one more time

I can't remember the last time I had a writing block. I know, sounds like I'm bragging or something. But always having something to type out does not mean it's good. It reflects the state of the ADD mind in which thoughts are constant swirls of ideas, most dissipate in seconds but if I am confronted with a blank piece of paper there is always a thought to record. Sometimes the resulting words actually mean something to me. "I write to know what I think," can't recall the source of this quote but it's what happens for me in any spontaneous writing - blog, email, note to self, etc. Not sure what I think today.

walking around but still writing

Terri Gross was interviewing the rapper JZ yesterday. He was telling about the start of his career - he was dealing drugs and that kept him so busy that when rhymes started to come he would have a notebook ready if possible to write things down. but he was so busy that rather then depend on having a paper and pen nearby he learned to memorize the inspired parts that were streaming through. and he got so good at it that he no longer worried about having the notebook around.

later that day, one of the perpetual characters that hover in my subconscious, a neurotic woman who has been stunned by eons of psychic family hand-me-downs had a particularly telling conversation. i was working in the lab and she was talking, giving herself away. no notebook at hand, i told myself i'd get that conversation down later.

that evening as i sat to recreate this dialogue the computer output was as scratchy and dry as an out of ink pen. two sentences forced and rigid. delete. angst. resignation. tv.

where was the inner taskmaster to insist - "don't you dare get up from this chair until a juicy, green sentence - (you know it is there) - is tapped out and saved".

isn't a creative process simple? a practice of remembering and then recreating the light that is flowing out at the store, at the lab, walking down 18th street to starbucks?

remembering is a very present capacity within me, us, everyone. like showing a finished canvas to others.

Wow, it took me several minutes to get here, the second time, after my computer crashed, again. Using Vista is a great handicap to creativity. It's anti-art. I'd return to my illegible longhand but then what? Not even I could read it. The answer must be in the future. Instantaneous mind scanning and recording, little blog chips inserted behind the ear to capture whatever drivel passes for creativity at any given time. Imagine what this device would to the Internet's efficiency. Think the World Cup slowed us all down? Mind-blogging would bring the entire www to its knees. Who knows? It might be for the best.

the wisdom to know the difference

i was reading a novel at lunch yesterday and found i was beginning to cringe. I felt the writer putting words that sounded forced into her character, to affect my reaction and emotion as a reader. so the character was like a puppet on a string and the writer's head was bobbing up behind the character on the stage - and so i was aware the character was just that - an invention.

a writer has to know when to disappear, and when to show up with outstretched hands and heart. there are no rules for this. the instinct for touch and go comes over time with the integrity of practice and the vulnerability to be wrong and make mistakes.

so this boils down to what edison called the 99 percent hard work to the 1 percent genius. give your writing your time and attention. it's messy. it is a love affair worth keeping.

mental notes

lately as i listen to npr while i'm working, or hear an interview on tv, i have been making mental notes of phrases or words not to use for awhile. "that being said." anything with the word "quantum" in it. "experience," "freeing" "awareness" "going the distance." "cutting edge" "21st century" if that refers to surging into the future. "Being" with a capital B. "Conscious awareness." I made a note to take a little pad around with me so when something catches my attention i can jot it down. These words are not wrong. but i find there are certain phrases and words that are stand ins for being vague in my writing. i can plug in a phrase instead of thinking through what i want to say. Like waving my hand in the air and saying "whatever," while smiling knowingly.

Mary and i are going through old essays we have written and i find it useful at this point to pare down what i wrote. what is it i want to say. less decoration and more intent.

Writing right

The rite of writing right is wrong. So many of you tell us that you "can't write." Now think about it. do you make grocery lists? take notes in class? text? email? blog? tweet? Then you are writing. Think about what's going on behind the assertion that you cannot write. Is it a response to getting a poor grade on a paper about existentialism when you were in college? (oh, wait, that was me.) Did your middle school teacher tell you that your handwriting was sloppy? (mine did) Maybe it was the art teacher in kindergarten who told you that your drawing of a tree looked like a bunch of worms (do teachers still say things like that?)

Regardless of where the can't-write message comes from, if it still manifests itself as a block to your creativity, then you need to erase it with some better experience of writing. Try stream of consciousness writing. Pick up the pen or poise your fingers over the keyboard and...just...begin...to...write. Are your fingers frozen? Look at them as if they live independently from you and just let them do their thing. If it's gibberish the first time they have a life of their own, that's okay. You can then ask them to write for you. If you can only think I don't know what to write, then write that.

this probably sounds silly until you try it. It won't work for everyone but I bet the results will surprise you. If it doesn't work, we have plenty of exercises to free the writer in you. Come back next week.

plain jane

I love that universal scene in old movies, where the handsome fellow goes up to Miss Smith and says, "Do you need those glasses?" and she says, "Well, no..." and before my eyes Miss Smith turns into Veronica or Gabriella.

With my writing I often find that I need to go the opposite route. A paragraph will be embellished with an unusual verb, moody adjectives, turns of phrase that shift the piece self-consciously into the minor key.

So I've been going through some past writing, taking off the false eyelashes of the piece. paring down the adjectives. saying just what a mean first and foremost. toning down a verb that jangles. Being straightforward. I turn Veronica back into Jane. Then, with my plain Jane in front of me, I can view her with compassion. I might add a few curlycues back here and there - "one little flower in your hair," I concede.

It is a good excercise to go back to reread anything at all that is heartfelt. Cringe a bit and then pare down. Is there at the heart of the piece something I want to say? Start with the meaning and work out from there. I appreciate Plain Jane.