Small Writing #1

Writing On Writing On Writing On Writing...

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. 
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The best advice I've ever seen on writing is: "Write only what you want to write. Please yourself." (1)  ...write what you would read. 

I write different things for different reasons. I write blogs because they give me practice. When I sit down to write after not doing so for a while, my thought processes take a while to adjust from conversation to 'conversation on paper'. My fingers move slowly across the key board. But, after a few tries, a few hours, eventually a few minutes, muscle memory kicks in and my fingers follow my ideas almost simultaneously. I write journal entries --in a blog, a notebook, or on the computer, for me. Those entries are not always for the writing, but for the reflection. I work out problems that way. I talk about things I don't really want to talk to anyone else about. I do all those things so that I can write stories. I want to write my favorite book.

His Dark Materials is one of my favorite series. It's a page turner! It takes place in various worlds, there's magic (real life and imaginary). There's real problems, real struggles, real issues. It's the perfect combination. It's not preachy... the preachiness is shadowed by story, plot, and character. The characters are alive. To write is to create something real and living. The words fill the page, the writers imagination is translated into code that's then re-written by each reader, even the writer rewrites her own stories when she goes back and reads them again. It's a fascinating process!!

Each different type of form, if used correctly, adds to the story: 

I may want to include  or put in a period. when it's not needed.

I may start a new paragraph. Online, I can link up to another page and in doing so, promote something I want others to experience. I write poetry when I want to create images with words. Understanding the form allows me pull those ideas and stories from my imagination and put them into a tangible existence that is recognizable by myself and others. It's a way to capture something that pleases me. For example, I imagine a little boy named Spence who is from a place called Tunstall, which exists unseen somewhere along the edge of a town called Hattersfield, within the folds of the town's border lines. When I record Spence's stories, he springs from the page. The words allow me to imagine him. Otherwise, he's just some abstraction buried in the back of my mind probably based on and built from a number of other stories, kids and adventures I've experienced at different times during my life. 

It's impossible for me to even write what I don't like. Of course, sometimes, I'll write something, look back and wonder what I was thinking, but at the time I liked it and there may be a time when I like it again; there may be someone else who enjoys it. And, recording any type of discourse is just the beginning because it will continue to change each time I or someone else revisits it. 

People spend time visiting with each other, out in nature, watching movies or listening to music because people enjoy life. Writing is that way, alive, to me. 

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart...

- William Wordsworth