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

I am not sure how I feel about the poems I wrote today, really, but they were more than just exercises.  I forced myself to do more than just rush into something for the sake of getting the work over with, instead sitting and stewing for a bit, pushing myself to do real work and not just busy work.  In some ways, I think that busy work has a real value, but it seems worthwhile to try and see what I can do to get around it, at least in order to understand my own process.  I am certain that I will write more pieces that are just done for the sake of writing something to keep up with my work, and I have no qualms about that.  At the same time, I want to have a stronger grasp on the difference between that kind of effort and the work that I find more compelling and successful.

It seems likely that the busy work, the plate spinning as I like to call it, is often a way of clearing out things so I can get to better work.  As well, I think it often is a path towards a poem.  I might write a bunch of pieces that are revolving around something, and eventually that ideas clarifies for me through such work.  It is not even that I am aware of what those poems are all circling around, but that the effort of writing those pieces without a real sense of intent about them creates opportunities for stray thoughts to build momentum.  Often they can get stuck in my mind as a result, where they pop up again and again until they are resolved in a satisfying way.  It often is only later, looking back, that I can even see the thread of the idea.

Currently, the real issue is about discovering, for myself, how my process functions so I can improve how I am working.  At the moment, I am pushing in one direction, but that may stop being useful.  It seems likely that one part of the process is going to be a need to alter modes, to keep things fresh in a way.  Really, though, I am at a place where I am doing the work, and I am happy about it, but that does not change the fact that part of me is afraid I might lose that again, and I am doing what I can to find out how to stay motivated and inspired so I won't let that happen.

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