First thing I noticed coming up to the Yere Neue: in the Aulde -- fraught with moving and REmoving and the various employment scenes and worrying about the teenogre a state away and battling the intergalactic bugfestation of '13-- I also managed to get a few notes down on five separate writing projects. And I *love* all of them, equally - though I might note that on certain days I hate them equally for not being done, goddamnit. Where to begin, how to choose?
After 35 years of writing professionally, I still do not understand exactly how I work. But this year I have reckoned my 'obstacles' and am trying to work around their mitigating or stimulating presence. It's something of a juggling act: whenever I catch myself squeezing one of the Three Stressballs (money, mothering, its-too-latefulness) I immediately add a Write-It-Anyway ball and start working.
Which very well may happen. The other experimental question is: how long do I work before I make some kind of real breakthrough in the material, then get bored and wander away. I have a history of this, so instead of pushing into total darkness, I am giving myself permission to drop the project and go back to the gaming jar. Jigglyjigjiggle, who wants to be next?
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(P.S. “Monsters exist because they are part of the divine plan, and in the horrible features of those same monsters the power of the creator is revealed.” Umberto Eco)
:). Hi Mys, welcome to January! It is planning on being -13 degrees tonight and in this type of weather one neither writes nor reads but sits and stares. My whole inner landscape is still on the gulf coast soaking up mother love.
ReplyDeleteAbout writing...the only thing that ever works for me is to write *to* someone; or at least *for* someone. This person used to be my dead father; then it was a lover...you get the picture. Without the imaginary audience, one is writing to oneself :)
Greetings, Great Dame! Yes, linger on the salt breast and see what it wends you. Wish I were there, even knowing its bitter cold this time year.
DeleteOh wait. Re-reading I see you have gone North again. Boohoo.
As for focii... I used to chant the "writing to someone" mantra, but discovered there were too many hearers who wanted to be the pointsource. So I started to speak to future self (not necessarily myst, eh?) . What kind of work would I need to stumble across in 150 years, 200, 300 in order to scrimmage the little motion I was sworn (vouched, more like it) to carry forward?
That has been a much-clarifying refocus.
In my 30s I found myself locked around the notion that I would live 500 years. And somehow that number seems apt for cycles of karmic investment and ROI. The trick is in staying awake between one abyss and another. A trick embedded in my books...