A Writer's Notebook, Two-Thousand-Two-Hundred-And-One

My poetry feels very sharp right now.  I am not certain I can explain just what precipitates that, or what it really means, or if it is even the real truth, or just a perception I have, but it is how I am feeling.  It is, at least partly, a result of my just pushing through into some new creative spaces, which I think let me just unblock a bit, I guess.  I am still struggling with fiction, in general, I think, though I am keeping at it, and I think that is really the best thing for me to do.  Just repeating and continuing to work is the best way to get better at anything, really.  It's all about practice.  Maybe that is the truth about why I am feeling the way I am about my poetry at the moment, as well.  It is certainly true that I have spent a very long time practicing and working at that aspect of my writing in particular, though that does not explain why I feel as if it has been a shift just now.  In some way or another, I am certain, I must have stepped out of my own way.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Fifty

Each of the three pieces I wrote today was a bit of a struggle to get going, if I am honest.  That happens, as I have mentioned, and my answer is generally to just wait it out, and the results vary.  A lot of the time, if I am really stuck, I might try to force something out, often it winds up being a bit meta, with me writing about being stuck without much in terms of inspiration, and it feels a bit like I am working scales in a way.  All the aesthetic decisions are there, they just don't always have a lot of purpose behind them, and that is fine in that context.  Essentially, I am just forcing myself to do the work, and getting it done, and I am showing myself that I can and will do it even if inspiration never strikes.  This can often take pressure off, and that lack of pressure opens up creative thinking and inspiration. Now, that is a fine thing for me to do, and I am likely to use that approach again many times in the future, but today I felt that I wanted to make myself do
Read more

A Writer's Notebook, Two-Thousand-And-Fifty-Nine

I have been thinking about how I can discuss certain aspects of my poetry and the choices I make as a writer.  In particular, I tend to write without as much reliance on sensory details and descriptions, instead choosing more abstract depictions.  This is something that I know many writers would call an odd choice, as specificity seems inherently to demand the application of detail, but I tend to be a bit hesitant about relying on depictions that utilize the senses, as I find that approach somewhat problematic.  For one thing, sensory description is always going to be less than universal, and not only because of the reality that there are individuals who lack one or more sense.  In many ways, for me, the deeper problem is one related to language itself.  Our use of language creates our experiences in a very real way, though I can't necessarily offer a full explanation of what I mean by that right here, but using a word for an object bestows qualities on it.  If I call something a s
Read more

Poem: Already Over

Already Over Moments pass away faster than we can even notice them: it takes time for the light that hits the eye to be understood as an image, let alone for the body to respond. It may only be fractions of a second, but what we think is now has already ended. Yet, somehow we can act upon this world as if we are present in the present, and not trapped just a few moments in the past.
Read more