I've had a look at your poetry and prose-poetry. Sex and sexual frustration drive a lot of people before 20 to write verse but there's much more to your work than that. I think using English has helped you; it's as if a foreign language has given you permission to be freer than you could be in Russian. The poem about the Indian girl is beautiful. Also, there are almost echos of T.S. Eliot in the poem about the stuffy apartment. I think you must continue (that awful word "must"). But of course, we both know it's no good forcing the process. Your photo on today's post is a guide. You are very open in that picture, even though the world is harsh and as you say, battering you. If you can remain open, like a channel, the "gods" (for want of a better word) will create what they want through you. You think you write? You are mistaken. The gods write or paint or sing through you. You were right to say that taking your writing too seriously handicapped you. That was also the problem with my singing -- it was so sacred for me that I became paralysed. So you just have to do it more lightly. Just do it, like in the Nike advert, and let others, the gods themselves, be the judge of whether it's any good or not. My journalism has helped me enormously because every day, whether I felt like it or not, I had to churn out so many words in a given time. It became like shitting, honestly. My singing also in fact helped me to write. Before singing, I would always satisfy my editors but sometimes it was a bit of a strain. After singing, and learning to breathe and relax, whole pieces of work just popped into my head, as if I had downloaded them from the cosmos. And of course they were better than anything I had strained over. In your writing so far, I see fragments that are very fine. It is too early to say which fragments will remain and where they will ultimately fit. It's like doing a jig-saw puzzle. For years, I had strange fragments of this and that. Occasionally, I showed them to BBB and he said they were rubbish, because in isolation they meant nothing to him. But recently all the fragments fell into place. I was walking around VdnKH and crying out to the "gods" (before another of my terrible concerts): "Give me a voice!" And a little voice in my head said, "We have already given you a voice. Get on with it." I went home and assembled all the fragments and in a matter of a few weeks, completed a novel. It took years of inner work to gather the material but the final assembling of the fragments was fairly easy. The book is called in English "The Love Song of Udjerlah and Muthabadah". BBB has translated it into Russian under the title "Polomnitsa". I am telling you all this in order to encourage you, not to alarm you (I know you are quite shy). I don't want to push you (I can be quite pushy sometimes) but I would hate to see you give up your dreams and settle for less. You will find your own way, of that I am sure.
you're right! it's easier to write in english for me since it gives a better pretext, and i need a pretext to write. i don't know if that's shyness or squeamishness or impatience, perhaps a mix of all these plus laziness. i didn't know you wrote prose, i thought you were talking about journalism when you referred to your writing. it would be very interesting to read your book, especially in english, since russian translations of what you post in your journal are slightly disappointing in comparison. all of your work i've seen so far - painting and writing - is more or less in naive style, and i really wonder what your novel would be like? i understand very well what you say about a jig-saw puzzle, the inner work you do over years, never realizing you are doing it until all the pieces fall into place. i think the most striking examples of this are in childhood/adolescence, when your status/abilities/scope blow from tiny to gigantic over summer, just because you grow. yes, i also understand what you mean by 'channel' and 'gods' (for want of a better word!), although i try to avoid this subject, since if it's there, there's no reason to talk about it, and if it's not, it makes no sense. but i think anyone who's ever had an inspiration understands the concept of being unconnected from one's own art, as in artist being only a medium. i think that you present a good example of this concept, it's really difficult to believe that you'd never been painting before last summer. probably, you just reached a certain degree of freedom that makes you able to do that. it's so complex and so connected to 'karma', 'morality', 'fate', everything, that it's really impossible to force oneself (after you realize all that). if you don't do that, you are not ready.
I know what you mean about pretext, or perhaps you mean subject. In Yorkshire we say, "if you've got nowt (nothing) to say, don't say it." Until you are ripe, silence is better. But the subjects will come. You are right, "the readiness is all." If you would really like to read my novel and are not just being polite, I can send it to you by email attachment.
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Your photo on today's post is a guide. You are very open in that picture, even though the world is harsh and as you say, battering you. If you can remain open, like a channel, the "gods" (for want of a better word) will create what they want through you. You think you write? You are mistaken. The gods write or paint or sing through you.
You were right to say that taking your writing too seriously handicapped you. That was also the problem with my singing -- it was so sacred for me that I became paralysed. So you just have to do it more lightly. Just do it, like in the Nike advert, and let others, the gods themselves, be the judge of whether it's any good or not.
My journalism has helped me enormously because every day, whether I felt like it or not, I had to churn out so many words in a given time. It became like shitting, honestly.
My singing also in fact helped me to write. Before singing, I would always satisfy my editors but sometimes it was a bit of a strain. After singing, and learning to breathe and relax, whole pieces of work just popped into my head, as if I had downloaded them from the cosmos. And of course they were better than anything I had strained over.
In your writing so far, I see fragments that are very fine. It is too early to say which fragments will remain and where they will ultimately fit. It's like doing a jig-saw puzzle.
For years, I had strange fragments of this and that. Occasionally, I showed them to BBB and he said they were rubbish, because in isolation they meant nothing to him. But recently all the fragments fell into place.
I was walking around VdnKH and crying out to the "gods" (before another of my terrible concerts): "Give me a voice!" And a little voice in my head said, "We have already given you a voice. Get on with it."
I went home and assembled all the fragments and in a matter of a few weeks, completed a novel. It took years of inner work to gather the material but the final assembling of the fragments was fairly easy. The book is called in English "The Love Song of Udjerlah and Muthabadah". BBB has translated it into Russian under the title "Polomnitsa".
I am telling you all this in order to encourage you, not to alarm you (I know you are quite shy). I don't want to push you (I can be quite pushy sometimes) but I would hate to see you give up your dreams and settle for less. You will find your own way, of that I am sure.
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i understand very well what you say about a jig-saw puzzle, the inner work you do over years, never realizing you are doing it until all the pieces fall into place. i think the most striking examples of this are in childhood/adolescence, when your status/abilities/scope blow from tiny to gigantic over summer, just because you grow. yes, i also understand what you mean by 'channel' and 'gods' (for want of a better word!), although i try to avoid this subject, since if it's there, there's no reason to talk about it, and if it's not, it makes no sense. but i think anyone who's ever had an inspiration understands the concept of being unconnected from one's own art, as in artist being only a medium. i think that you present a good example of this concept, it's really difficult to believe that you'd never been painting before last summer. probably, you just reached a certain degree of freedom that makes you able to do that. it's so complex and so connected to 'karma', 'morality', 'fate', everything, that it's really impossible to force oneself (after you realize all that). if you don't do that, you are not ready.
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If you would really like to read my novel and are not just being polite, I can send it to you by email attachment.
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