To Learn to Be Alone

            “The mind never stays still. Without constant vigilance our minds can, and often do, wander from the constraints of our current task to our own private thoughts and feelings. The experience of mind‐wandering is one of the most introspectively accessible examples of the challenges of mental control.”

                        -Oxford Companion to Consciousness

            The above quote is one that Edmundson would wholeheartedly agree with. He explains in this chapter how difficult it is for one to control their thoughts and not allow their mind to wander while they write. This brief chapter starts off with Edmundson reporting a small amount about the life of Pascal, a lonely intellectual. He then moves to speaking about how this may have helped Pascal's pursuits, stating "when you are isolated in your room, you need something to do." It is revealed that the author believes each writer must at some point retreat to loneliness, and he describes his own enclosed writing space, mentioning the visitors who would pass through and their comments, mostly about wanting a space such as his. However, he then reveals to the reader that the space is not as creativity-conducive as these passers-by believe, because in any space a person will bore themselves if they're sitting down to write. He says people are not made to be lonely, that one must train himself/herself to be lonely, citing Milton's version of God's creation of man, Aristotle, and others. Our mind is too busy, causing us to think and rethink when alone. Edmundson uses a practice of yoga, cutting energy, when it comes to sitting down to write. In order to be alone and write, we must relax and aim, and to form this into a habit. It is a learned behavior, not a given trait. Learning to be alone, to stand yourself, is a physical exercise, one that when practiced, will help in everyday life. It may take time to learn, but Edmundson claims that after he learned it, he craved it, and we can do so as well.

            What is difficult to stomach about Edmundson’s chapter is that he makes far too many blanket, generalized statements whose claim is only held in his own personal experience. There is no doubt that some authors feel the same way he does, but it seems ridiculous to assert that all writers have a journey similar to his own. He may need to be completely alone, whole some may need a little distractions, and others need a crowd of people surrounding them in order to get anything accomplished. I don’t feel as if Edmundson’s personal experience translates to me as fact in any way. There are other, similarly accomplished authors that make opposite claims. Whether these claims be about drawing inspiration, beginning to write, the writing process, or becoming a seasoned writer, all authors seems to have varying viewpoints.

            “I began writing about everyday life” is a simple statement by Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun, about how she began writing, when she lives in Tuscany (Mayes). Author of numerous Sports novels, Dave Zirin writes, “The emancipating, near-miraculous aspect of being a writer is that it requires no sanction from the outside world” (Zirin). He continues to speak on his experience trying to force himself to write a column stating, “I recall with a shudder how I paced the room” (Zirin). Travel writer and television show host Rick Steve explains, “I share travel experiences in hopes that people blessed with the opportunity to explore our world can minimize the expense and maximize the experience by learning from my mistakes rather than their own” (Steve). He has experienced the world, and chooses to write about it. Melissa Clark writes about food and says, “Food is a basic need that we all confront every day and, for me, it's a compelling force in why I write” (Clark).

All of the above authors prove to me a few things. 1) We cannot all gain our inspiration from an empty room. As Zirin recalls in wiritng his first column when he had no experience in the sports world, that he simply didn’t have a voice yet because he didn’t have inspiration behind his writing. 2) Although it may be a cliché, the advice to ‘write what you know’ proves completely true. All of the aforementioned authors talked about how their experience not only led them to begin writing, they continued to write because they wished to impart their knowledge on the subjects they knew so much about. And 3) we do not have to be great, practiced experts in order to write, as Edmundson suggests. We can be successful without experience or training ourselves because we can write about the everyday. We don’t have to learn to be alone or concentrate before we learn to write.

The author claims that when he first started writing he would write for just an hour or two before he was “itching for action, itching for people” (123).

Edmundson seems to believe that mind-wandering destroys a writer while concentrating, not only is this a generalization, but this is simply counterfactual. Recently, researchers at the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University in Israel were able cause test subjects' minds to wander using special brain stimulation. They showed that performance on external task also increased…the trend was clear in all experiments” (Picciuto). Surely, writing is an external task, but there is also no doubt to writers that this task is internally taxing as well. Another article cites another, similar study stating, “mind-wandering fosters creative problem solving. It also aids decision-making by allowing you to run future-oriented simulations in your head” (Sapolsky). Undoubtedly, writing uses these skills as well. One must creatively navigate their characters’ paths, and pay close attention to how they script the characters’ futures.

            Although I disagree with the majority of the content in this chapter. There are some key points that I, and my colleagues found very agreeable. When one sits down to write they must concentrate to some degree in order to be efficient. There were very few of my classmates who said they were capable of writing with anything else going on around them. Additionally, it is agreeable that everyone must learn to be by themselves. It is a clichéd thought, but rings true that when one lays down to sleep at night they remember all of the things they have not already done for the day that they need to do. This is because when we have nothing else to entertain ourselves with, our mind often entertains itself with whatever may be circulating. It may be planning events in one’s life, replaying conversations from the day, theorizing about a favorite TV show, worrying about a family member or friend, and so on. When we are alone we think about whatever we please. The steam of consciousness type of writing, popularized by James Joyce is an example of such thought processes. One can start the beginning of a paragraph detailing the inner monologue of a character, but by the end of the reading, the subject has changed completely. This is because even when we try to stay on track in our thought process, our minds often wander in whatever direction they so please. Because this is so common, in order to be a successful writer, one must learn to relax the mind somewhat and to concentrate on the task at hand. This can be difficult because writing is often a solitary activity.

            In conclusion, although Edmundson makes some points that hold a degree of validity, the majority of his assertions are based only in personal experience, and don’t necessarily speak to authors as a whole. His issues in the chapter mainly lie in the fact that he makes broad, generalizing statements based solely upon these personal experiences, ignoring facts asserted in recent studies. He takes things to extremes and doesn’t clearly explain himself and his points regarding his personal writing process. It is ambiguous to the reader as to where Edmundson draws his inspiration, and since he does not let himself think about anything except writing his text, one wonders if the inspiration for his writing drips from the walls of the office he describes. It would be incredibly interesting to study how Edmundson’s works have changed in ingenuity and personality since he decided to become an author trained in the art of solitary. 

Works Cited

Clark, Melissa. "Why I write..." Publishers Weekly, 9 Aug. 2010, p. 26. Academic OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=tel_a_ttul&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA234712928&it=r&asid=ca5e4123b582a58fc67ebf5178791af5. Accessed 25 Apr. 2017.

Mayes, Frances. "Why I write ..." Publishers Weekly, 8 Feb. 2010, p. 25. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=tel_a_ttul&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA219307302&it=r&asid=e3e73a5cd87a71d7663366f2728fc7f1. Accessed 25 Apr. 2017.

Picciuto, Elizabeth. "Don't Stop Daydreaming: Why a Wandering Mind Is Good for You." Daily Beast, 3 Mar. 2015. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=tel_a_ttul&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA431694422&it=r&asid=9a2dcca65f19d3da2f8f4a8afcde2fa6. Accessed 25 Apr. 2017.

Sapolsky, Robert. "The Benefits of Mind-Wandering; Robert M. Sapolsky on Recent Brain Research about Letting Your Mind Wander--and Why It's Good for You." Wall Street Journal (Online) [New York, N.Y.] 19 June 2015: N/a. Web.

Smallwood, Jonathan, and Jonathan W. Schooler. "Mind‐wandering." The Oxford Companion to Consciousness (2009): The Oxford Companion to Consciousness, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/oxford-companion-to-consciousness-9780198569510?cc=us&lang=en&. Accessed 25 Apr. 2017.

Steve, Rick. "Why I write..." Publishers Weekly, 28 Feb. 2011, p. 29. Academic OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=tel_a_ttul&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA251276371&it=r&asid=a6a46ff5c017e1aa0cbba4d4c78a75d3. Accessed 25 Apr. 2017.

Zirin, Dave. "Why I write ..." Publishers Weekly, 4 Oct. 2010, p. 23. Academic OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=tel_a_ttul&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA238911859&it=r&asid=c13ca5d2d3886dc9b3d2bd9c45679750. Accessed 25 Apr. 2017.