Sneaking Past the Devil

2009-08-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

A friend at the coffee joint where I hang out towards the end of each day here in Concord, California, confesses to what she thinks of as a lack of self-discipline preventing her from making progress on book she has started.

“See, now.” she says, looking at me earnestly, “You, obviously have the dedication you need to turn out so much stuff.”

“Au contraire, mon cher,” I say, affecting a boulevardier impression as we sit at a sidewalk table under a large, drippy maple so she can smoke a cigarette while I maintain safe distance upwind. “I have about as much self-discipline as Jello, and I melt instantly at the sight of a blank screen. Sometimes I go for days, weeks, even months, unable to put up a readable sentence .”

She looks as surprised as I am when I discover someone else afflicted with any doubts resembling my own. “I get to where I dread going near my keyboard – like there's an invisible physical barrier that I bounce off whenever I get too close.

"All that 'sit-down-every-day' advice that writers give each other flies out the window,” I say. “I turn to daytime TV.

The transparent rubber barrier is like a filter and only lets me pass if I'm going to the computer to write emails and surf the Web for useless information and watching YouTube clips.”

“But then, how do you...?” she starts to say, lighting another cigarette, before being interrupted by a semi-bloated, ruddy, watery-eyed street person who stops by our table to bum a dollar and a cigarette, and tells us we should give thanks to street sweepers, but he wishes they'd leave more smokable butts around.

He asks me for a match and I tell him I don't smoke – and neither do I own a car, I say, as long as we were on non sequiturs.

“Then you must write like crazy when you get started,” she guesses, “or you wouldn't have cranked out that new novel and those stories..."

“Such as the are,” I add, knocking on the wood of the table, except that it's metal, so I knock on the wooden pole holdup in the olive green shade umbrella over our heads.

The mendicant takes the dollar and the cigarette she gave him along with the dime I dropped in his hand, with equal gratitude and shuffled away to the next table. Annoying, but it's part of the lively, semi-suburban San Francisco East Bay town square I enjoy at the little Todos Santos Park square in this blue-collar suburb, exactly for its not being like a shopping mall – friendly, pretty, atmospheric multi-ethnic and distinctly un-yuppie.

“The only way I ever write again," I continue, "is to sneak past the devil, very quickly, to the keyboard when some idea prods me enough to work up my courage,” I tell her, thinking out loud.

I realize that I haven't ever contemplated my frequent bouts of writer's block that way, with a devil on stage. It's process that I usually endure -- boiling in self-blame -- more than analyzing.

“I get a distinct itch -- a strong tingle, a buzz of an idea that has to be scratched," I go on with the metaphoric tale. "It's like the memory of a wild dream I can't quite remember that I'm compelled to fish out of the void before it fades completely over morning toast.

“I dart over to the computer when the demon isn't looking, so that I can note down the notion, or idea, or vision – whatever – pressing itself against the backs of my eyes -- before it fades from mind or goes stale.

“Before I know it, I'm writing it and the next thing it suggests and the next and next after that, and I look up and the sun is going down and I keep writing into the night.

My friend nods. “Then you work in cycles,” she said. “You trick the devil and take over the computer... You have to become The Trickster character,” she says, being much into archetypes and Jung.

“Or maybe I'm just bipolar,” I say. “But yes, I prefer Trickster, except I'm not exactly that either. The Trickster gives me the idea and tells me when the coast is clear for a run at the keys.

"I don't think of it as writing. I'm just intending to make a note of what's in my head. So I'm just as must tricking myself as I am my devil.

My friend laughs again. “Whatever it takes,” she says.

“Then, lots of times, I go manic and write day and night after that. I feel invincible, in charge, having taken the high ground from the devil – at least temporarily. I don't want to relinquish it. I break only for bodily maintenance essentials – water, food, coffee, a period stretch and moving around the room, a few hours of sleep...

"Before I know it I've churned out thousands of words until whatever it is is done... and burned out finally, I go outside for a walk, or to sleep... I read it later and I think to myself, not half bad. Though who knows?”

“Not important,” she says – a process person all the way. I wish I could be more of a process person.

“It's a crazy way to write. Too much stress...The price is too high. But I keep coming back to it.”

“Sounds exciting, though” She comments. “That's maybe your payoff.”

Okay, she got me. “But there are better ways to have fun,” I remind her, not meaning it as flirtatiously as it comes out.

“You should talk to your Trickster and make friends with devil,” she suggests. She's a spiritual type, and online counselor. I wish I could be a spiritual type as well as one of those process people.

“I don't even believe in the devil – not literally – or heaven or hell or any of that,” I say, laughing the whole thing off. I want to try it but fear rocking my leaky boat in the process -- that word again.

“Fear is hell,” she says. “Fear is what blocks you from God. Like fear of making mistakes."

"But fear protects you too sometimes,” I answer.

"That's why you make friends with your devil and find out what he's trying to protect you from," she answers. The wind shifts, I cough and we trade places so I can avoid the smoke.

I fantasize a heart-to-heart with my devil. This guy who takes over my laptop and pitchforks me so hellishly away from what I want to do isn't about to come to Jesus.

Back home, however, we engage nonetheless. He shows up, to my surprise, looking bland as a bank clerk, when I walk into my living room and call him out.

“I'm protecting you,” the devil explains. He seems rather mild mannered now, sitting on the couch across from me where he doesn't walk, but just materializes as he moves from one spot to the next.

"I keep you from making an ass of yourself writing crap when the time isn't right. Admit it, you're not always receiving good stuff from upstairs, exactly," he says. "There's a time to write and a time to let yourself process," he adds.

Jeez, another process person. "Don't go all Ecclesiastic on me," I say. "Anyway, how would you know good stuff from bad. Confess: You're just 'protecting' me from being unconventional and from making mistakes I need to make."

"I have always been known through the ages for my impeccable tastes," he boasts. But he's not smiling now. This could be bad, I'm thinking.

Not knowing when to quit, I press on: "And how am I supposed to know when I'm processing and not just lolligagging?"

"You don't.” He laughs fiendishly back in devilish spirits.

"Hey! Look at that!" I yell to him, and point out the window onto my balcony. When dematerializes off the sofa and re-materializes outside on the deck -- ever curious -- I slide the glass door shut, lock him out, and dash to my computer.

“Sorry. I've got to write this blog.” I mouth to him, mockingly, as he stares in, fuming, wagging his finger and pointy tail.

I remember that phrase from the old Irish blessing: "...And may you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows your dead." In my case -- if that depth psychology doesn't work out -- may I be at my keyboard a half hour before the devil knows I'm writing.

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Sneaking Past the Devil