On the mind of a writer

The dance of a writer's life

Writing is a very simple little dance of the mind. But you have to understand the
dance, in order to get the rhythm.

A good writer will spend most of his time writing for himself - as an avenue for
thinking about his world.

Given that's the core of a writer's life, that's what young writers need to be trained in
most. Well how is that done? To mull topics over with the keyboard is a process of
journeying down many pathways. A topic is thought about only in terms of a series
of contexts. Any topic could potentially have an infinite number of different contexts.
You think about that topic, by delving into these contexts one at a time.

What you have to do is abandon yourself to the exploration of one of these
pathways which lay before you. Now you have to feel free to abandon the
exploration of one pathway, to immerse yourself in another.

At any given moment, you have to weigh which is the best pathway to be on. You
have to be willing to feel free to bridge away from the topic you're on, and move on
to explore a whole different topic.

One big mistake writers will make is that they refuse to make a decision about what
pathway they'll walk down - they can't choose a context to explore. They stand at the
crossroads, so to speak and weigh the merits of pursuing approach a b or c to that
topic.

Another mistake people frequently make, is that they get self conscious about
wandering off a pathway into a different place in their mind, and losing their
train of thought. This is natural. The mind works with a certain mechanics. You can't
expect it to work in a way in which it doesn't. Your mind comes into a relationship
with a certain grouping of ideas... and then you go into another relationship with
a different grouping of ideas... and you walk further along different routes.