Yesterday morning I wrote three paragraphs worth of the sappiest drivel ever to populate a word processing program. I'm surprised my laptop didn't explode. Really. It was that bad. But the good news it was three paragraphs of something, even if I won't dare let it see the light of day. What I might do, is go back read it, write a critique as if I'm someone else, someone really really mean, and explain to myself why it is crap. I may even threaten bodily harm to myself for being so cruel. I might tell myself "if I can't say something nice, I shouldn't say nuthin' at all." We can get ugly -- Writer me vs. Critic me. Yep, in typical writer fashion, I'm my own toughest critic.
I am a "spurty" writer. When I am really "into" a story or character, I let it get under my skin, carry it everywhere-- even when I'm not technically writing, but then a wrench gets thrown into my routine, and it gets hard to find that routine again. But I miss it, and as sappy as it sounds there is a hole in my life without it. I started writing -- purposeful writing with the hope and intention of getting better-- when I was a young child, and I've been "at it" (off and on) for about thirty years. I consider it a large part of my identity, and it's almost as if I'm not quite real without it.
I'm also a single mom with two teenagers, work fulltime, and go to school. Right now I'm between quarters, but I start again in January and I want to get a routine in before that wrench comes again. The mornings have worked best in the past. When I'm into something I'll want to get up and hang out with my "friends." I feel like I've accomplished something even before I head off to work -- even when it's drivel.
For the time being, I don't know if I'll get much more than a half hour in on most mornings. And until I get back into "shape" most of it will probably not be very good. But something is buried, some "good material" and the moments where I stop and reread my own work and think to myself. "How did I do that? How did I pull that out of the air, write it down and make it real?" Maybe that's what I miss most; the awe of being part of creation that drifts away when I find myself in a rut going through the motions. Humanity starts to fade out, and Autopilot takes over.
But Writer Me is in here-- somewhere. She and Critic Me have a lot of work to do, but I think we're up to it.
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 5
Your last bit mentioned the words which the Writing Down The Bones lady writes about in her book-at least, I think it was her.
I'll tell you what got me off my butt and down to write was a contemporary of hers, Julia Cameron.
I was in a bit of a dark, lonely place, metaphorically speaking, when the title shouted at me one day at a library. The title alone was enough to shake me out of my doldrums. The book, which you might already know anyway, is written in a nice, gentle way, with not even the hint of writers' block. The way in to writing is simply to do it, any way you can.
Julia Cameron's ideas to flex your creative muscles includes the Morning Pages bit, a great way in to tap into your ideas. Write! Write! Write! Then worry about later the less important items like how it looks, where it's going, whether it's good enough for keeping for publishing, filing or whatever.
Professional photographers like David Bailey and others take many rolls of film when they're taking pics. The rest of us just fiddle at it, have people posing near the Eiffel Tower, the kids in the foreground for one, safe click. But if you wanna do great stuff, you've gotta deal with the OUTPUT first. Write plenty, even if it's 'rubbish'. You never know, in a few weeks you may see summat in that rubbish which looks interesting, usable or even a springboard to a new work! Get it done! that's it! David Bailey won't show you anything he isn't happy with, his 'rubbish', you can do the same!
Read the Julia Cameron, give yourself The Right To Write, as the title suggests, absorb the deeper meaning behind the book and just GO FOR IT! She's written other things but this one will take you by the seat of the pants....without you realising it! It'll be a great journey.
good luck!
I have not written much in the last year. I have tried, but Critic Me has been very cruel. :(
Good luck! Go get the pen!