Writing, and words.......

Writing and words
11/12/2011
10:37 am
Getting up for the day had been good for her. She felt she'd gotten back on track the previous day. Feeling like that usually carried over into the following day and affected how she felt upon rising it seemed. Still, she wondered whether she was being overconfident in believing she could maintain such momentum just because it felt so strong at the moment. Did one really have to learn to pace oneself or was it ok to go with the ebb and flo of inspiration, mood, motivation? She was always examining just what the factors were that caused her own impulses of motivation.

The previous day she had completed more than the quota of words she needed to write for the Nanowrimo writing challenge of writing a fresh novel during the month of November in a minimum of 50 K words. Her's was still a dubious novel since the only way she'd been able to that quickly come up with an idea for a novel was to write what was in essence her own daily journal but in the third person, a so far unnamed third person, but a 'she'.

She had so far been unwilling to define who 'she' was, even though this created problems in differentiating between the main 'she' and other 'she's that arouse in describing incidents involving other females. They would usually be initially referred to by the noun describing what they did in life, their role, or sometimes their name*, for instance if the person were an author whose work she was referring to.
Neither had she been willing to be specific about certain objects and tools. There just seemed to be certain things she did not want to be specific about yet, if ever. She had seen how this lack of specificity put the writing into an imaginary alternate reality for her. This was how it became fiction for her. This was how she could feel she was meeting the rules of the challenge. Initially this had just been a way to meet the rules. It was a surprise to find how this made the universe of her 'novel' almost instantly become a magical world.

One of the most enjoyable things about writing was that it transported one. To sit writing a story, to make up a story, to make up what the characters did, was exactly like playing with dolls, or playing pretend as a child. The field of play, of action, instead of being a dollhouse or one's room, was the paper. The words tumbled out like tiny characters as they endlessly formed and regrouped while also leaving evidence on the paper of the imaginings, the story, that was going on in the inner vision of the writer. They were worlds of existence always paralling each other somewhat but each spinning outward to go on to live their own lives. The papers with their words, their tracks, could go on to the hands of other people who might then be somehow affected bythem. Their creator could have no way of knowing how far a writing could reach - how far forward in time it could reach. The creator on the other hand, so much liked this form of activity or play, that it was most important to continue the act of imagining and writing, that the previously written was only dimly remembered. There was only so much one could think of, attend to, remember, at any one time.
11:16am

She had often had the conflict as an artist of just why was one doing something, painting a particular painting for instance. She had to have compelling enough reason to follow through on executing a thing once the newness of it had worn off. She liked to churn out ideas, but she was still so ambivalent about why one made art. So ambivalent that she had been doubting for so long whether she was really an artist. She knew she had a certain skill level. She knew others liked what she made, they even wanted what she made. It had never seemed to be a problem to make things that others liked. The problem was in wanting to continue doing it after a vein* seemed to be exhausted.

The 'vein' she had been following for over 15 years now, had long ago seemed played out for her. She felt she'd carried it out far enough and had lost interest in making more art in that theme, because she knew how to do it. It was now just a matter of carrying out known steps. There did not seem to be any further discoveries for her. It always felt like doing so was to be jiggling in place on puppet strings to give people a temporary pleasure. It felt like the work was almost just a service that people could buy. Was there anything wrong in giving pleasure in one's work? It was more than that. She felt she herself had no more to learn from this work. That was its problem. She knew how to do it, She could do it. Because there was nothing new for her in it, she had outgrown it. She needed to move on.

The occasional art commissions she agreed to always weighed her down with such dread. There might be things to learn from this work, but at a cost far higher than anyone could understand. She had never been good at refusing commissions because she hated having to say 'no' and to feel the potential disappointment. *
11:43am

She doubted the value of anything she learned from doing a commission. She was creating a work that would only be of interest to the commissioner. Often the reason the work was wanted seemed at such cross purposes with her values and beliefs. She felt as though her making the art was her sending the message that she held different values and beliefs than she actually did. Was it a kind of lie?

And yet, was it not a lie to be unable to say 'no', because one could not bear to be displeasing to someone in any given moment? These were questions she needed to face. They caused too much inner disharmony to be good. Inner disharmony would not hide inside forever.
11:52a

For now she was continuing with building on the most important things. She would continue in the faith that answers would come to her. Questions would resolve themselves. If she could continue developing the strengths, the things that intrigued her and fed her soul, there would reach a point where there was simply no room for the other and it would be a simple matter to leave it behind. She had to keep her desire and focus on that which moved her the most, that which she loved the most.
11:58a

She had strayed so far from trying to do that continuous writing practice - writing furiously non-stop. She was pausing to reflect. The past few days there had been enough to tell and that she wanted to tell, that she had just gone ahead in that method. This might mean the writing would take longer than if she did not pause. That no longer mattered. That would be a skill to develop at another time. Now she just wanted to do this writing to see if she could carry it off. No, that was not why. It was because doing it had such a powerful effect on her. Of course it was too soon to know how lasting this effect would be. It was certainly giving her a renewed sense of purpose.

It was different than writing by hand in her journal. She was doing that as well. There she got to write in her own voice. Sometimes she had to retell her stories that she'd just gotten done writing for the writing challenge. Was it because her writing challenge she was actually putting out for others to read? Because of that she was leaving out chunks that she would normally write in her journal. Almost since she'd begun her journals she had wanted to be able to share parts of them. She could never go backwards to prep the writing to go out. It would have needed to start out in somewhat readable form.

The writing she was doing now was at least legible in that it was typed. It was unedited, which made her cringe to send it out like that. Once the challenge was over she could resume daily writing with a more critical eye and send that out. First she had to see all there was to learn from completing this challenge. Just the act of taking on this kind of challenge, one that required daily extended work and had something to show for that work was immediate positive feedback. This was a strategy that could be applied to other goals.

12:17p

She had read recently how valuable it was to learn in public. ...She wanted to look further for that reference and to think on that.

12:20
The time was drawing near that she felt done saying what she wanted to say. It was too close to the time it took to do her quota that she was losing focus about it. She wanted too much to check to see how far she had gotten. Perhaps one of these days she would set an alarm and write until the alarm went off.
12:22p

It seemed she had spent too much time pausing in reflection. She was not yet up to the word quota. She might have to return to writing non-stop, to practice that, even if it resulted in too much filler writing. She could not bear having to restrict what she wrote, to restrict her habitual phrases. There had to be a way to properly practice continuous writing. What exercise could one set up for oneself that would teach one to write continuously. She could not think about that now. She could not stop to find the right word. She wanted to use the Piglet voice and simply say over and over again, "oh help" said Piglet. but to even stop for punctuation - yes that was part of the problem with continuous writing, that she was stopping for punctuation and she was always back tracking to fix the characters she had reversed. She had never learned how to type fluently in that way. This too would have to be a separate practice. A practice where one forced oneself to type slowly and carefully at a rhythm that one could keep up. Then over time one could build up the speed. First one had to consentrate on flow and rhthm oh it ws aching not to be able to correct. one could not correct when on epalyed music. the music would be out ther and hear by others. the only way was to practice the phrases until they were mastered then go bact to combining them into larger changes until those were mastered. the one might be in a position to play improvisionally with others. this had been an example of trying to write slowly without correction.'

12:42p

She still wanted to work at reducing the word deficit remaining. What could she write about. This often happened to her while writing her journal. There were so many times where she found herself wanting to write but she could not remember anything else she wanted to tell. She had told all of the previous day's incidents that mattered to her. In this case she would just write 'what else'. She had never tried the method of just scribbling. No, that was not true. She had done that - scribbled nothing - so that it was in effect drawing that looked like writing. What was it about that kind of mark making that was theraputic? She suspected it had to physically feel like writing rather than drawing because the meaning of that motion held deep significance. It was a different form of communication than the making of images. In writing there was an extra step between the forming of the characters and lightening speed with which one constantly reassembled them to form the communication. One made an image by manipulating materials until they resembled at some level what they represented. Both writing and image forming dealt with symbols and symbol making. The extra step in writing was that a relatively small set of symbols were combined to form a communication, a message, a meaning. Whether or not this was an extra step - perhaps just a difference.
12:57p

She wondered what else she could ponder to knock out another chunk of that word deficit. She never wanted to do again what she'd done the other day when she had written a double quota at one sitting, just to make up what she had missed the day before. That had been too intense and had set her back in other ways. To fulfill this challenge she would have to build in for the times she would have to miss her quota. The double teaching day was the most problematic. There had also been the extra problem of having to deal with the car repair that day. Yet, that had been a reminder of the wonderful timing that often took place in the seemingly accidental nature of events.

The next subject she'd worked on with her adult art class had been 'foxes'. What about that idea of writing little stories around the subjects of her monthly art class lessons? She kept forgetting about that idea as she got carried away with writing this journal in the voice of 'she'. That voice now reminded her of Rumpole of the Bailey and the way he frequently said to himself about his wife, "She who must be obeyed." She should come up with some stock dialogue lines and insert them whenever she needed to pause to think. Was that what the chorus of a song was? If this could be done in a song, why could it not be done in writing? Rumpole often recited poetry. She knew no poetry to speak of and just a few lines of songs here and there. She had never been able to learn song words. As a child she would just pretend to sing the words and would sing sounds instead. She still did that if she needed to. Here she wanted to say 'hmmm' in her writing but that would require changing voice.

1:14p 2429 words

What else could she write about? She was reluctant to try a story about the foxes. That sounded like too much to get involved in at the moment. She had also had the idea that she could use the word quota to brainstorm story line ideas. At the moment that too felt too hard to do in this non-stop fashion she was barely trying to fulfill.
Three foxes - a parent stands with two kits peering out of the foxhole. That was the quickie painting she had made that day. The parent and one of the kits looked out at the viewer. The middle kit looked a bit to the side to his right. What had caught its eye? Was the viewer of the painting the same being that the foxes looking out were looking at? Still no story but at least a mention of a possibility of one.

1:23p 2581 words

If she could just go a little further she would be caught up. She did not think she had explained her insight over why it might be important to give form, to actualize more ideas. She had so often questioned whether ideas were worth all the trouble it took to give them form, to bring them out from the inner world and give them a real existence. She was always questioning this because she had to decide whether she could maintain the motivation and emotional energy required to see something through to a further level of execution. That was more because she judged the execution held no further experience, growth, or pleasure for her. Perhaps she needed another way to give form to ideas that she did not want to carry through. They could be expressed in seed form and put out there for others to do what they wanted with. The insight she wanted to express was that any idea or thought was like a being or creature in that when it met the outer world it went on to interact with it in its own manner. Its creator/originator could not control that. Thoughts and ideas had their own lives if given it.

1:42p 2792 words