Deciding to write a novel about something - as opposed to finding you are writing a novel around something - sounds to me like a good evocation of writer's block.
Interpretation
The quote discusses the challenge of writer's block and the difference between intentional and unintentional creation in writing.
Martin Amis reflects on the struggle writers face when attempting to articulate their ideas. The distinction between choosing a subject to write about versus discovering one organically illustrates the frustration and creative difficulty inherent in the writing process, particularly when blocked. This highlights the pressures of creative expectations and the often unpredictable nature of artistic expression.
In practice
In a discussion about creative processes, this quote illustrates the struggle many writers face with writer's block.
Oh Christ, the exhaustion of not knowing anything. It's so tiring and hard on the nerves. It really takes it out of you, not knowing anything. You're given comedy and miss all the jokes. Every hour you get weaker. Sometimes, as I sit alone in my flat in London and stare at the window, I think how dismal it is, how heavy, to watch the rain and not know why it falls.
Sometimes I feel that life is passing me by, not slowly either, but with ropes of steam and spark - spattered wheels and a hoarse roar of power or terror. It's passing, yet I'm the one who's doing all the moving.
You know how it is when two souls meet in a burst of ecstatic volubility, with hearts tickling to hear and to tell, to know everything, to reveal everything, the shared reverence for the other's otherness, a feeling of solitude radiantly snapped by full *contact* - all that?
All my adult life I have been searching for the right adjective to describe my father's peculiarly aggressive comic style. I recently settled on 'defamatory.'
Love is an abstract noun, something nebulous. And yet love turns out to be the only part of us that is solid, as the world turns upside down and the screen goes black.
Jane was my wicked stepmother: she was generous, affectionate and resourceful; she salvaged my schooling and I owe her an unknowable debt for that. One flaw: sometimes, early on, she would tell me things designed to make me think less of my mother, and I would wave her away, saying, Jane, this just backfires and makes me think less of you.
I never try to convey a message, I just want to tell a story. Why that story in particular? I have no idea, but I have learned to surrender to the muse. I become obsessed with a theme or with certain stories; they haunt me for years, and finally, I write them.
The artist must forget the audience, _x000D_ forget the critics, forget the technique, forget everything but love for the music._x000D_ Then, the music speaks through the performance,_x000D_ and the performer and the listener will walk together_x000D_ with the soul of the composer, and with_x000D_ God.
I'm nothing else but an artist, I'm sure, and delighted to be.
Art bids us touch and taste and hear and see the world, and shrinks from what Blake calls mathematic form, from every abstract form, from all that is of the brain only.
His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
There is no model, there is only color.
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