On writing (well, well, well)
First off, I don’t profess to know everything there is about the craft of writing.
I barely know anything.
I just know that I can (and sometimes, I leave it at that).
(OK, yes, I want more out of this gift, but that’s for another post.)
People who don’t write – and blogging is a fantastic way to put things down, I’ve come to discover from the genuinely great stuff out there – like to ask what it is like.
“Where do the ideas come from?”
“Where you get your inspiration?”
(“Just how fucking nuts are you, anyway?”)
My answers and observations: Writers are fantastic readers. Writers are chameleons who recognize great prose – and borrow styles to fit their own.
Writers have lives that are messed up, much of the time. Lots of shit happens, not just to them, but all around them.
Writers are observant of nearly everything around them, and will frustrate friends at coffee shops or out to dinner as they listen in to conversations at other tables and fidget and get distracted by the hubris of that moment in time.
Writers will notice things on you that you’d rather not have them comment on.
I am a morning writer. I feel fresh and relaxed first thing in the morning. Then the creativity tends to bleed out, once the day grows long.
There are times – just before I fall asleep and in the very early morning when I’m up and thinking – when the ideas come. A thought, an idea that’s not even sketched out into a plan. But the words form and begin to flow.
Most of the time, especially with news features, I can remember the sequence and get to work and write; with private stuff, I’ve taken to keeping a pad and pencil on my nightstand. I jot things down – I have vertical astigmatism and it allows me to “see” fairly well in the dark – just to make sure my thoughts don’t get erased with worry or stress or planning for another day (and it does happen).
There is a time, especially at night, where I know good ideas will happen. I’m in bed, relaxed and all is quiet and still. And as I lay there, my limbs get a heaviness to them. It is as my mind has made them swell; even when I know they are not any bigger, they feel like they are cartoon extensions of my body. Arms, legs, head.
If I get to this moment, to this point of heaviness, I let my mind go wherever it wants. Sleep will come soon, I am so relaxed by this point, but synapses fire in my brain and the words come. Ideas. Whole pieces of prose.
Sometimes, I fall asleep and remember to write the thoughts down before they flee from the morning light.
The good stuff, I’ve trained myself to write down all relaxed and heavy.
And those are the moments, when the heaviness pins me to the bedsheets and the words are whirring in my mind like a circular saw, when I feel absolute bliss.
I barely know anything.
I just know that I can (and sometimes, I leave it at that).
(OK, yes, I want more out of this gift, but that’s for another post.)
People who don’t write – and blogging is a fantastic way to put things down, I’ve come to discover from the genuinely great stuff out there – like to ask what it is like.
“Where do the ideas come from?”
“Where you get your inspiration?”
(“Just how fucking nuts are you, anyway?”)
My answers and observations: Writers are fantastic readers. Writers are chameleons who recognize great prose – and borrow styles to fit their own.
Writers have lives that are messed up, much of the time. Lots of shit happens, not just to them, but all around them.
Writers are observant of nearly everything around them, and will frustrate friends at coffee shops or out to dinner as they listen in to conversations at other tables and fidget and get distracted by the hubris of that moment in time.
Writers will notice things on you that you’d rather not have them comment on.
I am a morning writer. I feel fresh and relaxed first thing in the morning. Then the creativity tends to bleed out, once the day grows long.
There are times – just before I fall asleep and in the very early morning when I’m up and thinking – when the ideas come. A thought, an idea that’s not even sketched out into a plan. But the words form and begin to flow.
Most of the time, especially with news features, I can remember the sequence and get to work and write; with private stuff, I’ve taken to keeping a pad and pencil on my nightstand. I jot things down – I have vertical astigmatism and it allows me to “see” fairly well in the dark – just to make sure my thoughts don’t get erased with worry or stress or planning for another day (and it does happen).
There is a time, especially at night, where I know good ideas will happen. I’m in bed, relaxed and all is quiet and still. And as I lay there, my limbs get a heaviness to them. It is as my mind has made them swell; even when I know they are not any bigger, they feel like they are cartoon extensions of my body. Arms, legs, head.
If I get to this moment, to this point of heaviness, I let my mind go wherever it wants. Sleep will come soon, I am so relaxed by this point, but synapses fire in my brain and the words come. Ideas. Whole pieces of prose.
Sometimes, I fall asleep and remember to write the thoughts down before they flee from the morning light.
The good stuff, I’ve trained myself to write down all relaxed and heavy.
And those are the moments, when the heaviness pins me to the bedsheets and the words are whirring in my mind like a circular saw, when I feel absolute bliss.
Comments
Beth, welcome back. I am working on it. I really am.