How to sort through the eels in your mind
Or how I made-up a metaphor to figure out where I should go next.
I am a writer who has not written for a while. I have missed writing fiction and non-fiction, but now I’m going to do something about it. And in some way, I feel that this is a journey all too familiar to people who are returning to a hobby or returning to something vital within themselves.
To not get too meta, I have struggled to figure out what to write about. Not only do I want to speak with authority, with panache or insight, but it can be overwhelming to begin and inevitably question why you should do it in the first place. Some writers recommend that you know the end of your story before you try and write it, but what does that mean for the writing life?
If , for example, you were to ever try to pitch an idea for a film, there is always the question of whether you are telling someone the premise or telling someone the plot.
For those who are not used to it, a premise can be a literal form of presenting your idea - your main character, their goal and what they must travail to achieve it.
A plot, on the other hand, is the summation of what challenges or allies the character/s will meet, their journey and main events, as well as some aspects that bring colour to your storytelling.
I have struggled to come to any resemblance of a plot in my writing journey or the shape of this blog, but somehow the idea to knock down the blank page has spurred me to write this blog.
Inaction can be a decision.
From time to time, I make up comedy skits that go nowhere, but they are entertaining follies that seem to drift through my mind… like someone humming or skipping. This is where most of my ridiculous ideas come from for my short stories or my art.
But why did I call this blog ‘How to sort through the eels in your mind’? Honestly, it was funny.
If I had to dive deeper, I recently learnt via Hannah Fry on TikTok, and later research, that only until recently there was an incredible uncertainty about how eels actually reproduced. For a long time, no one was sure where they came from, and how they came to be. Potentially inspired by this, I made up this skit (translated into prose, although it’s more a visual/audio sketch):
A man closes the front door, feeling tired and ashamed from coming home late from work. He promised to cook some spaghetti for his partner, and as much as she could be annoyed in the other room, he was going to avoid that conversation. He takes out the pot from the cupboard, opens the tap. After a slight few drops of water, instead of a stream of water, a burst of eels start coming through the small tap. Just a stupid number of eels. Pouring, squeezing and overwhelming the man.
‘Eels?! EEEELLLSSS!’
In a matter of moments, the eels, dark and plentiful, start to overwhelm him. They fill the pot, they take over the sink, and spill over all over the kitchen floor. If he were Italian, he would be pleased. But he isn’t, and he was not.
‘Rebecca! They’re too many eels!’
‘Eels?’
‘EELS!!’
He turns off the tap, drops the pot of slithering eels into the sink, and goes down to his knees to collect the eels from the ground.
Rebecca comes around the corner, and cooly looks down at him with a blank face.
‘It’s just too many eels…’
She sighs, ‘Arthur, you’ve got to learn how to deal with them.’
She walks back to the lounge. Arthur, still deeply confused and slightly perturbed, tries to grab a single eel, and he is slapped by its tail for his efforts.
I did not write this to discover a metaphor about being overwhelmed by life’s different paths and options intentionally. Maybe it isn’t relatable to anyone but me.
Ideas, dreams and ambitions can be thought of as slippery eels, overwhelming to think about but as soon as you feel something solid, they just slip away. These are ideas that feel strange and exotic, but to hold onto one can cause such a mess and can escape as easily as obtained.
How does one hold onto your original mission? Or does the mission have to change? How often does the mission need to change to not fall into the sunken cost fallacy, or is consistency the aim of the game?
In some ways, that’s the human condition. Grappling with struggles that we’ve been nurturing but trying to encourage the creative spark or even the existential spark - what is my goal and what do I have to do to achieve it.
In some ways, we’ve been over exposed to marketing and hustle. Like if we don’t have a hook, you’ve got nothing to hang your hat onto.
So, let’s sort some of these eels out:
Forget trying to collect all the eels, be consistently inconsistent!
You are not a finished piece of work; you are currently a draft and each iteration you are getting better. Or worse. You are changing.
You must be consistent as much as this life allows, but do not forget that you can take an easy or hard path. There are no straight forward stories, or they would be too dull to write about.
Sometimes you don’t want the eels.
Elizabeth Gilbert interviewed iconic singer, musician, and actor, Tom Waits, about his creative process. Now, to cut a long story short (I recommend the video as I don’t want to reveal the punch line, go to 11:47), it is okay to let go of some ideas or desires to the wind. Sometimes a great idea is only great for the moment, and we all know when we’ve revisited anything we’ve written in a less than able state, it can be complete nonsense.
Being overly focused or obsessed with following specific ideas or specific way of life can lead to endless torment, especially for those who are perfectionists. Sometimes the eel that you think is your solution may be in the way of your true clarity.
Focus on an eel at a time.
Sometimes an eel will slap you in the face, that’s life. However, sometimes we want so much that we forget to take time to ‘think’. What do I want right now? What do I need right now? And a single eel may not satisfy your desires, but it can certainly be the beginning of something.
I think I am good with three. Can we forget about the eels altogether?
Gladly.
I will continue writing about what is interesting to me. If you are hunting for the perfect niche, or perfect mastery, you’ll just end up with eels.
Til next time,
M.
Amen. I'm red in the cheek from the sheer number of eel tail slaps!