Peter Said
June
Almost halfway through this year that we’ve deemed 2018. My writing discipline remains strong. I hope yours does as well.
The day was cold yesterday, and the trees were whispering, “Winter is coming.” Damn, man, I thought, hope these trees are wrong. By all weather logic that’s been established, the trees should be wrong, but you know how the weather can go these days. Walking in my shorts — for I dressed as an optimist — the breezes darting up my legs to my nether regions made me shiver.
Today, though, the trees are whispering, “Summer is coming.” Smelling grass that reminds me of fresh cut watermelon, I feel relieved by the warm breeze and sunshine that kisses me. Today, I’m looking forward to summer while hoping it doesn’t grow into the smokey, hot oppression of the last several years.
Today, I’m hopeful.
The Plot Web
Yesterday developed into a sensational writing day, one of those joyful experience that has me shouting, “This is why I write.” I then want to tell everyone about it, but there’s no one to tell. They wouldn’t understand without extensive background explanation, anyway.
But this is my blog, so I’ll go into some of that here.
Essentially, I’d reach a cross roads. I was calling it a cross roads, but that was a convenient and sloppy label. Every character, backed by a muse, had ideas about where the story was to go at this point. I, the writer, was reluctant to embrace their suggestions. I had my reasons.
That foundation created a few days of slow writing. Slow writing isn’t like slow sex. Slow sex, from my understanding (I’ve never experienced it, being a quick little pecker), is sublime, packing in pleasure. Slow writing, though, is more like using a machete to hack your way through a tropical jungle with drums playing in the background, giant mosquitoes trying to carry you away, and huge snakes hanging from the tree branches.
This was the sort of slow writing, coming at my time of month, that made me think, maybe I should just quit writing. Who would care? Nobody would care! Shit, nobody would notice.
Shit replied to me, “That’s oh so true.”
Which ignited a stream of profanities from me at Shit.
Because there were/are so many directions, the crossroads is really the center of a beautiful orbital web. Which strand do I pluck and follow?
Naturally, being me and the person that I’ve nurtured and developed for six decades, I over-analyzed it all. I am consistent. That was, of course, the greatest issue with the situation. After realizing for the tenth to the twenty-seventh power time that, creatively, I can’t logically and intelligently analyze it because I’m too deeply mired in the mess, and that I had to just suck it all up and write, damn it, I did so, and enjoyed the result. Naturally, too, the writing took me in unexpected directions that I couldn’t see when I was struggling to decide which way to go. Once again, naturally, I learned, just write.
Naturally, there’s a caveat to all of this.
The caveat is that yesterday’s writing experience set up unreasonable expectations for another glorious day of writing. Of course, that’s coming from my logical, emotional, and hopeful sides, and not from the creative and writing sides. I think I’m d20 die, part of a polyhedral dice existence. Roll me and see what comes up for the day.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Tricks of the Mind
I ran into a friend who is also a writer. She and I, along with a few others, used to meet for drinks and conversation. All writers, we talked about what we were writing and our writing processes, and complained about the non-writers and our struggles with them. Non-writers are rarely interested in our WIPs and processes. I can appreciate that. I’ve gone into eyes-glazing-over mode when others have gone into explanations about their processes about things like making soap or quilting.
Our outings were wonderfully healthy and happy times. Everyone in the group moved, though, leaving us to find other avenues or go without. I turned to posts like these to help me cope.
When we encountered each other on the street, we resumed our writing relationship, spending fifteen minutes catching up. Both had elsewhere to go, though, so we had to cut the encounter short.
One thing she revealed was that she’d begun using a typewriter to write. She’d slowly stopped writing as much as she used to write, and thought that part of her issue was that she found herself editing as she wrote when she used a computer. That process curtailed her productivity. Typing the work in progress, at this point essentially defining the concept, helped her because she held tangible evidence in her hand each day.
It was an interesting issue and approach. I can relate. Sometimes, when the writing way becomes denser, as it has in the current chapter in progress, tangible progress seems elusive. I type, think, edit, revise, and repeat. It’s not as much fun, but I discover that I still achieve about fifteen hundred words a day. That’s not an amazing amount, but it’s tangible progress.
Once in a while, I’ve returned to writing in a notebook. I consider that much rawer and intense. I’ve done so when I feel like I’m stuck. I usually felt stuck when multiple paths to pursue were available, paralyzing me with indecision and doubt.
In the end, I applaud her typing effort. Whatever it takes to goad yourself to keep writing, you know?
Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Method Writing
There’s method acting, the art of experiencing what a character feels and endures. I suspect I’m a method writer. I like putting myself into the character and feeling their experience.
My method writing process created a hard writing session today. The character of focus was attacked and injured. Alarms were ringing, and his ears suffered. That affected his focus, concentration, and effort.
It affected mine, too. I felt weighed down by his pain. The clamoring in his ears filled mine, exhausting me. My typing slowed as his efforts to think and move wrung out his physical and mental energy. By the time that I finished, I wanted to curl up into a ball and rest in a dark, quiet room.
Michael Seidel, writer 