Why Is A Raven Like A Writing Desk?

This supposedly unanswerable question was posed by the Mad Hatter in C.S. Carroll’s “Alice In Wonderland.” It has been pondered and speculated and dissected by many over the years, and I guess this is my attempt to add my name to that long list of questioners. Although, this isn’t so much an answer to the question as it is a breakdown in comparison to writing. Here goes…

So, why IS a raven like a writing desk? This is just my interpretation, but when you see a raven it’s so alluring and beautiful and intriguing that you just want to get close to it and take a picture. But ravens, being the smartest birds on Earth (and probably smarter than most people), usually notice you and fly away before you can get a shot of them. They have also been known to carry on human-like conversations with each other only to shut up as soon as you come within ear shot, and to drop nuts in the street timed perfectly with the stop lights so they don’t get hit. But anyway, they are professional escape artists, and the writing desk can sometimes be the same way for the writer. You have this great idea and think “Man, I have to write this down.” So you schedule the perfect time, ready yourself with the perfect music or other inspiring media, and sit down at your desk to write. But many times, by the time you’re ready to write, the idea doesn’t want to come forward. Like a performer with stage fright, your idea finds every excuse it can to stay safely cocooned inside your head and evade the big bad paper-world. You sit and sit, staring at the blank page (or screen), trying again and again to force your idea out, but it just won’t come forward. Of course, this doesn’t always happen at a writing desk, but many times this is how it seems to go for most writers. I know it has gone that way a lot for me.

So what can you do?

 

1. You can write in notes or lists, instead of sentences. Many times you will find that, soon enough, notes and lists turn into beautiful prose that otherwise might have remained trapped in your head. Sometimes the important thing isn’t to write well, but just to write something. The act of writing, no matter how sloppy or incoherent, can sometimes get the juices flowing and turn into something epic.
2. You can activate the visual aspect of your brain. Find pictures online that remind you of your idea and stare at them a while (but don’t stare too long or you might get lost and forget what your goal was in the first place). And if you’re an artist (or even if you’re not) you can try drawing your idea instead of writing it. Many times this is how I have overcome writer’s block. The seemingly pointless and tedious task of illustrating a character or scene (while listening to music, of course) has been known to pull me out of my writing slump and create for me more fluid and intricate ideas that soon turn into actual words, in actual sentences. Activating the part of your brain that is purely artistic can open up all kinds of doors for writing.
3. You can step away from your organized writing desk. This is something I do ALL the time. When I was stricken with chronic pain a couple years ago and HAD to step away from the literal writing desk, resorting to less painful places such as lying in bed or sitting in a special chair on the porch, suddenly my creative world opened up even more. I now find myself writing ideas on my cellphone first, and then transferring them to my laptop later. That way I can write anywhere. I still don’t use a desk. Whether a phone, laptop, or a notebook, try moving away from the desk and writing in more unconventional places. This will open up new doors for creativity, and soon you will not just have one set time or area to write, but you will be living and breathing and eating and drinking writing every chance you get. Break free from the limitations of a writing desk. Make that elusive raven come to YOU, not the other way around.

After much prodding, Carroll finally came up with an answer to the unanswerable question: “Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!” But ultimately I don’t think the question is meant to have an answer. It is meant to make you wonder. Hence the term Wonderland. Plus, the character that asked the question wasn’t exactly ‘of sound mind’ anyway. 😉 But it’s still fun to try our hand at solving these riddles, and I hope I’ve at least made a little sense with my theory.

Edgar Allan Poe is one of my favorite writers, and while I prefer his stories to his poetry, and his other poems to this one, his poem The Raven could also be compared to the unanswerable question. In the poem he is supposedly reading, although I like to think he is researching for something he’s writing, because that in itself can be pretty maddening sometimes (especially for a Science Fiction writer like myself). I picture him sitting there at his writing desk, cracking open book after book in search of inspiration, but finding none. I picture the raven being a sort of ‘demon in his view’ blocking his inspiration from flowing. I picture the raven as a literal translation of writer’s block. Of course I could be wrong, but isn’t that the beauty of art? Many times it is open to interpretation, and its goal is not always to answer our questions, but to ask them. The best art causes us to think, to wonder, to explore, and Poe and Carroll have both succeeded at this. We may never know the answer to these questions (if there are in fact answers) but that’s okay.

Let it be noted that Carroll also gave this answer at one point: “The riddle has no answer, unless it does. But it doesn’t. However, it might.” I like that one. Very Mad Hatter-esque 😉

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling “mad as a hatter” myself, after writing this post. I hope it made at least a little bit of sense, and I hope it helps in some way. And if you, too, feel “mad as a hatter” after reading this, well, that’s okay too. Because all the best people are 🙂

I leave you with the music video I made of Tim Burton’s film version of Alice In Wonderland. Enjoy:

 

Stay Mad,

Kylie Jude.

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