Schrödinger's Manuscript
Do you have one?
Hello, Beautiful People.
This week I had the pleasure of meeting with my writing group—there are currently five of us, some writing fiction, some nonfiction—and we realized that at least three of us are in possession of writing projects that are currently existing in that most glorious, exalted state of true perfection, which is to say; they mostly just exist in our minds.
This is the only moment when a work of writing, or probably any creative work, achieves everything we hope for it. Each word perfectly chosen, but more than that: the moment when the writer feels she is truly in command of the idea itself.
What is this moment, and why is it so elusive? It’s a state of existence some of us spend more time in than others: the land of Platonic forms. Or, as my old pal Erwin Schrödinger called it, the Quantum View.
Here’s how my own writing project ended up in a state of quantum superposition. I recently went on a four-day road trip, something I do at least once a year. I do it to visit family and also to stage my own silent retreat, which takes place in the driver’s seat of my Honda on the drive itself. Invariably, the long, beautiful drive through the heart of Wyoming gives me the time to think through some of the creative notions I’ve been taking notes on all year. It’s on these drives that a cloud of disparate concepts will finally form into one glorious thunderhead of an idea.
It happened again on this recent drive. After years of tracking several different ideas for characters, stories, and historical and geographical settings, somewhere around Medicine Bow (pop. 245) they came together in an idea for a new book, possibly a series. I spent the remaining hours (the drive is around 14 hours each way) dictating the concepts and plot to my phone.
The resulting scramble of Diet Coke- and M&M-fueled transcription was hard to read, but I knew that didn’t matter, because the idea itself was so perfect. How did I know?
Because it did not exist yet. Rather, it only existed in my imagination.
That’s it. The one moment a work of creativity cannot disappoint you. That’s the Quantum View of the project. Schrödinger, an Austrian physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1933 for his work on quantum mechanics, proposed his pitiful cat thought experiment a couple years later. Here’s how it works. Imagine a cat is locked in a box and nobody can see it. A capsule of poison gas is in there, too. If the capsule is disturbed, the cat dies. If not, it lives. But because outside observers cannot know which state is currently happening, we must accept that, in this moment, the cat is both alive and dead. This is quantum superposition, the state of existing in both states simultaneously. Only when we open the box and observe the cat will we understand its state in reality. Schrödinger was all about uncertainty and ambiguity.
In many ways this is the opposite of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, in which ignorant humans, seeing shadows on the walls of their cave (i.e., our limited human consciousness), interpret those shadows as reality. The deeper truth lies beyond the cave, in the world beyond appearances.
In both cases, humans misunderstand reality. That’s easy enough to believe. Although Plato’s philosophy suggests that a real world actually exists beyond our comprehension, Schrödinger’s suggests that it is our comprehension itself that creates what we believe to be reality. What does all this have to do with my unwritten historical mystery series about an ex-Riot Grrl trying to solve the murder of her sister? I’ll tell you.
This book idea is currently in the Schrödinger’s Manuscript phase of creation. Because it only exists in the form of garbled audio notes and in my own mind’s visions (shadows??), it’s in an ideal form, in a state of quantum superposition allowing for it to be both flawed and perfect—but who can say, really? Nobody, not until I actually begin writing it and suddenly expose the reality that it’s, well, just another bunch of pages filled with writing that may or may not have what it takes to go the distance and become a novel (much less a series). Much less a glorious thunderhead.
Plato’s Cave-world of ideal forms argues for metaphysical order: Somewhere, “reality” exists.
Schrödinger’s Uneasy Cat problem pushes us toward ontological uncertainty: There is no reality beyond what we ultimately observe.
And yet they both end up in a similar philosophical headspace:
Everyday reality is unique to each individual observer… but human perception is limited. And something deeper is happening behind the visible world
Schrodinger’s Manuscript lives in that same headspace. It’s a fun place to visit and dream about, a great topic for speculation: could this be the best thing I ever write? Could this be the book where it all comes together and I not only whip the characters, plot, syntax, and grammar into a perfect harmonic symphony, but actually learn something about my own mind and philosophy in the process?!?! Note the punctuation marks: these only show up in this magical phase.
Most folks working on creative things have more than one Schrödinger’s Project underway. Personally, I have a few dozen. They live there, in the shadowy cave of my mind, that cyanide-threatened metal box, along with a metaphorical nervous cat and a lot of ideas that seem amazing while dreaming or smoking weed or numbed by 80 mph speed limits through unpopulated high desert. We keep them there, in the Quantum View, where they’re safe from harsh observation.
But someday, when this current book project is completed, I’m going to open that box and find out: is the manuscript/cat alive or dead? Is it real or just a fantasy of The Perfect Book?
No doubt, the eventual book (if it ever comes to pass) will be flawed, like all of reality. Perfection itself is just a quantum state. But that’s OK. Without flaws, there would be no mysteries. And without mysteries… no mystery novels.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to enjoy my Schrodinger’s Manuscript. It’s by far the best thing I’ve ever (not yet) written.
xo Buzzy
I don't remember reading anything else where I flip-flopped so often between deep recognition of having being in that state(s?) and WTF is this woman talking about? But it doesn't matter because I came away with a resolve to trust that state, those moments when lots of ideas, perceptions, etc, come together as insight that I want to share with others.
I’m still wondering if I actually have a cat or not. Did I forget to feed it?