A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Hundred-And-Eighty-Nine

It is funny, but sometimes on the days when I don't know what I want to write about, and really feel a desire to not do the work, it turns out that something happens suddenly and without any previous thought.  I wrote a poem tonight that does not really seem to be an idea I had in mind at any time before.  The images connect to other pieces I've written, in a way, but not fully, and it is clearly a different type of poem in a number of different ways.

The thing is not so much the poem itself, but the acknowledgement that I need to do the work each day, and that I can never truly know what work I will accomplish at any given time.  I mean, if I had listened to myself, a few minutes before getting to work, I would have walked away and gone straight to bed.  Instead, I forced myself to sit down and do the work, and what resulted feels to be something more valuable than what I had expected.  It is impossible to predict such things.

I also am still developing that idea for the play I mentioned.  I have a great deal more understanding of it in some ways than I had before, and think I could work on the first part almost immediately, so I may set to work on it a bit tomorrow.  I think that some concepts in it are still not entirely clear to me, and I don't have the whole of the piece in my mind yet.  I do think that certain themes and concepts are becoming clear to me in thinking about it.  For example, one issue is the idea of giving meaning to an action, and where that meaning is derived.  Is the meaning in the result, or is it something that can be decided before taking on the task to begin with.   I feel that some of that is already far better expressed and explored in certain ideas that I am tossing about.

In any case, I am going to make this another short one, as I am ready to fall asleep right here at my desk.  I suppose it is a result, in part at least, of my not smoking any cigarettes.  A small price, but I hope I will feel more up to snuff again soon.                                                                                                                         

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