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Oh, heavenly nightshade
I think I've missed the ten-things-about-writing craze, so you'll have to settle for this post instead.
I wrote a poem yesterday afternoon on the train from New Haven to New York City ("Orpheus at the Bimah." The title may be open to debate). The young man in the next seat kept looking stealthily and guiltily over at my screen, as though simultaneously sure that to read someone else's poetry-in-composition was the height of bad manners and unable not to watch the process. I thought about asking him for feedback, but he looked away so hastily every time I glanced up that eventually I decided it would be cruel. I've never written with someone watching me like that.
I've been in the same room as other people. I've written over IM. (I have improvised stories for an audience, spoken, but I classify that differently.) I've never had someone read each word as I wrote it, added others, deleted them, rewrote, reordered, and presently titled the whole text and filed it away. If asked before this afternoon, I would have said that I couldn't have done it: I'd have been distracted or self-conscious; I'd have wasted attention on the audience that should have been spent on the words. Instead, I didn't give him much thought at all. It was a perfectly normal writing experience, except that there was a young man in a pale-blue business shirt with an iPod plugged into his ears quickly averting his eyes every time I looked up. It may have helped that he was a complete stranger. It may have helped that this was a poem from scratch. But it started me thinking about how and when and where I can write, as opposed to how and when and where I think I can write. It seems like the kind of information that will come in handy someday.
Mostly what I want to do right now is write down as much of last night's dreams as I can remember: a long and slippery narrative about forced shape-changing, pages torn out of books, and an aquarium exhibit. I so rarely have the kind of dreams where you can wake up and then resume the dream when you fall back asleep, so I might as well not waste this one.
I met a shape-shifter
I let her fade . . .
I wrote a poem yesterday afternoon on the train from New Haven to New York City ("Orpheus at the Bimah." The title may be open to debate). The young man in the next seat kept looking stealthily and guiltily over at my screen, as though simultaneously sure that to read someone else's poetry-in-composition was the height of bad manners and unable not to watch the process. I thought about asking him for feedback, but he looked away so hastily every time I glanced up that eventually I decided it would be cruel. I've never written with someone watching me like that.
I've been in the same room as other people. I've written over IM. (I have improvised stories for an audience, spoken, but I classify that differently.) I've never had someone read each word as I wrote it, added others, deleted them, rewrote, reordered, and presently titled the whole text and filed it away. If asked before this afternoon, I would have said that I couldn't have done it: I'd have been distracted or self-conscious; I'd have wasted attention on the audience that should have been spent on the words. Instead, I didn't give him much thought at all. It was a perfectly normal writing experience, except that there was a young man in a pale-blue business shirt with an iPod plugged into his ears quickly averting his eyes every time I looked up. It may have helped that he was a complete stranger. It may have helped that this was a poem from scratch. But it started me thinking about how and when and where I can write, as opposed to how and when and where I think I can write. It seems like the kind of information that will come in handy someday.
Mostly what I want to do right now is write down as much of last night's dreams as I can remember: a long and slippery narrative about forced shape-changing, pages torn out of books, and an aquarium exhibit. I so rarely have the kind of dreams where you can wake up and then resume the dream when you fall back asleep, so I might as well not waste this one.
I met a shape-shifter
I let her fade . . .
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Nice...
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I can't write creatively if anyone else is in the same county as I am. But then again, I'm an editor, not a writer, so that's to be expected.
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So your best bet is long-distance collaboration?
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If there's more to this than already stated, I'm curious as to what you've come up with.
I've decided I want to start writing on top of my porch . . . which I'll do once my Papers Of Doom are finished . . .
And for what it's worth, the dream definitely sounds cool. Much better than my most recently remembered one which involved a zombie attack, my 2nd grade teacher, Sherman Chinese food, and took place in a building that was a cross between the Shapiro Student Center and the Medical Center I've been frequenting of late . . .
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I'm not yet sure; obviously I haven't had much time to devote to this contemplation. I do know that I don't write only when inspired, if by inspiration one means words that are immediately present and lead helpfully to other words, but if I don't write when I'm in that kind of mood, I'll never get the story (or poem) back. I can't put off the lightning strike.
a zombie attack, my 2nd grade teacher, Sherman Chinese food, and took place in a building that was a cross between the Shapiro Student Center and the Medical Center I've been frequenting of late . . .
Look, any dream that involves Chinese food at Sherman, no matter what else it contains, has problems from the start . . .
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Once the semester is done though and summer starts for real, you will see more writing from me. That's a promise. 'Cuz I've got all this Strunk & White rage against . . . um . . . maybe rage isn't the right word . . . how about drive? Yeah. Something like that. Just, need to finish work for school first . . .
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So maybe inspiration isn't the best word, but it's not too far off. I really am immensely fond of the book, and was almost instantly.
And you thought I was weird before? :)
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For me place doesn't matter as much so long as I have a yellow college ruled legal pad, with either a ball point pen or a .5 mm mechanical pencil. Anything else and I get writer's block.
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It's good to see that a person diligently working at their craft doesn't worry having time now. They make time whenever the muse moves them. Writers write. You know all of this surely by now. But writing this response to you cements some of my own courage to pick up the pen.