A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Thirty-Three

I have had a rather fraught day, but I am hopeful that maybe it will be a positive turning point.  For once, I am recognizing certain things and attempting to face them.  I've got to make a lot of changes in my life, and I am in the process of doing that, to some extent, already, but I really came to understand today that I am not at all who I want to be in many ways, and I really need to change that.  I think I may be ready to.  Maybe this is the first step, but I am not going to go easy on myself about it.  Honestly, while I don't want to get into specifics, I do need to acknowledge that I've been hurtful to people I care about and feel incredibly bad about that.  I"m lucky that I have people who care enough about me to be forgiving, but that does not excuse any of it, and I am facing that.

One aspect of change that I have made which I think is helping facilitate the rest of this process, is the work I am doing as a poet and writer.  I've done four new poems today, some of which were actually explorations of things that I'm discussing here.  I am lucky that I have the ability to express some of these ideas in poetry, and to use that process as a way of exploring myself.  It is not a natural thing for me as a poet, really, to explore myself that directly, but I think it is an important thing to do and a part of my maturation as a writer.

In addition to the new poems I wrote, I also attended a playwrights group meeting which I found really positive, and am very excited by.  I need to start working on some stuff for that group, actually.  It shouldn't be too hard to get going now that I have something to write for, but I need to give myself a chance to think of what I want to do.  I think I am going to do something that is somewhat simpler, maybe, but I am not really sure yet what it will be.  I don't know yet, really, even though I do have some thoughts in general.  I've one idea that I like and think I might play with, but I have had it in my head a bit and am still trying to work it out entirely.  It may be that I actually want to start by doing something where I am just retelling some older story in some way, just to get an idea of what I am doing.  I have to think about it, but I am sure I will come up with something soon, and am excited about where it will lead.

Ultimately, though, today was really a day where I became aware of a lot about myself and it is largely stuff that I do not like.  I was aware of this before, in some sense, but I can't be that way any longer, and cannot just ignore my own bad and cruel behavior.  It is time to take responsibility and make real changes.

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 want...
Read more

Le Guin, Steering The Craft, Chapter Five: Adjectives and Adverbs (Exercise Five, Chastity)

A note of apology for my lateness with this.  I had expected to have time earlier in the day, but it was not to be, alas.  Anyhow, I am still a bit nervous about this exercise, though it is clearly of significant import to Le Guin, as she points out that it is the only exercise that she has given to all of her workshops.  That, of course, does not alter my feelings about it, excepting that I am aware of it as something valuable and worth doing, so the fact that it is a bit daunting might well be seen, through that light, as a promise of reward, perhaps.  The more difficult the task, the more one has to gain, at least by some logic... Exercise Five: Chastity Mr. Torino was in charge.  He had his way.  It was the way.  Desktops are clean.  Nothing but work.  No pictures: not your kids; not your girl or wife; not (as Allen recounted) your car.   None of that.  No plants.  No cartoons.  That is for home, this is work....
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....
Read more