Van Gogh and the need for models

July 14, 2022August 7, 2022 / Caron Allan / 3 Comments

When Vincent van Gogh wrote to Emile Barnard in 1889 from the asylum in which he had voluntarily placed himself, he said he was ‘suffering under an absolute lack of models’. He was not talking about people to pose for him to paint, he was talking about people to look up to, professionally, role models, people he aspired to follow and to learn from. He was faithfully working on his painting, turning out canvas after canvas, but had no one close by who could help him grow as an artist.

Alice Walker, in her collection of essays entitled In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (such an inspirational book, I still have the battered copy that I bought in 1989 in London’s Tottenham Court Road at a bookshop specialising in feminist and womanist works) quotes this moment in Van Gogh’s life, and discusses it in “Saving The Life That Is Your Own – the importance of models in the artist’s life”. She highlights the need for writers–and all artists–to find worthy and strong role models to help us grow and develop our skills. Her book helped me hugely as an aspiring writer in my late 20s.

There have been a number of special books which have influenced me as a writer over the years. Here are some of them. (Some of them are quite old now, but I think you can still get them…)

In her 1934 masterpiece Becoming A Writer Dorothea Brande said, “A writer writes” which writers hear everywhere, and you may think it’s an obvious statement to make, but think about it for a few minutes, it’s deeper than you think. It’s not about writing being just a one-off event, ‘I wrote a book’, but an ongoing, permanent relationship with words. This book is considered a little out of date by some or a bit patronising, but for many writers, Brande’s book is the seminal work aimed at writers who are right at the start of their writing journey, or who have lost their creative impetus and need a fresh perspective.

Writing a book can be compared to climbing a mountain, and the higher you get the more scary it feels if you stepped back from the process to look at what you were doing. So, as Mary Wibberley in her book To Writers With Love said, ‘Don’t look down!’ – just keep moving forwards until you reach the end. Or should that be, THE END. She also commented that finding your story is rather like creating a sculpture out of a block of stone. It takes time, and you shape the story roughly then polish and hone, several times. This book was another huge help to me as a new writer.

Alice Walker taught me that in spite of this need writers often have to be alone to concentrate on their writing, we also need others to look up to and observe and learn from, to share our journey with, to laugh with, to cry with, and everything in between. I–and you–cannot grow or function in isolation. And life’s journey is too hard to spend all your time alone.

It has never been easier than today to find others for inspiration and support. Many of my closest friends are other writers I have come across through conversations on social media. And they have got me through so many tough times, times when I felt discouraged, or felt like giving up, or felt like nothing seemed to be working. I am so grateful to them. If I ever win an award, my ‘Without whom…’ speech will be long and tearful. The internet is full of tips, hints, writing websites, blogs, epublishing platforms, how-tos and advice, writing circles, book reading groups, as well as technique and knowledge webinars. My advice is to dig into these writing groups, make friends and be kind. We all need the human element. There is no need to suffer under a lack of models any more.

It is an odd thing, being a writer, because just like other ‘normal’ jobs, sometimes you don’t want to do it, you don’t want to write, or you’re fed up with everything you write: it feels stale or trite or clichéd or flat or bumpy or… ‘hard, dry…’ Sometimes you hate being a writer. Sometimes you write something so good, you can’t believe it came from you. Or you become convinced you have depleted in one sentence your entire reserve of ability, and that you will never be able to write again. Other times you feel as though you’re banging your head against a brick wall, desperately trying to get an idea out, and you can’t even remember what a verb is.

Van Gogh said, “However hateful painting may be…if anyone who has chosen this handicraft pursues it zealously, he is a man of duty, sound and faithful.”

All Van Gogh’s works now with free cat

It does sometimes feel as though, as writers, we are undertaking A Quest as we try to ensure our red herrings are subtle but present, and our sleuths remain believable and appealing yet somehow stand out from the crowd of other fictional sleuths. Loathing may be present for at least a third of the book. You may well come to dread the very thought of looking at your draft again. But look at it you must, for the good of the book, and your writer’s soul. And you have to make yourself do it even if you don’t want to. You can’t just sit and wait for inspiration to strike. As many well-known and successful authors have commented, if you only write when inspired, then you’ll probably never write a thing.

Van Gogh went on to say, “What I am doing is hard, dry, but that is because I am trying to gather new strength by doing some rough work, and I’m afraid abstractions would make me soft.”

Like him, we devote ourselves to diligently plodding through our notes, our research, our first drafts and our revisions. At times it feels like hard, dry work. But we cannot leave it until later. If we do, we will lose our impetus, we will forget that special key phrase, that small detail on which the whole plot turns. Therefore it’s important to keep going, keep moving forward. But you don’t have to do it alone. Join a group, make friends, open up to others and as they embrace your work, you can embrace theirs.

Be careful with your criticism. Remember their style may not be yours, their story may differ from yours, their experiences, their character – they are not you. But like you, they have a dream – so try not to trample, but to encourage. One harsh word or thoughtless comment can make someone give up writing for weeks, even months, so be kind, be gentle. We creatives are sensitive people. You may not ‘gel’ with everyone, but those you do, support them wholeheartedly. Try to keep an open mind. You may not like or agree with what people say about your work but listen to them anyway, consider what they say, don’t get miffed or precious: you need these people and they need you. And more than one viewpoint is valid. Together we can get our work drafted, revised and rerevised, edited, rererevised, proofed then put it out there into the world for the reading public, sharing one another’s triumphs as well as the doubts.

***

Creative, imaginative Winter

November 22, 2017October 27, 2021 / Caron Allan / 4 Comments

For me, it is not Spring, but Autumn and Winter that form my season of creativity. I have no idea why this is. It seems as though the rest of the world is full of new life in the Spring. Is it because I’m an October baby, my life naturally cycles from Autumn onwards? Or because when we lived in Brisbane, October was in the Spring? But how can five years there undo the habits of the other fifty-two years I’ve lived in the Northern Hemisphere? So I don’t know why, but this is not the season for rest and consolidation, but of flights of imagination taking wings.

New ideas are taking shape, even before the old ideas have been put to bed. I’m thinking about what I want to say in a new story. And I’m clueless about a title, although I have a couple of alternatives to ponder. I’m drawn to old stuff, I’m drawn to the past. I’m thinking of all the Summer of Love protest songs, but no, they are all too recent, I want to go further back.

I’m thinking about rural things, villages, fields, water, trees. I’m thinking of sorrow and haunting, of deeds never talked of, of the guilty secrets of the past. I’m thinking of shame and sacrifice, I’m humming old pastoral songs and rhymes, of Scarborough Fair, of the occasional duplicitous nature of the minstrel, wandering, legitimately able to plant one foot in each camp, never on any side but his own.

I’m thinking of myths and legends, hills cloaked in mist, an unseen bird calling in the gloom, of the soft insinuating sound of the wind. I’m thinking about the returning home of the prodigal, about how we carry the past with us, inside, even when we are looking forward and moving on. I’m thinking too of that moment when you come home and you know someone else has been there. Someone who shouldn’t have been there. Your house feels guilty, complicit, hushed as if someone had been speaking and just this moment stopped when the door opened.

I’m thinking of The Waste Land by T S Eliot. I remember snatches of it: ‘Speak to me./Why do you never speak?’ And ‘What is that noise?/The wind under the door.’ Or, ‘I remember/Those are pearls that were his eyes.’

I am thinking, staring at the falling leaves, driven across the grass by a pushing wind, and I am thinking of long ago, of people who may not have existed, but who may come into being in my imagination. I am thinking of a man at a window staring out, his mind working on things he cannot put into words. I’m thinking of a woman, always waiting, wringing her hands in front of the window, her own shadow on the lamplit stones of the yard.

I’m thinking of a boy coming over the hill. Of grass, green, long, dewy. Of the sun, soft, golden, gentle as a mother’s hand, just touching his hair, his shoulder. How long has he been away? How much has changed? Will anything ever change?

‘Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,/And all the air a solemn stillness holds.’ Thomas Gray’s Elegy. Like our current season, in my story it always seems to be unchanging, endless night.

***

People watching

August 6, 2017October 27, 2021 / Caron Allan / 2 Comments

I don’t advocate, as a writing tutor in Brisbane once told me, that you should actually follow people to get ideas for your story or to experience what it’s like to ‘shadow’ someone. BUT I must admit I do covertly eavesdrop and watch people, especially in a coffee-shop situation.

I remember overhearing one yoof talking to another about his baseball cap. Yoof 2 was admiring the cap and trying it on. Yoof 1 said, rather anxiously, ‘Don’t you lose my cap, man. That cap is my identity.’

And what I see and hear often gives me ideas for a story. Here’s what happened one day. I must just add, as a disclaimer, that all I saw were two people in a coffee-shop—my imagination, tawdry and cynical, and my love of detective fiction did the rest!

So I was sitting there with my cappuccino and my triangle of ‘tiffin’, in a Coffeebucksta Emporium in the town where I live. And I saw this:

A smart young man, late twenties, in a very modern suit, latest hair-do etc., all smiles and full of conversation and with him a frail and bent old lady in a wheelchair. She was also smartly dressed and her white hair was also short and chic a la Dame Judi Dench. But she was way too old to be his mother. Grandmother? Great aunt?

I’m already plotting a story around them. He parked her at a table and went to join the queue. She was reading the paper. Maybe she’s not a relative but his Sugar Mommy?

The idea appeals to me. I can remember several detective novels where scandal ensues due to an inappropriate attachment between a favoured young man and an older, vulnerable woman. I like the idea that even in this day and age, a young man can still cash in on his good looks, and an old lady can still enjoy having someone to dance attendance on her.

I think she’d have someone at home to help with her personal care. And also the cooking and cleaning. I’m picturing a large sprawling mansion, empty of people but stuffed with suits of armour and gloomy, grimy portraits of people who have been dead for hundreds of years. Lots of wood panelling. Surrounded by vast expanses of grass and tall dark trees. Maybe some peacocks? An old uneconomical car, with her cosseted in the back under blankets, and him in front at the steering wheel.

And I don’t want to think there could be anything sexual involved (eww!) but that he acts as chauffeur, secretary, assistant, companion and entertainer. He flatters her, makes her laugh and she pays him for his smiles.

I think of the people that know her, local villagers? I imagine them talking to me. Or to a policeman sent down from Scotland Yard to investigate some awful crime. Perhaps she’s been murdered? Or him? Perhaps he’s the victim, not the perpetrator? Over our coffee, my informant tells me, “Well of course she gave out that he was her great-nephew, though I’ve never believed it. But she said it—you know—for appearance’s sake. He certainly is a charmer. And so patient. Well all I can say is, he’s worked damned hard for the money she’s left him. If there is any money. No one seems to be too sure about that.”

Was he a little too friendly with the nurse who looked after the old lady? Is that what they’ll say when her body is discovered? Did the old lady resent him giving those smiles to someone else?

Back in the real world, I’m picking up on tiny details. He returns with a coffee for her. Nothing for himself. Odd. He sits. She leans forward and says something to him, and he takes her cup and has a sip of the coffee, and shakes his head. He returns it to its saucer. Too much sugar? Not enough? Does this taste a little odd to you? I’m not sure what is going on, but she doesn’t drink it.

They don’t stay long. I think he was actually in the queue longer than they sat over the drink that went almost untouched. Why didn’t he have anything? Does she hold on a little too tightly to the purse-strings?

Even though he is smartly turned out, perhaps his shoes are showing signs of wear? Not quite as new or of such good quality as they first appeared? Perhaps she doesn’t pay him so well after all? Are there arguments over money? She thinks he spends too much, or asks for too much. He thinks it’s unfair that he has to beg and plead and justify what he needs, thinks she is too keen on having power over others. Perhaps it’s not worth it after all? Perhaps it’s time for this ‘arrangement’ to come to an end?

For one mad moment I think about taking her cup for analysis before the table is cleared. Then I remember. Only in my imagination am I a detective. Here in the real world, I’m just another person sitting in a cafe. But in my mind, and in my notebook, I have the bones of a story.

***

Top Tips To Kickstart Your Muse

July 30, 2015October 27, 2021 / Caron Allan / Leave a comment

If, like me, you sometimes sit and stare at a blank page for an hour or more without writing a thing then give up and go off to do something else, you might want to give some of these tips a try. I’ve tried them all and found them useful at one time or another. Some are fairly conventional ideas for productivity, others are just things I came up with that helped me.

Listen to music

You might listen to your usual favourites, or I sometimes like to try something new that I haven’t listened to before or even play something I’m not too keen on to get the creativity flowing. Or maybe go for something you haven’t listened to for a very long time – songs that were out when you were a kid!

Go for a walk

I know this is a commonly prescribed antidote to lack of creativity, but it does work. Go out in the pouring rain and release your inner savage, or go out and enjoy the wonders of nature, or walk along the city streets and visualise your gumshoe on the trail of a bad guy. Physical activity wakes up the body and gets the blood flowing to the brain. Even if you don’t come back from your walk full of ideas, at least you got away from your desk for a while and got some fresh air.

Eavesdrop on other peoples’ conversations

This is a great way to pick up ideas and hear dialogue in action. It’s also a great way to get punched on the nose if you’re too obvious. Snatches of conversation half-heard and half-remembered can provide great what-if moments.

Visit a gallery or museum

I once attended a workshop at a museum and we were encouraged to write short pieces about some of the exhibits. These included Neolithic artefacts and a Victorian christening gown. It was not only a great idea but a memorable experience. Go to an art gallery or a museum or country house with your trusty notebook. Take a look at what lies behind the glass and imagine the person who touched, created, discovered, used or found a particular item. People those empty halls with characters – what do they say to one another? Make sketches. Write descriptions. Take photos, or if that’s not allowed, buy a post card from the gift shop.

Look through the images on Morguefile or Shutterstock or other image sites

See if anything intrigues you or inspires you to write a short story, a poem, a simple description or analyse your own feelings when you look at a picture. What does it make you think of and why? How do you feel?

Do you collect anything? If not you, does someone close to you have a collection?

Spend some time writing about the first item in the collection and how it was acquired or obtained. What was the last item to join the collection? What would happen if someone stole your collection? How would that make you feel? How would you get it back? What would you do?

Sit somewhere different to your usual writing spot

I usually write at my desk, but sometimes I like to go out to a café or pub and write, or I could write in a library. I could write outside if the weather is fine. In the past I have even sat in my son’s bedroom at his desk and written for hours. A change is as good as a rest we are told, and a new ‘venue’ can help to get things flowing. You could also try using a different notebook or computer, a different pen or write at a different time of day.

Pick a story from your local newspaper

Write it in your own words; be an investigative journalist and try to think of a new outcome or a way of finding out more, or imagine you are interviewing someone featured in the newspaper, whether a sports’ personality or a victim of a crime.

Go to the library

And have a rummage through the reference section or any section that interests you; poke through the periodicals and nosy at the noticeboard.

Visit a graveyard

Wander around and read a few headstones. Look at the style of the gravestones. Try to imagine the people buried there, the lives they lived and how they died, picture their families and their homes and workplaces. Sit in the church or graveyard for a while and try to imagine who might have sat there before you. How did they feel?

Meditate

A little relaxing meditation could release some stress and pent-up anxiety and enable you to refresh yourself mentally. Sit comfortably on the floor, with a notepad and pen in front of you, turned to a fresh page. Close your eyes. Spend a few minutes breathing deeply and slowly until you feel you could almost doze off to sleep. Then without thinking about what you are doing, take up your pen and begin writing – something, anything, just don’t try to analyse or make sense of any thoughts, but let the words pour out of your pen as if there was nothing between your brain and your notebook. Music or candles and incense sometimes help with this process.

Most of us have times when we can’t seem to write the way we want to, or maybe not at all. Don’t worry about it too much and allow yourself the freedom to know when you need to rest and when you need to try to help things along.

Fear – the creative tool

May 9, 2014February 17, 2016 / Caron Allan / 1 Comment

When I talk about writing, and my own version of it, I talk about beginning with ‘what if’ and going on from there. But sometimes I ask myself other questions. Questions such as, what would I kill to protect? What is the one thing we all need? How would I feel if … ? I have to get inside my main character to be able to write my story.

Another useful question to ask yourself when embarking on a new project – or I should say – when looking for a new project – is ‘what am I afraid of?’

Fear can be a terrible, paralysing emotion. But conversely it can galvanise you into action like nothing else on earth. It can be a useful, creative tool. Sit down in a quiet corner and ask yourself in all honesty, ‘what am I afraid of?’ Getting too ill to care for myself? Losing a loved one? Losing my mind? Not being able to pay the bills? Being paralysed? Home invasion? I think most of us fear these big things. But what about small, more intimate fears? Fear of losing your hair? Fear of being stuck in a job you hate for twenty years or more? Fear of not being able to turn the cheek one more time? Other fears? Spiders? Worms?

What about childhood fears? Fear of the dark? Fear of statues and scarecrows? Loved one replaced by a very convincing robotic double that only you can detect? Dr Who has so much to answer for! Murderous clowns – thank you Stephen King! What about getting lost? I can remember losing my mother in a supermarket many years ago and I sobbed as the nice store manager asked me what she looked like – and with a child’s real terror I wailed ‘I can’t remember!’ I remember this with absolute clarity 48 years after it happened. (For Spock’s Beard fans – the chilling, relatable vulnerability of the child who says ‘Mummy comes back/She always comes back to get me.’ Because if Mummy doesn’t, that is something too terrible to contemplate. For me to write a book around that would have me in therapy within an hour.)

What about fantastical things that frighten us as adults and as children: Ghosts? Goblins? Witches? Aliens? Bats? Spiders? Sharks? Snakes? Crocodiles? Scorpions? Cockroaches? (See my post from a couple of weeks ago about cockroaches!) Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of fear, basically. We are told fear itself is the worst kind of fear. But there is something else. If I were to base a short story on an old fear, a primitive fear, a childhood horror, it would be the fear of being alone.