Tag: writing

Turbidity

My writing streams rushed together. The words and ideas became turbulent, muddied and entangled, becoming too much, too much. 

What had happened?

It’s always in me to be analytical and introspective, to explain and try to understand myself, in hopes that I can reach productive and lasting peace with myself. So I asked, what happened to the writing process. I was writing. The flows of words and ideas were strong and potent. I was almost keeping up. Then, overnight, it unraveled.

In the stillness of my pre-walking walks, insights arrived.

  1. The flows were too intense. I’d been keeping up. Now, I’d failed. I wanted to write everything at once. Chaos resulted from impatience.
  2. I’d seen the movie Black Panther. I enjoyed it, but it was a catalyst for new ideas. Just like I sometimes – hell, most of the time – read a book and enjoy it, I wanted to incorporate new thoughts and directions, because I liked how them in the movie. A purge of that was required.
  3. Doubts; I was suffering doubts about whether I was up to understanding the story, and keeping up as a writer sufficiently to present the story.

Thinking and walking it out helped walk me back from the metaphorical ledge of despair on which I found myself. Well, I’m off the ledge but I remain a little unsettled. Write through it, I tell myself, and hope to hell that works. Oddly, while walking, I thought about a dream I had, and that helped a great deal to come to a palatable understanding about my inner dynamics and anxieties.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Margaret Said

I think this sentiment distills the essence of writing down to the basics. Just keep going past doubts, hopes, and word counts until you’ve found the beginning and the end.

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Wickedly Aggressive

You ever been writing and catch fire? The words blaze through you and onto the page, forcing you to do your best to keep up. It’s an exhausting but exuberant process, oddly like scoring a touchdown or do something else that requires focus, attention, and energy.

Then you stop writing to attend to the mundane requirements of life, but the writing doesn’t stop. It keeps flowing. Changing metaphors, it’s like rivers overflowing its banks, flooding you with more of the story that you’re writing. Great, but so damn distracting, because it’s consuming your energy, removing you from normal conversations and interactions. You become short-tempered and irritated with others because your energy is pouring into the writing pouring into you.

And then, it won’t stop at the day’s end. Your body and brain are ready for sleep, but the writing continues in your mind, refusing to be stopped.

I’m not complaining, though, just pointing out that sometimes, those muses can be wickedly aggressive.

Okay, time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

11

Uncertainty

You ever get involved with writing and thinking about Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and observer bias in quantum mechanics, and become uncertain about what you’re thinking?

It’s almost as complicated as trying to explain everything that’s happened on Game of Thrones.

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No Panic

I’d resumed writing this week after returning home, completing a ten day road trip. It’d been a sad period, beginning with a red-eye flights across the United States and a five hour drive to a hospital. Eighteen hours of hope and optimism followed, and then, with startling realization, it was over. After that came calls and emails, mourning, memories, and planning. Then there was a service.

Next were visits to my side of the family, and a short, intense, fun reunion with them, the fun and intensity waning under the mourning that continued for my wife’s mother.

Finally, there were return flights.

Routines slowly resumed. Walking, cleaning, writing, etc. Notes and work-in-progress were reviewed, and story lines picked up. But…I seemed disconnected from the work. It seemed remote to me. I understood all the reasons that could account for that distance and my attendant lethargy. I didn’t try to rush myself or berate myself. I took up my routines with the anticipation that I’d catch fire again.

Fire caught this morning as I emerged from the shower and began toweling off. First, there was a chapter title, “Ebb and Flow.” Setting dropped into place. The opening paragraph was written across my mind. Other lines followed.

Suddenly I had the rush. Had to get to it. It’s a beautiful, familiar rush of having something to say about the story I’m telling.

I’m at the coffee shop. Set up is complete and coffee is at hand. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Wally Said

I hold to Wally’s words, but they trouble me. I write for myself, so the book has an audience. I’d like my novels to have more than an audience of one.

Know what I mean?

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Trick Question

You ever read something that you wrote and think, “Wow, this is terrible,” and then read something else you wrote, and are astonished to discover that you wrote because it seems so amazing?

Yeah, trick question, isn’t it?

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The System Connections

I took an unplanned writing break. One of those things called death interrupted the usual progression.

A family member died. It was expected, sooner or later. The sooner seemed to be getting closer but it came as a surprise. She’d been hospitalized with flu, pneumonia, congested heart and lungs, things complicated by her Parkinson’s disease. We were originally certain, this might be it, but that morning the doctors said, “Hey, she’s doing better. She can probably leave the hospital in two or three days.” They were wrong. She left that day, but she was no longer alive.

I shut down the writing component in my brain. I know this about myself: the writing component demands a lot of energy. It puts me in another place, but removes me from the moment. Being removed from the moment means that my patience and empathy become compromised. That wouldn’t do. So, shut it down, I ordered.

The writing component was kept shut down for three days. I was given writing time but chose not to indulge it. I knew what it would mean. I took the time to think of life and other matters instead of writing.

What I didn’t expect were the side-effects. I slept miserably, tossing and turning way more than the usual. I also didn’t dream, or didn’t recall any dreams, and I seemed a lot hungrier. I never felt rested.

I imagined the chemical and physiological reasons probably contributing to my side-effects. The drugs my body releases through the creative process and writing. The highs achieved, the flow of neurotransmitters and their interactions, and why writing is an addiction.

I kept the writing component off until today. Notifications of the death are completed. Grieving has commenced and progressed. Funeral and burial arrangements have been made.

When I turned the writing component back on, it was a deluge. Whoomp. I was slammed with words and thoughts to write.

Interesting experience. Fascinating, to me, at least. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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