Stella Gibbons’s My American and writing: Part I

As previously mentioned, Stella Gibbons makes some insightful comments about writers, writing and the imagination in her novel My American, in which Amy Lee is the main character. Amy's love of reading, writing and research and her need for solitude as a young girl are all very typical of people who grow up to be writers. 

This article contains some particularly significant extracts with the commentary they inspire:

Freely flowing words and ideas

What Stella Gibbons says about Amy's writing is a good description of what it feels like when the ideas and words come easily:

“Her stories never stuck, but sometimes she enjoyed writing them more than she did at other times. When the pen flew and her hand ached, when there was nothing real in the world except the white paper before her and the flying tip of the nib, and the picture in her mind that she was describing turned so quickly into words that she could no longer tell at what instant the figures in it became marks on the paper—then the story was Beginning to Run, and unfortunate is the writer who has never tasted such a moment.”

Unfortunate indeed is the writer whose creations are never fluent and painless - or frictionless as Rudyard Kipling would say.

And yes, the whole outer world often does disappear for some people when they are engrossed in reading or writing.

More freely flowing words and ideas

After getting a job as an office girl, Amy is sent to collect some copy from a very famous writer who has produced many stories for the boys’ magazine she works for.

More about Rudyard Kipling’s Daemon

There is a little more Daemon-related material of interest in Rudyard Kipling’s autobiographical work Something of Myself.

His anecdotes provide some recommendations and guidance that other writers might find useful.

Give the Daemon the tools it wants
When it comes to writing, the best approach is to use tools and materials that attract and encourage the Daemon and avoid anything that the inner companion says it dislikes.

Kipling’s Daemon had a strong preference for deep black ink:

“For my ink I demanded the blackest, and had I been in my Father's house, as once I was, would have kept an ink-boy to grind me Indian-ink. All 'blue-blacks' were an abomination to my Daemon...”

It is strange what a big difference these little things make. It is definitely good practice to humour whatever it is that makes the ideas flow. It is merely a matter of doing what feels right; it is easy to sense when the Daemon is comfortable and when not.

Do your share of the work
One thing the writer can do that the Daemon can not is to research and check some basic information. Not only does this improve the quality of the work and the authority of the writer, getting started may attract the attention of the Daemon and encourage it to make its own contribution.

In Rudyard Kipling’s own words:

“In respect to verifying one's references, which is a matter in which one can help one's Daemon. Take nothing for granted if you can check it. Even though that seem waste-work, and has nothing to do with the essentials of things, it encourages the Daemon. There are always men who by trade or calling know the fact or the inference that you put forth. If you are wrong by a hair in this, they argue 'False in one thing, false in all.' Having sinned, I know. Likewise, never play down to your public--not because some of them do not deserve it, but because it is bad for your hand.”

Rudyard Kipling and his Daemon

This article was inspired by a short anecdote in Rudyard Kipling’s autobiographical work Something of Myself (1937).

This is where he tells us about his Daemon, a kind of personal muse who he says inspired his writing. He tells us some very interesting and significant things about this supernatural being.

The inspirational anecdote in summary is that a man told Kipling a horror story that he said was a personal experience. Kipling wrote it up but something stopped him from sending it to a publisher. He was really glad about this when, ‘by chance’, he found the story, identical in every way, in an old magazine. He gives credit to his Daemon for preventing a charge of plagiarism, which would not be good for such a famous writer’s reputation and would have been very stressful for him.

This may sound far-fetched, but other people have had similar experiences although they may not attribute helpful inner promptings and warnings to a daemon but, for example, to Providence, the Universe or their subconscious minds. I have given examples of such positive inner guidance in various articles.