Next Steps

In starting to write this blog, I was largely doing this for reasons that were not connected to what I wished to communicate, at least not directly.  The point, for me, was to commit to writing on a daily basis, but as such, that does not bring with it a real point for the writing itself.  I do not find, though, this unfocus to be an issue generally.  Many blogs I've encountered are fairly inconsistent in terms of content, particularly some by artists and writers that I have read.  What I am questioning, though, is the deeper question of how I can turn this into something more meaningful.  Not merely an exercise in personal development, a side project designed to help me build strength for creative productivity, and to fuel other more serious endeavors.  I do not deny that these are important, and do not seem them become less central, but it also is significant to me to recognize this as a space that I want to have meaning for more than myself.

Now, over the last few weeks as I have been finding my way here, I have come to think that I like the role this space has taken on, as a sort of working space for experimentation and learning.  That is something I think can have great value for me, and that I might be able to make meaningful to others.  Or, perhaps, I should not say I can create that meaning, but that others night see it or find it.

I think of several things in connection to that last statement.  For one, I consider Harlan Ellison, an author who recently passed.  Ellison did not like to give readings, but would instead do a sort of residency in the store.  He would bring his writing apparatus (a type-writer, I think) and would set up in the window, writing stories.  If a person bought more than, say, $100 worth of books, they were allowed to write down a suggestion and place it into a box.  When Ellison finished one story, he would find a new suggestion that triggered his imagination and continue on.  The point was to show that writing wasn't magic but work, a debunking through action of the age-old question "where do your ideas come from?"

A space such as I am cultivating here can certainly serve a purpose in that regard, showing development and progress of ideas and techniques, and demonstrating that it is that daily work which makes the difference (which, of course, is a large part of what I am attempting to teach myself, as well).  By doing regular work in the direction of developing skills as a writer, and showing that work here, it might provide that something similar to Ellison's efforts, what I've heard Neil Gaiman reference as a "demystifying" of the process.

This, of course, is just one layer, and one that is satisfied fairly superficially.  It is the knowledge of the work happening, of the labor to make the thing, not the content itself, which is, in some ways, similar to the initial circumstances I discussed above.  However, the significant difference, here, is that Ellison was demonstrating the behavior, but not providing that window into it.  He did not, I don't think, even share those stories directly with any who might be watching him craft them.

By opening up the actual process, I hope it can do something more, as it seems to me that most people who read books or otherwise encounter stories (read: "everyone") have the desire to tell stories, or at least to see how they are told.  Almost any time I have gone to a reading by a fiction writer, someone will ask them about how they did it.  So, I think that just "showing your work" as my math teacher used to say, might be a useful thing.  What is more, I hope that I can make this a space where I can also demonstrate some of the revision process, to some extent, though I have not really considered that entirely.

I think that using Le Guin's book worked well, and I think I will continue in that vein starting tomorrow with Jeff VanderMeer's Wonderbook.   It is a very different book than what Le Guin presented, and I am not certain that I will be able to do a chapter daily, but I plan to work through it and to comment and do the exercises here.  I have  begun reading, though only into the first chapter.  I think it may be slower, but it is also a far more eccentric journey, one that contains, clearly, many side-quests.  As such, I don't know that I can fully plan the journey at this point.  I think I will be able to find those things which I want to respond to, and I can also do the exercises as I encounter them, so I expect that it will not be difficult to use as fuel for this blog.  However, I think that, just as the book itself has a more organic and haphazard arrangement, my approach to responding to and working with it will have to be as well.

So, it is a new journey, then, but one that is less clear.  I see a greater danger in this, of course, but I think I am up for the challenge, and the rewards seem worth the effort.