E. B. White said, "I have always been aware that I am by nature self-absorbed and egotistical. "The writer wars within himself and it is few who can take the back seat to such a force.
What is it that keeps us from writing? What is it we are afraid to say? As much as we want the spot light we are afraid of being exposed. Does this separate us from our peers and our readers? If we write of why we don't write are we writing?
A writer’s trouble then is of their own making. Our inability to write and not to write
rises out of ourselves. Our writing is based on the acceptance and action of our will to write. Writers in a discussion of writer's block rarely discuss the will to write they discuss the exercises, distractions and mental games they play to write. The will to write requires only 1%. You have to want to write 1% more than you don't want to write. If you keep it that simple there is no such thing as writer's block
.
Writing is a solitary event with only three things required: you, the laptop and the window or the wall. You choose. In a rhythm we are caught up in the self-centered act of writing. We get excited, our muscles tense, we breathe more shallow, we grow full of pride. We forget our writing is a gift
and we become filled with self. It is like a drug when we get in the groove. When understanding comes there is a high.
Our pride makes us giddy and we behave in ways others don't understand, but we understand. We leave notes. We collect pieces of paper. We write on our hands. We do whatever it takes to engrain a moment, a change, a feeling into our minds. Each new idea requires an action of some sort or it will pass, forever forgotten.
Every day we belly up to the laptop we seek that high. The high is the measure of a good day or a bad day. The high comes through honest self-appraisal and the ability to see the cause of the true conflict within us as writers. Each writer must come to terms with being the problem in their life. Our reaction to every situation is linked directly to our pride. Pride, hurt or stroked, demands a reaction inside and out.
Kingsley Amis says his motivation to write is based in, "I'm going to show them this time. Without that, a lot of what passes under the name of creative energy would be lost." Rejection, abandoned, hurt, scarred, battered and bruised are the friends of a writer when they can put it to work for them instead of against them.
A friend asked me the other night why I bother to write this blog
. I listed a bunch of reasons that were obvious to me, but I left one out. I didn’t realize it until just now. I’m in a place where enough has happened that I want to show them all. That 1 % is no longer elusive; my creative energy is no longer lost.
Exercise #6:
Our house in New Milford was right out of a Hollywood movie; a white picket fence holding in the tamed green grass my fathered obsessed over to avoid my mother. My father was a man who took pride in everything that could be seen on the outside. With a ruler he measured the length of his fresh cut grass and the distance of the picket fence from the sidewalk.
There were no cracks or weeds in the walkway. No flaws in the perfect house where the perfect family lived. Not a single paint peel. Not a spotted window to look through. No weeds in the flower beds. Everything about us looked perfect. Then one day we were gone. The weeds came back, the paint peeled off and the walkways cracked. No one even knew we were gone.
We had moved to Rochester and I felt left alone. Connecticut and New York were in sharp contrast I didn’t know how to behave. All I kept thinking was I must become accountable to no one.
What is it that keeps us from writing? What is it we are afraid to say? As much as we want the spot light we are afraid of being exposed. Does this separate us from our peers and our readers? If we write of why we don't write are we writing?
A writer’s trouble then is of their own making. Our inability to write and not to write
Writing is a solitary event with only three things required: you, the laptop and the window or the wall. You choose. In a rhythm we are caught up in the self-centered act of writing. We get excited, our muscles tense, we breathe more shallow, we grow full of pride. We forget our writing is a gift
Our pride makes us giddy and we behave in ways others don't understand, but we understand. We leave notes. We collect pieces of paper. We write on our hands. We do whatever it takes to engrain a moment, a change, a feeling into our minds. Each new idea requires an action of some sort or it will pass, forever forgotten.
Every day we belly up to the laptop we seek that high. The high is the measure of a good day or a bad day. The high comes through honest self-appraisal and the ability to see the cause of the true conflict within us as writers. Each writer must come to terms with being the problem in their life. Our reaction to every situation is linked directly to our pride. Pride, hurt or stroked, demands a reaction inside and out.
Kingsley Amis says his motivation to write is based in, "I'm going to show them this time. Without that, a lot of what passes under the name of creative energy would be lost." Rejection, abandoned, hurt, scarred, battered and bruised are the friends of a writer when they can put it to work for them instead of against them.
A friend asked me the other night why I bother to write this blog
Exercise #6:
Our house in New Milford was right out of a Hollywood movie; a white picket fence holding in the tamed green grass my fathered obsessed over to avoid my mother. My father was a man who took pride in everything that could be seen on the outside. With a ruler he measured the length of his fresh cut grass and the distance of the picket fence from the sidewalk.
There were no cracks or weeds in the walkway. No flaws in the perfect house where the perfect family lived. Not a single paint peel. Not a spotted window to look through. No weeds in the flower beds. Everything about us looked perfect. Then one day we were gone. The weeds came back, the paint peeled off and the walkways cracked. No one even knew we were gone.
We had moved to Rochester and I felt left alone. Connecticut and New York were in sharp contrast I didn’t know how to behave. All I kept thinking was I must become accountable to no one.
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