Silver slug came out. Silver slug won’t go back in. The silver slug—a shiny weather hood for my rooftop tent—was once flat and perfectly groomed. A true marvel of factory packaging, it came out of the bag folded in a text-book rectangle with crease lines giving it the air of a proud sheet at the linen store. But here we are, a week later and those crisp crease lines are long gone. I have no frame of reference by which to re-fold the slug.
The material of both bag and slug feels like space. And by space, I don’t mean a vast empty area in which to put your hopes and dreams, I mean space as having a distinctly futuristic NASA vibe. Silver of spacesuit, silver of weather balloon, silver of a solar light sail catching rays in the cosmos. Smooth to the touch, the weather hood exudes an impervious-to-moisture and scoffs-at-the-wind attitude, which I like. It feels smart and intelligent, a quality that also seems to be required to get it back into the bag.
After a short and spirited struggle, I win. It’s back in the bag and swollen up like a blister on a heel. I cinch the drawstring, but that doesn’t seem to help at all.
Oh, dear.
Here’s the thing: It's not enough for it to fit back into the bag after a week of shining like all the stars in the desert on top of my truck. There is a second requirement. There can be no disruption to the careful packing structure and order of the load as a whole. This re-bagged silver slug needs to fit within the Tetris game that operates in the bed of my truck, and it needs to yield to my request to do so.
It needs to want to fit.
Willingly.
To desire and to do it.
To relax and release and give in to life in its silver slug bag until it is once again called upon to perform.
It needs to want to be in harmony with its existence. To yearn for a rich and fruitful life and meaning, both outside and inside of the bag and within the parameters of this universe.
Hmm. What to do? Epiphany! I lay the silver slug bag gently upon the tailgate of my truck, turn around, and do what one does in these situations: I sit on it.
Compression is love. Compression is thoughtfulness. Compression is the path to a full heart and open mind. It is structure—the weighted blanket upon our consciousness, the comfort of our very souls. I feel the lumpiness of the slug nestled beneath me and listen as excess air oozes from its cocoon. Exhaling its pushback. Breathing out the last throes of its resistance.
It sighs. I sigh.
As I gaze out at the stillness of the Mojave in the early dawn light, I begin to think about the act of simmering and patience. Of what it means to stew on things which is, in itself, a version of folding and refolding, stirring, and reconstituting. Of how we can access a past memory to ease a new shape into a future being. Of what it’s like to sit in the goo of our actions in order to find one moment of clarity—the tweak or motion that will make our thing fit.
The point of this post—I believe I’m coming to it1.
Ideas are like silver slugs. None of them want to fit—not initially. You can work at them, soothe them, caress them, and speak softly in your possum voice, but even after all that it can still take a long time before they find the shape of who or what they are. Until then, they don’t know how to relax and just be.
They can’t find a reason to become complete.
That’s on you.
You must find that reason. Be the reason. Live that reason.
Here’s an ugly confession: When things don’t fit—I can’t get a piece of writing to flow properly, or worse still, I can’t even get the creative spark to light in the first place—I will attempt to sleep it into existence. To sit on it in Zzzzland. This sounds dumb and real hippy-dippy, but instead of struggling with the form and trying to stuff too big things into too small bags, I try to fall asleep with the general impression of it in my head and hope that I’ll dream it to life. To solve in it my slumber. To give that silver slug time and space to wriggle around in my brain soup and find its fit within the world.
This technique is essentially the snoozy equivalent of sitting on a silver slug bag on a tailgate. And I don’t mention it as a must-try for you, but more as an illustration of what works for me. Because if you intend to be creative for a long time—a lifetime—you’re going to need to find your own ways to encourage your slugs into bags. Your own method to outline and refine their purpose in order to define their true shape.
You need to become an expert silver slug wrangler. They don’t mention that in the job description, but you do.
The sleep thing doesn’t always work by the way, but there have been times (also during meditation, which is just an advanced form of chanty sleeping) when the slug glides past my consciousness and enters the bag without coaxing. It is eager to fit and please me within the construct of my imagination so that I may share its sluggy goodness with others. I wake up feeling pretty smart those days. But like I said, it doesn’t always work.
You’ve got to trust the process. Trust that your silver slugs want to be. Trust that your silver slugs will feel the pull of their purpose and become guides for your own brain on how to build the constraints around them.
“Constraints? What? Aren’t you always saying: ‘Be open, be free!’ and to let ideas roam on the plains and prairies of your consciousness until they reveal themselves to you?”
Well, yes. You should let your silver slugs unfold and air themselves out in the wild, showing you the lining of their internals, the stitching at their edges, and the roomy expanse of their fabric. But at some point in the process, you’re going to have to make it fit somewhere. At some point, you’re going to have to reign it back in and give it structure.
You’re gonna have to bag that silver slug.
Don’t bristle. “Fit” doesn’t have to mean “conform”. You’re not giving up anything here. You’re not selling out the free-style jazz of your brain.
Fit means to realize. To come into being. To experience the satisfaction and release of finding the right-sized hole for the shape of your idea. Fit means to grow up and be professional in your approach. To work at things and find solutions to problems of vision. Fit means to tame that silver slug, become one with its definition, and Tetris it into the truckload of your life.
For we are, all of us, silver slugs holding silver slug bags and trying to find our shape, fit, form, and function. Find a metaphorical tailgate, stare out upon the peaceful desert of your choosing, and sit on it, Potsie2.
Yours in tiny thought,
Janeen3
This week’s amends…
“And the longer the book you write, the more times you must pass through it because writer’s voices change within a four, five year period of time, you’re actually liking a different kind of sentence five years down the road, than you were four years ago. And one of the tasks of revising a novel of any length is to go back and make the whole thing sound as if it were spoken in one breath, as if your sentence style, your preference for the semicolon or the parentheses or the dash, just was constant, and you got to make it look that way, even though it wasn’t spoken in one breath, it was spoken in very halting little bits, it’s supposed to sound like it’s coming right off the top of your head.”
- John Irving, in answer to the question: “How often do you rewrite your books?” Full interview from 2009, here.
Via Big Think.
On Rotation: “Baby Where You Are” by Ted Lucas
I'm not sure why I’m keen to see this, but know that I am.
Sometimes things don’t have to mean anything. Sometimes it’s fine that they just be. With that in mind, here’s Pug in a Rug.
.Via Boing Boing
I heard your sigh of relief from here.
I was in the Mojave testing a few mobile office upgrades—thanks for asking. First upgrade: the StarLink RV plan for internet. Second upgrade: a new, enclosed structure to set up the workstation in. (I got run out of a campsite a while back because of yellow jackets, which was a huge bummer, so I was hoping this would be a good solution for that kind of situation.) I’m aware of how glamping my camping is, but spending a week in the desert and being able to work as though at home is my fever dream.
The StarLink is a game changer for sure, but wow—this dumb bougie little mesh-sided structure (that you can put windbreak walls on, which I did at night), saved me. Honey bees this time. A couple of times a day they’d descend upon camp looking for water in a sort of intense flashmob. Success! I remained unbothered and worked away in my little office to the dulcet tones of their buzzing. I don’t care if it’s fancy camping - have you ever WRITTEN IN THE DESERT for a week? You should try it sometime. Got questions? Ask away.