creative writing school
Module 1: Perception & Intuition
structure
Introduction
Theory:
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Theory:
- Existentialist perspectives
- Temporal experience and authenticity
- Meaning-making and fulfillment
- Anri Sala & Šejla Kamerić": 1395 days without red (2011)
- Roland Barthes: A Lover's Discourse: Fragments (1977)
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introduction
Welcome to this online class on waiting.
We will not approach waiting as absence, or as empty time between two events. We will approach it as a condition. A structure. A space where something is already happening.
Waiting is not neutral.
It stretches time. It distorts perception. It exposes expectation, desire, fear.
It reveals how we relate to what is not yet here — or what may never arrive.
Philosophically, waiting unsettles our sense of presence. With Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger, waiting is not passive. It is a confrontation with time itself — with uncertainty, with projection, with the impossibility of fully inhabiting the present while being oriented toward what comes next.
Waiting is also political. In 1395 Days Without Red, waiting becomes a matter of survival. A rhythm imposed by danger. A calculation. A form of resistance. You do not move when you want. You move when you can. Here, waiting is not delay. It is strategy.
At the same time, waiting can be intimate, obsessive, fragile. In A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, waiting unfolds as a state of emotional exposure. The body anticipates. The mind repeats. Time loops. Nothing happens — and everything happens.
Across these perspectives, waiting is never empty.
It is dense. Charged. Structured by what is expected, imagined, feared.
In writing, this means: not writing what comes after, but staying inside the suspension. Working with pauses. With delays. With what does not arrive. Letting time stretch. Letting language hesitate. Letting repetition build pressure. This class invites you to write from within waiting. Not to fill it. But to see what it contains.
We will not approach waiting as absence, or as empty time between two events. We will approach it as a condition. A structure. A space where something is already happening.
Waiting is not neutral.
It stretches time. It distorts perception. It exposes expectation, desire, fear.
It reveals how we relate to what is not yet here — or what may never arrive.
Philosophically, waiting unsettles our sense of presence. With Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger, waiting is not passive. It is a confrontation with time itself — with uncertainty, with projection, with the impossibility of fully inhabiting the present while being oriented toward what comes next.
Waiting is also political. In 1395 Days Without Red, waiting becomes a matter of survival. A rhythm imposed by danger. A calculation. A form of resistance. You do not move when you want. You move when you can. Here, waiting is not delay. It is strategy.
At the same time, waiting can be intimate, obsessive, fragile. In A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, waiting unfolds as a state of emotional exposure. The body anticipates. The mind repeats. Time loops. Nothing happens — and everything happens.
Across these perspectives, waiting is never empty.
It is dense. Charged. Structured by what is expected, imagined, feared.
In writing, this means: not writing what comes after, but staying inside the suspension. Working with pauses. With delays. With what does not arrive. Letting time stretch. Letting language hesitate. Letting repetition build pressure. This class invites you to write from within waiting. Not to fill it. But to see what it contains.
theory
Waiting is a condition of existence.
With Jean-Paul Sartre, waiting exposes a form of instability. You wait — for someone, for something — and nothing guarantees that it will arrive. The moment stretches. Meaning slips. What you thought was certain becomes contingent.
In Being and Nothingness, waiting is a confrontation. You face the fact that nothing is fixed, that everything could be otherwise. This creates a kind of vertigo as too much is possible. Waiting reveals freedom. And with it, responsibility. And with it, anxiety.
With Martin Heidegger, the movement is slightly different. In Being and Time, human existence — what he calls Dasein — is always oriented forward. You are never only in the present. You are always projected toward what is coming.
Waiting makes this visible. You are here, but not fully. Part of you is already elsewhere — in a possibility, an expectation, a future that has not yet taken form. This creates a tension: between what is and what might be, between presence
and projection. Waiting is this tension held open.
Not resolved. Not filled. Held.
For writing, this is precise work. Do not rush toward what happens next. Stay inside the delay.
Write the stretch. The anticipation. The instability between now and not-yet. Because waiting is not the absence of action. It is a form of relationing to time.
With Jean-Paul Sartre, waiting exposes a form of instability. You wait — for someone, for something — and nothing guarantees that it will arrive. The moment stretches. Meaning slips. What you thought was certain becomes contingent.
In Being and Nothingness, waiting is a confrontation. You face the fact that nothing is fixed, that everything could be otherwise. This creates a kind of vertigo as too much is possible. Waiting reveals freedom. And with it, responsibility. And with it, anxiety.
With Martin Heidegger, the movement is slightly different. In Being and Time, human existence — what he calls Dasein — is always oriented forward. You are never only in the present. You are always projected toward what is coming.
Waiting makes this visible. You are here, but not fully. Part of you is already elsewhere — in a possibility, an expectation, a future that has not yet taken form. This creates a tension: between what is and what might be, between presence
and projection. Waiting is this tension held open.
Not resolved. Not filled. Held.
For writing, this is precise work. Do not rush toward what happens next. Stay inside the delay.
Write the stretch. The anticipation. The instability between now and not-yet. Because waiting is not the absence of action. It is a form of relationing to time.
inspiration
ANRI SALA & ŠEJLA KAMERIĆ": 1395 DAYS WITHOUT RED (2011)
1395 Days Without Red places waiting at the center of experience. Set during the Siege of Sarajevo, the film shows how waiting becomes a condition shaped by danger, where even the act of crossing a street requires attention, timing, and restraint. Movement is never immediate. It is preceded by pauses, by listening, by the need to read the environment before acting. Waiting here is a form of vigilance, a way of staying alive.
What the film makes visible is how this kind of waiting reorganizes perception. Time stretches because everything is at stake. The body adapts to this tension. It learns to hesitate, to anticipate, to hold back. The ordinary becomes charged: a gesture, a step, a decision carries weight. There is no excess, no dramatization. The film remains precise, almost minimal, and in doing so, it shows how waiting enters the body and becomes a way of being.
In this context, waiting is about exposure. It reveals how action is never neutral, how timing can determine survival, and how perception sharpens under pressure. For writing, this can be a working method. To write waiting is not to describe what comes next, but to stay with the moment before it happens, to work with tension, hesitation, and the instability between stillness and movement.
What the film makes visible is how this kind of waiting reorganizes perception. Time stretches because everything is at stake. The body adapts to this tension. It learns to hesitate, to anticipate, to hold back. The ordinary becomes charged: a gesture, a step, a decision carries weight. There is no excess, no dramatization. The film remains precise, almost minimal, and in doing so, it shows how waiting enters the body and becomes a way of being.
In this context, waiting is about exposure. It reveals how action is never neutral, how timing can determine survival, and how perception sharpens under pressure. For writing, this can be a working method. To write waiting is not to describe what comes next, but to stay with the moment before it happens, to work with tension, hesitation, and the instability between stillness and movement.
Roland Barthes: A Lover's Discourse: Fragments (1977)
Download "A Lover's Discourse: Fragments" (1977) by Roland Barthes from the link above.
Read the chapter on "Waiting," pages 37-40.
Read the chapter on "Waiting," pages 37-40.
| roland_barthes_roland_a_lover_s_discourse_1978.pdf |
A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments is not only a book about love, it is also a book written from inside it. There is no narrative. No progression. No resolution. Only fragments — short, precise, sometimes obsessive — that return again and again to the same states: waiting, longing, absence, jealousy, anticipation, doubt...
Barthes does not tell a story.
He isolates moments.
The lover is not presented as a character, but as a position. A voice caught in repetition, in delay, in projection. Someone who waits for a message, a gesture, a sign — and in that waiting, begins to produce language.
Waiting becomes central here. As a form of intensity. Time does not pass; it thickens. The smallest delay expands. A silence becomes charged. The body anticipates, imagines, replays. Nothing happens, and yet everything is already in motion.
What Barthes shows is that love is structured through language, that it organizes the experience itself. The lover speaks, repeats, fragments, tries to hold onto something that constantly escapes.
There is no stable meaning. Only positions that shift: hope, despair, certainty, doubt — often within the same sentence, the same breath.
For writing, this is a precise lesson.
You do not need a narrative to create intensity.
You do not need coherence to produce meaning.
A fragment can hold more than a story.
Repetition can carry more than progression.
What matters is not what is said, but from where it is spoken.
Barthes does not tell a story.
He isolates moments.
The lover is not presented as a character, but as a position. A voice caught in repetition, in delay, in projection. Someone who waits for a message, a gesture, a sign — and in that waiting, begins to produce language.
Waiting becomes central here. As a form of intensity. Time does not pass; it thickens. The smallest delay expands. A silence becomes charged. The body anticipates, imagines, replays. Nothing happens, and yet everything is already in motion.
What Barthes shows is that love is structured through language, that it organizes the experience itself. The lover speaks, repeats, fragments, tries to hold onto something that constantly escapes.
There is no stable meaning. Only positions that shift: hope, despair, certainty, doubt — often within the same sentence, the same breath.
For writing, this is a precise lesson.
You do not need a narrative to create intensity.
You do not need coherence to produce meaning.
A fragment can hold more than a story.
Repetition can carry more than progression.
What matters is not what is said, but from where it is spoken.
creative exercise
Phase 1 — Enter the condition
Choose a waiting situation. Something simple:
waiting for a message
waiting in a room
waiting for someone to arrive
waiting for something unclear
Do not invent a story around it.
Stay with the situation itself.
Before writing, pause for a few minutes.
Notice what is already there: the body, the breath, the tension, the thoughts that repeat.
Phase 2 — Write the suspension
Write a text that does not move forward.
No beginning. No end. No resolution.
Work with:
– repetition (a word, a sentence, a structure that returns)
– delay (what does not happen yet)
– micro-shifts (small changes in perception, tone, attention)
– anticipation (what might come, but doesn’t)
Let time stretch. Let the text circle. Do not explain the situation. Do not give context. Stay inside the wait.
Phase 3 — Introduce pressure
At some point in the text:
– let a detail become too present (a sound, a gesture, a silence)
– let doubt enter (will it happen? did it already happen?)
– let the body react (tension, fatigue, restlessness, stillness)
Nothing changes — but something shifts.
Constraints
– no conclusion
– no clear narrative progression
– no explanation of “why”
– allow fragmentation, loops, returns
Final note
Do not write what comes after the waiting. Do not escape it. The work is here: how long can you stay before you try to resolve it?
Choose a waiting situation. Something simple:
waiting for a message
waiting in a room
waiting for someone to arrive
waiting for something unclear
Do not invent a story around it.
Stay with the situation itself.
Before writing, pause for a few minutes.
Notice what is already there: the body, the breath, the tension, the thoughts that repeat.
Phase 2 — Write the suspension
Write a text that does not move forward.
No beginning. No end. No resolution.
Work with:
– repetition (a word, a sentence, a structure that returns)
– delay (what does not happen yet)
– micro-shifts (small changes in perception, tone, attention)
– anticipation (what might come, but doesn’t)
Let time stretch. Let the text circle. Do not explain the situation. Do not give context. Stay inside the wait.
Phase 3 — Introduce pressure
At some point in the text:
– let a detail become too present (a sound, a gesture, a silence)
– let doubt enter (will it happen? did it already happen?)
– let the body react (tension, fatigue, restlessness, stillness)
Nothing changes — but something shifts.
Constraints
– no conclusion
– no clear narrative progression
– no explanation of “why”
– allow fragmentation, loops, returns
Final note
Do not write what comes after the waiting. Do not escape it. The work is here: how long can you stay before you try to resolve it?
Photo: Fortepan / Pohl Pálma