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(Ibid.: 131 2; my emphasis)
Freud makes it easy for us to agree with him. Indeed, his old friend
Carl Jung agrees when he says the creation of something new is not
accomplished by the intellect alone but by the play instinct. The
creative mind plays with the object it loves. The creative imagination,
the instinct of play, is something we all have, only we repressed it as
childish when confronted by the adult world. This does not mean it
is gone for ever. What you have to do is seek a way of releasing it for
yourself. What is called for is a kind of soul-mining, where you seek to
excavate the playful stories that have become buried somewhere inside
of you. But first of all you have to exercise your surveying skills. In your
soul-mining: there is no point in sinking shafts and digging great holes
willy-nilly: you will just end up getting lost in the dark. Rather, take
time to look around and survey the terrain. Get to know where the best
story is located.
20 Write the rights  know the wrongs
From small acorns . . .
Albert Einstein once said that imagination is more important than
knowledge. Unfortunately, however, all too often we have insufficient
knowledge to acknowledge what is truly inspirational in our imagi-
nation. Inspiration, too, is often cited as the source of many good stories
and every story needs a little magic, which inspiration brings. But you
will find awareness is the most inspiring element of the writer s tool
kit. Be aware; stay alert to the possibilities. Don t close your mind
to even the smallest trace of a story. It is often the small ideas that
bring big stories. The stories are all around, waiting to be written, so stay
creatively vigilant. When asked once how he wrote so many songs, Bob
Dylan replied that they were all around, in the air, all you had to do was
reach up and pluck them. Harvesting the fruit is just another version of
soul-mining. You have to listen for stories others cannot hear. But if you
do not tune-in in the first place, how can you expect to hear them?
For example, here is a true incident. In my street there is a kid called
Joe (he s twenty-four now but since I ve known him for fifteen years
he s still a kid to me). He s a filmmaker now and I recently saw him
working on a new project in his garden. While he was directing, I
spotted another documentary film crew filming Joe filming; it was for
their student dissertation. Suddenly Joe waved across the garden and
turned the camera on me. I was watching the crew filming Joe who was
filming me. Of course I smiled and waved back. Not awe-struck (or star-
struck), I ve been on film sets before. But when I was watching the
documentary crew watching Joe watching me a creative trinity was
completed. I had made a connection.
If the filming incident had happened to me when I was thirteen it
would have been magic because filming fascinates me. I would have
been keen to get involved. Therein lay a story. It came instantly. All I
had to do was take myself back to a time when I would have been in awe
of what was going on.
It isn t magic. It s all about being imaginative and alert to the
possibilities. Hopefully the story will be magic, though. It is called
Shooting Joe.10 Consider it:
Josie is thirteen and in love with Joe, which is always going to have
an unlikely outcome. She decides that the only way forward in
Write the rights  know the wrongs 21
their relationship is for her to get a part in his film. She succeeds
but tragedy befalls Josie s plans when Joe s girlfriend comes down
from university to play the leading role and Josie . . .
You get the drift, though you might be forgiven for saying not everyone
is lucky enough to catch a film being made in their next-door
neighbour s back garden to stimulate inspiration.
True. Except, I lied (that s allowed). The story is not true!
Joe does indeed live in my street, and he wants to be a filmmaker
. . . the rest I made up. He wasn t in the garden, there was no student
documentary being shot at the same time and as for Josie, she s a figment
of my imagination, although I can remember being thirteen (just
about).
As I sat at my desk writing this book, the entire story of Josie and
Joe came to me in one of those writer s lacunas that you will all recog- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]