Wednesday, December 15, 2004

If you must read one, I recommend "Writing Down The Bones"

I have no idea where bursts of creativity or inspiration come from, nor does anyone else, at least not specifically, or else there would be no need for hundreds upon hundreds of books about how to well, um, write books (or whatever other artistic thing one endeavors to do). But wherever it comes from, I've got a little patch of it this week and I'm rather happy about that. I think it's primarily due to the fact that I'm starting to get some real stuff DONE and it's creating the desire to want to do more. Hmmm... weird de ja vu... did I already write about this? Anyway. I've put myself on a very strict schedule for working on my book ("working on my book" is the absolute cheesiest thing in the world to say. Well, besides "working on my screenplay." Ick.). I'm giving myself a weekly page minimum just like I used to have in college, which was the last time I wrote with any true regularity (besides during Lent this year), and it seems to be working well. I've tried other methods in the past such as writing for a certain length of time each day or a certain word count, but nothing stuck. My schedule and emotional whims are too unpredictable to force myself to writeeverydaywithoutfailorImustnotreallywanttobeawriter. With this new thing, if I miss a day I just have to make up for it by Sunday night. And so far, with that in mind, I've NOT missed a day. The website is also coming along really nicely, and working on it sort of feels like my "job," but in a good way (have come to associate anything that seems like a "job" to be bad over the past several years). I love, love, love working on it and thinking about it. It serves as a good distraction from the other things that have camped out in my brain recently (they've not gone anywhere, but they take naps more frequently when I've got stuff to concentrate on). It's nice to feel good busy. I've so longed to have that feeling again. It's been ages. Years. It's come at a really extraordinarily high price, and for that I feel quite sad. I guess I'd like to think that one thing didn't cause the other, that I could be on this track even if I didn't just recently have my heart stomped upon, but who knows. One does what one must, I suppose, and if you're lucky, you find some small silver lining while doing it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Then again, it's likely that you wouldn't be on this track if you hadn't had your heart stomped on. And "luck" has nothing at all to do with finding silver linings. That's a choice and a skill developed over time.

Question: what are "burts" of creativity? Are they like burps?