What’s on the other side of silence: darkness, or hope? Or might it be both?
Silence is golden, so the cliché goes, a cliché being a cliché because at its core it is true, or partly true. But the fact is silence can also be a shadow, more, a shifty, dark, impenetrable black mass. Of all people, it’s our fiction writers who know about silence, know it only too well.
We need silence to read, to immerse ourselves in the work of others, to learn, to admire, to be moved. But we also need silence to dream and think and plan our own stories. We need silence when we’re about to jump over the edge – what a cliff it is; will we fly or fall? – and put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, however it has to be done. We need silence as the words begin to flow, as the characters and their story twist here and there, sometimes everywhere. We need silence when everything starts to unravel: when characters misbehave or fade into the fog; when plots tangle like lantana; when the whiteness of a blank page or screen becomes blindness.
Somehow, miraculously, if the gods are on our side, it comes together in the end, the story is finished, and perhaps, just perhaps, someone wants it enough to make it public, to launch it out into the world.
And then – and then what exactly?
The silence changes form, that’s what, the darkness comes, the blackness. After those days and weeks and months and years of sculpting, unearthing, fossicking, erasing, reshaping, losing, winning, turning, straightening, polishing, to the point that the fictional world is now as real as the world down the street. But once the finished words are on the published page, more than likely – oh this is the terrible truth – nothing will happen. The sun still rises, the sun still sets, and in-between there’s the same old hours.
Amongst the silence – the good sort and the merciless – there has to be hope. That the story, being like a prayer or a chant or even just a simple little wish, will go and do good things. Perhaps in response someone will say a kind word, even a blunt but honest one, and this will make the writer’s day. And it just might be enough to send the writer back into the silence one more time, to dream up another story, to do it all again. Despite themselves and everything they know.
(First published in Panorama, The Canberra Times, 20 April 2013.)
Under the counter or a flutter in the dovecote 
10 comments
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April 21, 2013 at 9:16+00:00Apr
Geoff
The silence. Oh the silence.
Sometimes when composing a photograph, searching for the elusive image I know is there but not yet manifest, I become oblivious to the external world and though my mind must be running very quickly I am in what is best described as a silent place. At least I remember it as silent. I’ve been there often enough now to revel in that feeling, that space, because something creative always comes of it … something that wasn’t in the world before I went there.
Yes, the sun still rises and world turns but it’s a richer world because you put something of yourself into it.
Thanks 🙂
April 21, 2013 at 9:16+00:00Apr
Nigel Featherstone
Thanks heaps, Geoff. Love your response. Yes, intense concentration = silence. You’re also spot on, obviously, that the world is a better place because people bother to pause and create. Cheers!
April 21, 2013 at 9:16+00:00Apr
whisperinggums
As more extrovert than introvert, I have a love-hate relationship with silence but I do love to walk in silence. Others, I know, plug into their ipods for music/podcasts when they go for a walk, and I do love the radio, but I love to walk in silence, to experience where I am, to be alone with my thoughts. I’m not sure much comes from my silence except the benefits that a few moments of peace bring but I’m glad of it …
April 21, 2013 at 9:16+00:00Apr
Nigel Featherstone
Hi Sue, ah yes, walking in silence – isn’t it wonderful? Perhaps the silence amplifies the experience? Usually I’m one of those people who always listens to music when walking, but for the last couple of weeks I’ve just gone out there with nothing but the dog, the silence, and my thoughts.
But the silence I write about above is the sort that has a dark side – the lack of response that can come after something’s been written and published. It’s an awful feeling, and with all the changes to the critical-writing landscape (i.e. mainstream press and the downsizing of their investment in literary reviews) means the silence is even more dangerous. Is dangerous the right word? Probably.
So thank goodness for Whispering Gums!
April 22, 2013 at 9:16+00:00Apr
whisperinggums
Ah yes, well of course, that’s a silence I don’t know personally – although even bloggers I suppose feel it on a VERY small scale. We like the commenting don’t we?
I must say I feel self-conscious writing reviews of books by living authors because I appreciate the anxiety that must attend to your putting your souls on the line. I try to avoid reading books that I believe won’t be up my alley – for that reason AND because there’s so much to read, anyhow! “My alley” is, I hope though, a broad church!
April 22, 2013 at 9:16+00:00Apr
Tristan
Hi Nigel. One of the things I continue to value about Under the Counter is the honesty on offer here. I liked this piece because there is something inherently anticlimactic about the act of writing, but it’s a part of the process that doesn’t get a great deal of attention.
I wrote on twitter that this post was about a writer’s complicated relationship with silence. At one point, we want it; at another point, we want its opposite. That’s a lot to ask. But I am hopeful too – maybe not getting our way this time is alone enough to send us back to try again. Whatever the case, I feel wiser and better prepared for having read your (honest) thoughts and experiences during your Blemish Novella story. May the journey continue!
April 22, 2013 at 9:16+00:00Apr
Nigel Featherstone
Hi Sue – that’s a really interesting comment on how you’re self-conscious about writing reviews of books by living authors. Yes, all authors put a lot of themselves into their work, but we also value the unbiased (with any luck!) feedback that’s provided by intelligent reviews. It’s such an important part of the literary landscape/culture and I’m so glad that sites like Whispering Gums are there providing thoughtful and erudite responses.
Hi Tristan – thanks for your honest comment! I saw your tweet about this post and thought, Yes, Tristan really gets what this particular First Word column is all about. In fact, I think you’ve crystallised it for me. Of course you’re right: writers – perhaps all artists – have a complicated relationship with silence. Most of us crave it, need it, worship it. But when we’re done we want a wall of noise of comment and praise and feedback and review and response. It is tricky.
I’ve been thinking about this ever since a very eminent Australian novelist told me that it’s the part of the process that he hates – the silence. He writes for years and years, getting everything perfect, and then…nothing. And this particular writer has been up for all the major awards this country has to offer. And he still has to content with silence.
No doubt it’s just part of this thing we do, but it does require a bit of skill to negotiate it all, and know how to respond when, well, there’s not much of a response. Perhaps this is why writers like blogging and social media so much – it helps to keep the silence at bay?
April 25, 2013 at 9:16+00:00Apr
Gabrielle Bryden
It is a conundrum and a risk I think – the anticlimax of a finished project (and not just writing – I always felt really weird and flat at the end of each year at Uni – for me I need to jump straight into something else and forget the project that came before (not completely, but put it out of the forefront of the conscious mind) and hopefully some ‘noise’ will pop through the artificial blinders and we will get a nice surprise (ah yes, that book or poem or project) – waiting for the phone to ring is never a good feeling 😉 – better to move onto the next involvement and if they do ring, well that is good too (you can boast about your new fling and maybe flirt with the ex at the same time – hahaha – is a book like an ex – you would know better than me)! I am rambling now 🙂
April 27, 2013 at 9:16+00:00Apr
Nigel Featherstone
Oh wow, now that’s a question: is a book like an ex? Perhaps it’s more like and off-again, on-again relationship, you know, ‘I can’t stand you’, ‘you’re the best thing ever ever ever’, ‘get out of my face’, ‘I want to hold your hand’, ‘you’re speaking shit’, ‘how wise you are’. Better stop there; I’m sure you get the point. And so, yes, you’re right: a book is like an ex! And sometimes the silence is bliss, and sometime it’s painfully awful.
April 27, 2013 at 9:16+00:00Apr
Gabrielle Bryden
hahaha I suppose it depends how you feel about your ex 😉