Posts Tagged ‘Writing’
What is writing? Is it paper or process?
What is writing? Is it paper or process?
Most people would probably say paper. I’m not so sure. I’m becoming more and more aware of writing as process, though I’m willing to concede this is somewhat a false choice.
How can I say that writing is process? Writing must be the end result, right? In other words writing is most definitely paper. I’m using the idea of words on paper as a representation of the end result. (I could use “screen” rather than paper to keep current with the idea of writing as it appears in the blogosphere. However, the idea of writing as “screen or process” was not quite as alliterative as “paper or process”.)
Creating in Time
Allow me to provide an overly simplistic paraphrase of an idea Kenneth Atchity puts forward in A Writer’s Time: Writing is nothing more than a transcript of an argument you have with yourself. You begin any writing project by making a decision. A portion of your mind will reject that decision. This causes the creative tension neccesary to write something down.
Wrestling with the Imagination
Passing years have given me the option to relax about writing more than when I was in my thirties.
I once thought that if I didn’t write something, anything every day, the world as I knew it would end. And it did end. The old world ended and the new world began, with every missed deadline, with every unproductive writing day.
In the new world I was given the chance to view things differently, sideways maybe, or upside-down, but differently. The difference changed the shape of every writing project I ever set my mind and body to
complete. It would become a new project. Read the rest of this entry »
While Waiting For Inspiration
I recently read something Corey Doctorow said in an interview:
It’s not that you can’t be a great writer who only writes when inspiration calls, but you’ll never be a happy writer if you only write when inspiration calls. Inspiration is unpredictable. And if writing is the thing that makes you happy and sane—or it’s one of the things that makes you happy and sane—but you can only do it when this unpredictable lightning strike happens, then you’re not going to be happy and sane. You’re going to spend a lot of your time moping around, waiting for lightning to hit you. One of the things I’ve noticed about writing every day is that there are days when writing that page feels like flying. Like the hand of God reached down and touched my keyboard, and every word is just pure gold. And then there are days that I feel I’m writing absolute, totally forgettable junk that shouldn’t have been committed to phosphors, let alone saved to disc. The thing is, a month later, you can’t tell the difference. The difference between a day when it feels like you’re writing brilliantly and a day when it feels like you’re writing terribly is entirely in your head, it’s not in the prose.
