most of my life I have written long slabs of self-deprecating nonsense, filling up journals and giving myself a hard time for not coming up with anything good the first time. I was always afraid to keep practicing, i.e. just write and write and let go of the control I kept insisting upon. instead of venturing off into the wilderness of free prose I turned to writing instructional books. I must have at least 7 of 'em by now... and I read them and re-read them. of course certain patterns emerged: write a lot, don't edit, the process should be organic (I heard that one a lot). usually I would walk away from each one feeling inspired, and ready to write: but when I sat down whatever inspiration I had was quickly replaced by the urge to watch a movie or take a nap or masturbate, anything but write. I fashion myself a writer,yet I do not really write all that much (I compulsively give myself credit where none is due). instead I watch Adaptation and laugh at Nicolas Cage wanting to reward himself with a muffin for churning out a mere paragraph. I watch that and think I'm not alone (forgetting, of course, that the real Charlie Kaufman sat down and worked his ass off to write that script, and continues to write brilliant scripts), and that validates my inactivity for the day. if there's not a movie around I usually go back and peruse those writing books, as I need to refresh my memory of the techniques, etc. so I get remarkably little done as far as actual writing goes, yet I still put on all the elitism and pretention that writers are known to have. I seem to know the walk and the manner, yet put in none of the time. I often feel like a fake holy man trying to act wise all the time. I have been getting more and more frustrated with my total procrastination and inability to sit down and get some fucking writing done. I boxed up all my how-to writing books, wrapped a roll of packing tape around the box for good measure, and tossed it to the back of my closet. Rain suggested it, and so far I have not had the urge to dig them out once. she's mistrustful of all such books. although she did loan me one book called Writing Without Teachers, one of the two books she has ever found to be truly helpful and not just a lot of shit, as most of them were more procrastinative tools than helpful.
so. for the last few days I have been working on a paper for my Reed application, and reading through this book. writing long tangents of illegible text, often with no idea what I intended to say. it may have been the first time in my life that I wrote something and did not dwell on how much I hated it and should quit immediately because it was going nowhere (what I usually do). I kept writing and ranting and sooner or later a few similar thoughts started to emerge, amidst the pages of mispelled rubbish. eventually I got a fix on a direction to take, and after some more freewriting, I actually saw an ending, a form for the paper I had to write. I sat up in bed last night, laptop propped in front of me, in awe of the feeling of having written my way into something I had no inital inention of finding. a more or less organic process. until now I have never believed that I could do this, as I was always too inundated with guidelines and rules and fear of writing crap. if it didn't come out golden right away, it wasn't worth my time. things don't work that way, is all. I sat on the bed and thought to myself, my god, I haven't felt good about a piece of writing in a long fucking time. I did it. for once, I wrote my way out of a fucking problem instead of further into one. Rain (of whom I have finally posted a picture) found it pretty amusing that it was this book finally got me to snap out of my rut as it told me to do basically the same things she's been telling me for some time. well, what can I say, I am stubborn about listening to people and taking their advice. but she was right. it worked. tomorrow I'll set down to write and just let it go, wherever it wants to take me.
so. for the last few days I have been working on a paper for my Reed application, and reading through this book. writing long tangents of illegible text, often with no idea what I intended to say. it may have been the first time in my life that I wrote something and did not dwell on how much I hated it and should quit immediately because it was going nowhere (what I usually do). I kept writing and ranting and sooner or later a few similar thoughts started to emerge, amidst the pages of mispelled rubbish. eventually I got a fix on a direction to take, and after some more freewriting, I actually saw an ending, a form for the paper I had to write. I sat up in bed last night, laptop propped in front of me, in awe of the feeling of having written my way into something I had no inital inention of finding. a more or less organic process. until now I have never believed that I could do this, as I was always too inundated with guidelines and rules and fear of writing crap. if it didn't come out golden right away, it wasn't worth my time. things don't work that way, is all. I sat on the bed and thought to myself, my god, I haven't felt good about a piece of writing in a long fucking time. I did it. for once, I wrote my way out of a fucking problem instead of further into one. Rain (of whom I have finally posted a picture) found it pretty amusing that it was this book finally got me to snap out of my rut as it told me to do basically the same things she's been telling me for some time. well, what can I say, I am stubborn about listening to people and taking their advice. but she was right. it worked. tomorrow I'll set down to write and just let it go, wherever it wants to take me.