Sometimes writing is sheer hard work for me. Most times really. Because I am someone who can't plan what I am going to write, but instead have to wait for a line or two of thought to pop in which then gives me a start point.
Even then I don't have a clue as to what is going to happen when I switch on my PC ready to uptake the journey from that start point. The words arrive in my head or they don't, depending on whether I can stop myself from concentrating too hard on what I think I ought to write. All that happens if I do is that the words on the page are stilted, uncrafted, ordinary.
For me to write I have to have an empty head. Because the words come from a part of my mind which is a separate self, a self I didn't know I had until recently, although I did have a glimmer of that secret self when I was in my early forties, but I closed the door to it because it felt too big and I was intimidated by the hugeness of that self.
I had to travel nearly twenty years on before I could cope with this self. Just before sixty I thought I would let that door open again, and coming forth from the secret self was the scaffolding for my first book, Psychic Virgin.
For hours and hours I struggled between what I thought I ought to write which was when I was under the influence of my conscious self, as opposed to what was right to write which was when the secret self was speaking to me, from my subconscious.
Writing for me is difficult because I have to have an empty head. To try and fill a page with words when the empty head is not empty enough and so blocks the word flow is a waste of time. All I do is sit and look at the blank page for a while then go fiddle about on Youtube or browse the web. Of late I go browsing over my fellow blogger's recent posts, which is the best of activities to do when my secret self is trying to get it's voice heard, because of the inspiration to keep going that it gives me. I love being globally networked with people in other countries, all sharing their worlds.
The long and long hours of endeavour it takes to create the pages of a book when the head has to be devoid of any thought so the words can properly come from that other place in one's head is the most awesome task imaginable. But what it does is create a book that when read in its published form reads like one has not actually written it all. And that is a curious effect of writing from an empty head: that when one re-reads what one has written it reads like someone else has written it! Amazing!
So if you want to craft words on a page, no matter if it is 200, 500, 10,000 or 100,000 words, try seeing if you can stop organising the words, and then let you own secret self speak for you.
The long and long hours of writing endeavour are not easy for me, because of needing to keep my mind empty so that other self will speak. With practice you can do the same.
Good luck with your writing.
Even then I don't have a clue as to what is going to happen when I switch on my PC ready to uptake the journey from that start point. The words arrive in my head or they don't, depending on whether I can stop myself from concentrating too hard on what I think I ought to write. All that happens if I do is that the words on the page are stilted, uncrafted, ordinary.
For me to write I have to have an empty head. Because the words come from a part of my mind which is a separate self, a self I didn't know I had until recently, although I did have a glimmer of that secret self when I was in my early forties, but I closed the door to it because it felt too big and I was intimidated by the hugeness of that self.
I had to travel nearly twenty years on before I could cope with this self. Just before sixty I thought I would let that door open again, and coming forth from the secret self was the scaffolding for my first book, Psychic Virgin.
For hours and hours I struggled between what I thought I ought to write which was when I was under the influence of my conscious self, as opposed to what was right to write which was when the secret self was speaking to me, from my subconscious.
Writing for me is difficult because I have to have an empty head. To try and fill a page with words when the empty head is not empty enough and so blocks the word flow is a waste of time. All I do is sit and look at the blank page for a while then go fiddle about on Youtube or browse the web. Of late I go browsing over my fellow blogger's recent posts, which is the best of activities to do when my secret self is trying to get it's voice heard, because of the inspiration to keep going that it gives me. I love being globally networked with people in other countries, all sharing their worlds.
The long and long hours of endeavour it takes to create the pages of a book when the head has to be devoid of any thought so the words can properly come from that other place in one's head is the most awesome task imaginable. But what it does is create a book that when read in its published form reads like one has not actually written it all. And that is a curious effect of writing from an empty head: that when one re-reads what one has written it reads like someone else has written it! Amazing!
So if you want to craft words on a page, no matter if it is 200, 500, 10,000 or 100,000 words, try seeing if you can stop organising the words, and then let you own secret self speak for you.
The long and long hours of writing endeavour are not easy for me, because of needing to keep my mind empty so that other self will speak. With practice you can do the same.
Good luck with your writing.
I have found you, Vera, from Matthew's blog in Newcastle, Australia. I liked your comment and I liked your name. Here is someone, thinks I, with whom I might have something in common. So, here I be ...
ReplyDeleteI will trawl through your other blogs as the next couple of days progress. I have just decided on a big research/writing project for myself for 2010 to follow on from my Hundred Strangers photography project that I undertook during 2009. I have not set up a blog yet, as the title has not come into my head. But it will ...
WV = scrombi
the state of the brain immediately prior to the ideas tumbling onto the page
Hi there Vera. This is a very interesting post. As part of my OU Humanities degree (I'm on my fourth course, two more to go) I'm now doing a creative writing course. We're encouraged to do daily freewrites and do exactly as you describe; close down the thinking part and just let the words and thougts come.
ReplyDeleteIt does mean that all sort of things come to the front of one's mind; buried memories both happy and sad that have been stuck right at the back.
Hi Julie, lovely to connect with you. Wow! 2010 looks like being a busy year for you and I wish you oodles of wordy creativity. Do please keep in touch and let me know how you are getting along. Knowing that others are in a similar boat always helps me not feel so isolated.
ReplyDeleteFrench Fancy: Oh you are an OU bod as well! I am too, although not taking any courses at this time. I embarked on a Science degree route ten years ago, did several courses some of which I passed some of which I didn't, but no matter because all of the learning was inspirational to me. Plus I got to meet my husband as well, who was also a fellow student.
ReplyDeleteI am a couple of courses away from finishing, but I am not fussed about doing them at the moment. At sixty plus I like the thought of being a student, rather than having the degree and it being done with. But I will return to OU if I have no other projects on the go.
Doing the excavation work on one's buried history is quite a journey, but brings a sense of completeness of self which is worth all the effort of digging about in the past.
Bless you, and great to have connected with a fellow OU student.
Thank you for the wishes just now, Vera. I hope similarly for you and yours. Lots of contentment and laughs.
ReplyDeleteYou mention your local beach. Somehow, from the little I have read thus far, I thought that you were inland. What would you local beach be?
Up until eighteen months ago we lived in the UK, then we moved to SW France and are living in caravans while we are saving the house from being a ruin, and turning the whole property with its 5.5 hectares of land into the small farm it once was.
ReplyDeleteThe 'local beach' was back in the UK, in a place called the Isle of Sheppey, which is NE Kent. AS I said, little pimples of surf rather than those lovely waves you posted up on your blog.
By the way, the above response was for you Julie.
ReplyDeleteI got a bit confused here because my name is Julie too. I thought (a propos your first reply to the other Julie) how does Vera know my name? I mean I know she is pyschic but even so.
ReplyDeleteWishing you a lovely 2010 and it's funny how the comments are piling up under this post and not the others. You write ever so well, Vera.
As for the OU - I've just been writing poems about hands. I love writing poetry but seldom do it - this OU course has made me get down to it. Why is it that we need a push sometimes to get on with things and then - once started - we adore it?
Hi Julie (FF), a friend of mine did the OU course you are doing and she said it stretched her as well, especially with writing poems.
ReplyDeleteI went the route of a writing group at the local Adult Education. Every week we were given a task: write a story of 250 words beginning with certain words and ending with certain words. Or a play. Or a 50 word story which had to include three totally unrelated words. Or a poem about a certain subject. Every week it was different. Then we had to read out our work. Boy oh boy, that was hard! I thought everyone else did better work than me, but then I guess everyone thought the same. But it was a marvelous time for opening up avenues of other writing, and I hope that OU continues to do the same for you.