confession: I woke up two or three times between the early a.m. and noon today, I slept way in. Every time I woke I wanted to go online and remove that post before anyone saw it. It was not intended for posting, I didn't want to be vulnerable and then I did it anyway. ugh.
Once again that pesky inside-voice knew it was the thing to do. The responses are appreciated and taken to heart.
I've known Dan fifteen years now. He's wanted to be a writer all of that time, it was never a question, at least as far as I ever knew. I never wanted to be a writer, never had that urge. Then something clicked inside me a few years back and I started messing with it. I liked the idea that the words and ideas that I have are free to do with what I want. In terms of creation I only need paper and pen, the tools are cheap. On a commercial level this seemed like the ultimate profit margin, my thoughts put on paper and sold to the highest bidder. Of course the urge (or knowledge) I have that I am 'supposed' to be doing this is beyond thoughts of commercial success, but that's where the seed was planted. I just figured I was creative enough and bright enough to pull that off. It's really about happiness and creation and the knowledge that I'm doing what I'm supposed to. And I'm not motivated enought by money/success to do it for that reason alone. I just don't care.
As far as the poetry goes I need to unclench my creativity. Spit it out, tweak it, find out what it is, what it wants to be, or what I want it to be, refine it. Repeat. I'm so resistant to the idea that that's who I am that I don't just let it fly like I used to. The process feels kinked.
6 comments:
As somebody who also writes, I think it's important to emphasize that the major thing is to get the words on paper. Auto-censure is never good for the writing process–at least, the first stage of the writing process. In the beginning, mindless flow can be all. The gold can be separated from the dross later.
-Fuz
I concur, and that's what I mean about the process feeling kinked. The process of pouring myself into the paper is jammed up. I have never started with a specific idea, I just let it fall out and lately it seems there's nothing to fall, at least nothing cohesive or strange, beautiful and surreal. I can't seem to let loose, at least as loose as I'd like to be
…which suggests to me, in part, a kind of censoring even before the writing has begun. You want the writing to take a shape before it's ready to do so.
When I was young, they made us do free-writing in English class. I HATED free-writing with a passion. Now, I realize that it's actually a good tool, though one you might have to get used to.
The important thing becomes to write, and not to worry about the content. Really–try freewriting for ten minutes, once a day, every day. Just write, don't think. After a while, boost it up to 15, and so on. Not only will you create a more fluid writing process because you establish a habit, but you will find yourself writing more cohesively as you go along.
Since I suck at free-writing, what I have ended up doing is giving myself a theme, usually out of something I've read, or something I've been writing about recently. But the important thing is that I let myself go, and see what happens. Now, surely you'll produce junk (I do), but there may be something important in the junk which you can build on.
Hope that helps.
-Fuz
And, going along with what Dan said, goals are important, but they can start quite small.
When I first started writing poetry I was doing it at my job, for fun and to kill time. Many people that I worked with got in on it and we had a board of our terrible poetry, except some of it wasn't so terrible. The thing is at that time it didn't matter to me what came out, and therefore tons of ridiculous shit was produced. I wasn't trying to write, I was just having fun. I had a method, or non-method. I know that that creativity is there but it's not working in the fashion that it used to. I believe part of it is that I am so resistant. I do not necessarily want to be this writer guy. That is really the struggle I guess.
It should be said that I didn't start saying I was a writer until I was late into my 20s. Figure that's a good 12+ years after I started actually writing. It was just what I did, for all kinds of reasons.
But I want to point out that while I derive a chunk of identity from the fact that I write (because it's a hell of a lot better than saying 'I manage web sites and sling mail') it's just one thing I use to identify myself.
No one is just any one thing, so you can't be trapped, unless you want to be, into playing a role.
I suppose that when I write in my journal, I'm free writing-and I admit, I've often got a beer when I do this. I don't know how healthy that is, and I'm not recommending it for anyone, just admitting I've got censorship issues like everybody else.
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