Posting instead of writing

I've decided that last post was really pompous and new-agey. Very The Artist's Way, which god knows is a great book that helped me immensely, but is also twee-er than Tweety Bird. Like, that book actually brews its own tea while you read it, and then sips it for you. Thhhhankyou. And yet, when I talk about writing, which I probably shouldn't do so much because yawn, it's pompous and new-agey, I can't seem to help it -- I get all mushy and philimasophical and overbaked.* But that's because a) writing is the closest thing I have to any kind of spiritual/procreative life, and b) as a hack, it behooves me to mystify and glamorize writing as much as possible, so that nobody catches on that pretty much anybody who wants to write, can write.

I was discussing my favorite subject last night with a writer-friend (also a sister-friend), talking about why it's so hard for people to get started writing. Because, I ventured, you don't know what's going to come out, especially at first. When I started writing creatively after a long hiatus, the first thing that came out of me was extremely dark and unpleasant, not the type of thing I wanted to write about, or even think about, again. Then I was trying to write stuff that didn't upset me, and I didn't understand why it wasn't working. Only when I wrote the worst of it -- most of which has never been, and will never be, public record -- was I able to gain writing momentum, and even some clarity.

Well, so, I'm doing it again, pontificatin' like Pontious Pilate. Navel gazing like an orange grove. Proselytizing like...a prostylatute. Not working, by the way, either. Got not a thing done today except a Business Meeting, a trip to Staples, and the Groceries. Soon, I will watch Survivor. I will root for Yul, because he is hunky and smart and seems nice, like my very first TV boyfriend, Curtis Kin. Let me just say right now, if they ever make a competitive reality show about writers, I would totally be the guy who comes in third that everybody wanted/expected to win. I would be that guy.

In the meantime, you're stuck listening to me yammer like MC Hammer. It seems I'm just bursting with writing advice, and I've got a blog. Moo hoo, and hoo hah!

(*Heh.)

Comments

[chris lee]

"Death or life or life or death
Death is life and life is death
I gotta use words when I talk to you
But if you understand or if you dont
That’s nothing to me and nothing to you
We all gotta do what we gotta do"
I wish I had this video tape of you reading this poem about some old guy or something at Notel Motel or Sine..God..I don't remember how it goes..but I was so moved by the EMPATHY of the piece..again it was about 10 years ago and you were in your Richard Kern "hot" period then too..but I thought wow the charisma of this person..and Anne Elliot..I made several tapes of your readings and that to me was your forte. The compassion as well as the gift. The artist's role is the articulation of the human predicament, the human condition..that's what was/is so satisfying about you and some of your more talent contemporaries on the spoken word scene.

[Anne E]

amen, writer sister. keep on preaching.

[Bill Scurry]

More recaps! More TV!

[Jennifer Glick]

Moo hoo?

[DonnaD]

New Agey or not, I like your advice, and I like Yul too :)

D

[rainbeau]

I tend to believe that there are positive/creative energies which are not entirely within ourselves or falling within our own responsibilities to maintain, but sometimes they are so (I've heard these called "emanent," FWIW).

Yet, do I go out of my way to talk about it every chance I conceivably get? No, if only because I think cynical punky-types tend to think I, or anyone, would be being disingenous. And it's bad enough to get called out for that when one is guilty, right?

And...bad as much of my writing has occasionally (if not frequently) been, I think there are times when (a la The Artist's Way) SIMPLY DOING the writing results in something different and better and...somehow...more essential than I was all kinds of ready for it to be, you know? Not to have too many preconceived notions of what I produce, before the fact, is basically key. Some plans? Sure. But...and this really applies to songwriting for me more than writing, but maybe even there too...it's often best to have a vague idea and faith and stamina vs. semi-concretized visions and fear of rejection and a tendency to lethargic depression.

And that's, in the immortal words of Forrest Gump, all I have to say about that.

[chris lee]

Dear reader...
I mean isn't that how EVERY novel or poem should start..it addresses itself to a concrete or abstracted generalized OTHER..I mean for some of you how does that affect the equation..?

[Clio Bluestocking]

Well, if it makes you feel better, by writing about writing (even all "pompous and new-agey")you are also doing a small public service for another writer who is getting through a "can't get the words from my head to the screen" moment.