writing – Page 3 – Art Smukler, MD

What the heck is a writer’s soul?

Just my way of trying to describe the creative place where ideas and passion are first conceived.

Lately, I’ve been hooked on country music, the kind of stuff where lost love and dreams of the past, tear away at the walls that keep the forgotten 16-year-old locked away from our conscious minds. Remember your 1st love? Your 1st fight? Your 1st best friend? The troubled, idealistic Holden Caulfield trying to make the world a more honest place?

Back then we didn’t know or care about Republicans and Democrats, gun control or Gay Rights. We cared about love, friendship, and finding a way to make sense out of this huge, crazy world. We dreamed of a vague future, of glory on the ball field, of getting Betty or Robert to notice us and to reciprocate our love.

The pathway into the past, hidden by the layers of logic that come with adulthood, can be breached by just letting our mind wander to wherever it wants to go. That’s not so easy when the realities of making ends meet, raising kids, a job and working out marital issues are so right in our faces.

One way to start the journey inward is to really listen to music — country, jazz, oldies, classical, whatever — to allow it to carry you into the past or present or future — the same way just a tiny glance from the girl of your dreams would send you spinning for days at a time.

Another access to the past is through the sense of smell, the most primitive part of our brain. The scents of Thanksgiving with grandma, baking chocolate brownies with mom, even an odor that makes you cringe with disgust can send you spinning to a long forgotten place.

All our senses — sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste can do it. Leave the world of paying bills and fighting traffic and take a trip back to your past. That’s where the writer’s soul exists.

Don’t forget to follow Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist.

“So listen to my new post,” I say to my muse, who I’ve been married to for three hundred years.

She puts down her book, and waits patiently while I fiddle with the laptop.

“Okay, here goes,” I say, and begin my latest rendition of Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist. When I’m done she says, not unkindly, “It’s boring.”

“Boring? How can you say that? Aren’t you interested in psychiatry or the homeless or heroes?”

“I am,” she says. “But I’d like a different slant, something that hasn’t been said hundreds of times by people who are experts.”

“Like who?”

“Like Steve Lopez who writes everyday for a living. He comes up with new ideas all the time.”

“I’m not Steve Lopez.”

“If you want people to love your work and buy your books, make it funny, interesting, different.”

“Jesus,” I say and sit stunned (For the ten-thousandth time in three hundred years). “You don’t take any prisoners.”

“You don’t agree?”

Moments pass. Finally I say, “You’re really annoying.”

“So you agree?”

“It is boring.”

“You want some freshly baked gingerbread cake?” she asks.

“I do. I need some gingerbread cake.”

That night as I drift off to sleep, I know for a fact that I’ll never think of anything new to write. How can anyone be as good as Steve Lopez?

The next morning my next post popped into my head. After my muse listened, she said, “I love it. It’s new, different and interesting.” (You’ll all have to wait to read it.)

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You have any gingerbread cake left?”