breath... I let my mind wonder... it reminds me that all I have to do is write down as much as I can see through a one- inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being.
Me: I don't like that method to much but we all have different opinions on what works best for yourself. What do you comparing your writing to Ray?
Ray: Observe any survival creature, you see the same. jump, run, freeze. in the ability… and when that life is not rushing to escape, it is playing statues to do the same.
Me: How do lizards compare to writers?
Ray: The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. in delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping.
Me: Has this every worked out for you?
Ray: I wrote a series about the Red Planet. One day, I looked up and the book was finished, the list complete, The marian chronicles on its way to publication.
Me: So Carolyn, how do you find the time to concentrate on your writing when you are busy with all of your responsibilities?
Carolyn: I can't just switch from life mode to writer mode. Usually it takes three days to get into writer mode.
Me: What do you need in order for them 3 days to be ideal?
Carolyn: Three days of quite non-life mode, lots of Coffee and no interruptions.
Me: What state of mind do you need to be in for an idealistic writing mode?
Carolyn: Writing is like meditation or going into an ESP trance, or prayer. Like dreaming. You are tapping into your unconscious. To be fully conscious and alert, with life banging and popping and cuckooing all around, you are not going to find your way to your subconscious, which is a place of
complete submission. Complete submission.
Me: I like that method, what do you think about switching from life mode to writer mode Anne?
Anne: This is like trying to scale a glacier. It's hard to get your footing, and your finger tips get all red and frozen and torn up.
Me: Can you provide an example of this happening?
Anne: Your relatives pull up chairs in a semicircle around the computer, and they try to be quiet but you know they are all there with their weird coppery breath, leering at you behind your back.
Me: How do you deal with this happening ?
Anne: First I try to breath... I let my mind wonder... it reminds me that all I have to do is write down as much as I can see through a one- inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being.
Me: I don't like that method to much but we all have different opinions on what works best for yourself. What do you comparing your writing to Ray?
Ray: Observe any survival creature, you see the same. jump, run, freeze. in the ability… and when that life is not rushing to escape, it is playing statues to do the same.
Me: How do lizards compare to writers?
Ray: The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. in delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping.
Me: Has this every worked out for you?
Ray: I wrote a series about the Red Planet. One day, I looked up and the book was finished, the list complete, The marian chronicles on its way to publication.