I thought it might be useful to have a specific topic for discussing Gibson's posts in his blog. So here it is.

I'll return with more specific thots.

Eileen

Eileen Gunn

The Infinite Matrix
http://www.infinitematrix.net/

Gibson's thoughts on termite art vs. slab art strike me as a useful way of disconnecting the fear that many arts and writers feel when beginning a work.

If you can define your task not as creating a perfect Pietá, but as subverting the nature of marble, you may be able to put chisel to stone without fear of error. Also, it sounds like a lot more fun....

Eileen Gunn

The Infinite Matrix
http://www.infinitematrix.net/

quote:

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Originally posted by Eileen Gunn:
Gibson's thoughts on termite art vs. slab art strike me as a useful way of disconnecting the fear that many arts and writers feel when beginning a work.

---

I don't know if I could ever really trust an artist who wasn't constantly afraid, especially not a writer. In fact, I think art works best as an expression of terror.

I guess that's why all the great stories remain unwritten: the authors are too afraid to commit them to paper.

Sure, if fear is your prime mover. And to say something like 'the great stories will never be written.' I mean, really. That's a non-statement. Art is, basically, an expression of emotion. To color everything in shades of scared is to limit your work, me boy.

No flame intended. It just struck me as something with which I didn't agree. Ya know.

[This message was edited by Shadoth on January 08, 2003 at 02:07 PM.]

Fear may motivate sometimes and inhibit at others. Maybe the key is disconnecting it selectively....

Eileen Gunn

The Infinite Matrix
http://www.infinitematrix.net/

I'm sure I was too glib in my earlier post.

My point is: our greatest pursuits concern a struggle with fear. Overcoming obstacles is about fear. Love involves fear (and the bliss of transcending it). The struggle between people is often about fear. So, if there is no fear in your writing, then it probably isn't coming from the right place... It just won't seem genuine.

But to have so much fear you can't commit it to paper... Eileen is right about the need for some type of selective disconnect... A good number of my favorite authors found it necessary to turn to chemical disconnects in order to continue writing. Philip K. Dick turned to amphetamines. Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett turned to alcohol as a form of chemical courage.

Sorry if this is all a downer... I'm just silently thinking aloud.

I write quite often (I'm in the misdt of finishing my first novel), and I've discovered in the last few years that fear is not so much a motivator as it is an editor or a censor. I'm only now (at 32) beginning to be okay with writing what I consider sensitive material...sensitive in that I fear that people who read it will think that I'm strange or neurotic. At some point, all the great artists learned to turn that voice off, or, of they were lucky, they never had it to begin with. I aspire to that level of creative freedom, but it takes work...

Just my $0.02

cmoore.2003

Okay, another writer here, and I have to agree with cmoore on this one. (i pray your last name isn't buttz, btw)

For me, the struggle with fear was mainly a fear of failure. So much expectation had been built up by my teachers, classmates, and fellow writers, that to produce anything other than an opus would have been failure. So I dived into a mundane world of not writing, and not living, and just being comfortable with not being happy. It is only now, having passed my 30th birthday, that I am able to even try to write anything worth reading, without the voice of fear over my shoulder.

Anyway, enough prattling. I understand now what Gage was trying to say, and I agree with him, too. Gosh, aren't we all just so chummy!

This discussion reminds me of what both Thomas Ligotti and Stephen King have admitted to in interviews and forewords - that the act of writing their best horror-stories were entirely unpleasant experiences. They both said that some of their stories weren't written by them, but through them, being universal stories of fear and terror that simply found expression through the author.

Cheers,
- Adamus

---------------------------
"But I have dreamed a dreary dream
Beyond the Isle of Skye;
I saw a dead man win a fight
And I think that man was I."
---------------------------

yeah there might be some truth to fear as a motivator, but personally i don't feel that much fear when i write, more a sort of critical voice, perhaps i am a bit naive, not sure. David Lynch has said that fear is one of the best inspiration, acctually a positive force in that sense. Of course there allways the more general fear, if not fear of the text itself, like fear of death, pollution, war or whatever, would say there are different kind of levels of fear; personal in relation the text and a personal in relation to something more general.

Today's Blog amuses me, mainly because I'm one of those poor fools whose life was heavily influenced by brother gibson's work. I'm planning on going to the Oak Park signing at the end of February, and I've already started my meditative stances to keep from making a fool of myself. I probably will still fumble, so Mr. Gibson, if you read this, I'm the guy who will fall and bang my forehead on the table, and then through blood and tears tell you all about how you changed my life and got me kicked out of college. So, thanks and stuff. heh.

Hmm. Fear is there, but I've always been more of the letting go school of things. My writing is at its worst when I'm most consious of it. It's much better and easier for me to just write and feel like a conduit (although I'm almost always there behind it and almost always in control, it's the feeling that's important, I think), rather than a producer. A convenient illusion, but one that allow me to overcome internal censors and all of that.

Fear is likely the most common meta-theme in most fiction, on the other hand. Fear is such a common motivation and emotion that it would be hard to construct belivable characters without it (a common failing, even among the successful), unless that lack of fear has a believable and real meaning. Dunno, just rambling now. Need food to think.

Was there something in the weather yesterday? My idiot dog ate a chocolate cake, and I spent yesterday afternoon pouring hydrogen peroxide down his gullet. (An 80 pounds dog can have up to a pint!)

Thankfully, we avoided the vet as he urped up the whole mess.

My dog ate no chocolate that I'm aware of. She has a thing for carrots, though.

This was part of yesterday's blog entry:

"Today I am of the opinion, experientially, that the supposedly visionary aspects of any drug experience, regardless of how marvelous-seeming at the time (or how cocktail-lounge banal) represent no more than a tweaking of incoming stimuli."

Though I could possibly agree with this statement if "visionary aspects" were interpreted as being a reference to visual hallucinations only, I think Mr. Gibson is making a broader statement which ignores some important issues.

I haven't seen No Maps For These Territories since it was screened at the SXSW film festival in March 2001, but if I remember correctly his statement in that documentary (which was very similar to the above quote) wasn't specifically limited to the visionary aspects, but rather any or all effects caused by drugs. This view seems at odds with some of his own previous literary works, which to me exhibit a belief that human consciousness is too complex to be described by mere "pathology" (the word he used in the film).

I'm not here to advocate the use of any particular drug, but in my experience there are many substances which undeniably do more than just "tweaking of incoming stimuli," for instance inspiring creative action (literature, music, art - though Bill is going to disagree with me here, except for a few "remarkable exceptions"), or even re-imprinting the brain's neurological circuits to override previously conditioned behavior, as Dr. Timothy Leary determined after years of careful psychological experiments involving hundreds of test subjects. Leary admired Gibson's writing, and the first issue of Mondo 2000 even published a conversation between them. If Dr. Leary were alive today I think he might be a bit saddened, not at being mentioned only in passing, but at the fact that Mr. Gibson seems so pessimistic (or perhaps shortsighted?) regarding the capabilities of the human mind.

I respect Mr. Gibson too much to waste his time asking for a discussion of these issues, but I'm curious about what other people think.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Shadoth:
Okay, another writer here, and I have to agree with cmoore on this one. (i pray your last name isn't buttz, btw)

For me, the struggle with fear was mainly a fear of failure. So much expectation had been built up by my teachers, classmates, and fellow writers, that to produce anything other than an opus would have been failure. So I dived into a mundane world of not writing, and not living, and just being comfortable with not being happy. It is only now, having passed my 30th birthday, that I am able to even try to write anything worth reading, without the voice of fear over my shoulder.

Anyway, enough prattling. I understand now what Gage was trying to say, and I agree with him, too. Gosh, aren't we all just so chummy!

---

another (unpublished) writer here.

funny two things:

I agree that fear is a powerful impulse for creation (please see Bowling for Columbine if you haven't and watch for the section on using fear to sell things in the USA--would that they spent 1/2 the movie on that thought) but I also agree that it isn't the *only* motivator. I think about my fears when I write, but I think about other emotions, too. My first two books center around revenge, which isn't fear, but is still primal and interesting.

30. I really started writing and having ideas to write about that age. It sounds like others here did as well. How old was WG when he started writing? How old was he when he wrote Neuromancer? Before I was that age, I dated 2-3 women over 30 and several women under 30, and noticed a real difference in their sense of self. Now 33, I think I see it better in men, too. The difference is pronounced and the trend is clear. But it seems such an artificial moment that I find myself doubting my conclusion. Anyone know of any studies on the subject?

adeu,
Mateu

Oh, I started writing at 13, wrote my first novel at 14, and have been publishing stuff since I was 20. For me, 30 holds a psychological significance (i think i posted somewhere about how i have now officially wasted my life) rather than any kind of experiential critical mass.

However, I don't think I was capable of writing the material I am currently writing ten years ago. Bad sentence. Anyway, I'm certain that people need time to settle down, to steep in their own creative juices, before they are able to do their greatest work. If I remember correctly, gibson was around 34 or 35 when neuromancer was published.

Okay, I have to go eat breakfast now. Quickly, to the eggmobile!

shad

quote:

---

Originally posted by mr_fang:
This was part of yesterday's blog entry:

"Today I am of the opinion, experientially, that the supposedly visionary aspects of any drug experience, regardless of how marvelous-seeming at the time (or how cocktail-lounge banal) represent no more than a tweaking of incoming stimuli."

Though I could possibly agree with this statement if "visionary aspects" were interpreted as being a reference to visual hallucinations only, I think Mr. Gibson is making a broader statement which ignores some important issues.

I haven't seen No Maps For These Territories since it was screened at the SXSW film festival in March 2001, but if I remember correctly his statement in that documentary (which was very similar to the above quote) wasn't specifically limited to the visionary aspects, but rather any or all effects caused by drugs. This view seems at odds with some of his own previous literary works, which to me exhibit a belief that human consciousness is too complex to be described by mere "pathology" (the word he used in the film).

I'm not here to advocate the use of any particular drug, but in my experience there are many substances which undeniably do more than just "tweaking of incoming stimuli," for instance inspiring creative action (literature, music, art - though Bill is going to disagree with me here, except for a few "remarkable exceptions"), or even re-imprinting the brain's neurological circuits to override previously conditioned behavior, as Dr. Timothy Leary determined after years of careful psychological experiments involving hundreds of test subjects. Leary admired Gibson's writing, and the first issue of Mondo 2000 even published a conversation between them. If Dr. Leary were alive today I think he might be a bit saddened, not at being mentioned only in passing, but at the fact that Mr. Gibson seems so pessimistic (or perhaps shortsighted?) regarding the capabilities of the human mind.

I respect Mr. Gibson too much to waste his time asking for a discussion of these issues, but I'm curious about what other people think.

---

I think if you reread the blog entry you mentioned, you'll in fact come to the conclusion that he seems optimistic about human mind capabilities. There's no doubt that drugs change perception, but the side effects of something like LSD is your thoughts can become so chaotic, you may be having great creative ideas but become incabable of doing anything with them until you come down and then you can't quite recall specifics of what you were thinking. How many times have you heard someone saying they figured out the meaning of existence while tripping but they can no longer explain it?

Throughout history there have been numerous groups of people involved in exploring the limits of the human mind, and there are many different ways of tapping into our potential that don't involve using foreign substances. Fasting, pain, mantras, chanting, meditiations, drugs are all just tools to try and break down the barriers imposed by normal chemical brain physiology. I think the point Gibson was trying to make was that drugs more often than not just get in the way of being able to do anything useful with that knowledge once the barriers are opened.

i use to do acid a lot and smoke marijuana, thinking it would help me become more creative with my writing and music, but it wasn't until I got out of that mindset that I was really able to tell if what I was doing was creative. I know I play much better when sober and it certainly makes it easier to type when the keyboard isn't playing melting games with me. Not that I regret ever having tried drugs, but I think you get to a point where you realize someone like Leary (who, granted, does have some interesting things to say) is a false prophet. Drugs can only alter your existing perceptions, not add creativity or talent.

> I think the point Gibson was trying to make was that drugs more often than not just get in the
> way of being able to do anything useful with that knowledge once the barriers are opened.

I don't have much use for "more often than not" statements. "More often than not" a bestselling book is not very substantive. "More often than not" the most successful hitters in Major League Baseball fail. "More often than not" a student of music composition does not become the next Mozart.

I like to consider the "not" cases, in which humans transcend perceived limits or go beyond normal behavior, and that was one point I tried to make in my post.

> but I think you get to a point where you realize someone like Leary (who, granted, does
> have some interesting things to say) is a false prophet.

I don't share that opinion (perhaps I will in the future), but thanks for your input.

Schizophrenia can be, and has been, cured by a gunshot wound to the brain. More often than not, that doesn't work.

An extreme example, I know, I know. Look, there was a whole generation of people who believed that drug use could change the world. It would change the way their minds worked, it could change the very fabric of our society. It was a generation long experiment in enlightenment. It failed. Today is not the tomorrow they were expecting.

I've made my speech about the crutch of drug use before, so I won't bore you with repitition. To summarize, it's a crutch. Free yourself, and your mind will follow. Heh.