TAKING CONTROL & CONJURING CALM FROM CHAOS
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
By Kenneth Atchity
I remember vividly: I woke up that morning to hear the news that, on top of everything else that was going to hell in a handbasket, we were about to bomb Iran. My anxiety, already at the edge of the cliff, was instantly poised to jump into oblivion.
But a few hours later, I was as calm as a purring cat, feeling in control and in love with life again.
How did this positive turnaround happen? It happened because I spent two hours working on a novel that excited me with its potential—and felt I was making progress. Of course, the Accountant part of my mind kept nagging me, “It’s nearly impossible to get this published, and even if you do, who’s going to read it, and if they read it, who’s going to care?” Or: “How can you turn your back when all this is happening in the world?” Not to mention: “How will it bring you fame and glory—and money?”
But the Managing Editor in my brain quashed the cynical Accountant: “Shut the f-k up. The Creator is at work right now. You can resume all your global fretting the minute he stops working!”
You see, I’d made a deal with myself to work on the novel that day, shutting out the rest of the world, especially the worries and doubts. During that time, when the Creator was allowed to do his thing, my focus was intense, all-powerful, and invincible. I threw myself into sharpening character, removing unnecessary explanation, and enhancing action and conflict. Far away from the chaotic real world, I lost myself in my work. I was filled with calm and certainty. I felt in control.
Writing is shaping chaotic elements in your brain into uniquely recognizable forms that bring satisfaction and meaning to both writer and audience. The process of bringing order out of chaos occurs in a timeless space between the worlds of vision and reality, where the writer turns a dream into reality, loses himself in the process, and stops being controlled by the troubled real times that surround him. In short, writing is a sacred discipline that reorganizes internal chaos and reveals a surprising new order that’s fictional but satisfying. That’s why we love art: it makes us feel whole because it makes sense when life too often does not. In that timeless space at the keyboard, writers create something new that is healing to themselves and their audience.
Sure, every writer dreams of achieving immortality by leaving behind a work that lives forever. But that’s not much use for the writer if he or she is no longer around to enjoy it. Anyway, that’s not the way the “immortality” presents itself. If immortality is timelessness and transcendence over the ordinariness of reality, isn’t that exactly what you feel when you are writing?
When your world seems completely out of control, write!
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