Growing Versions

I am often humbled by others' words.  I will hear my children express something so perfectly and uniquely that I rush to another room to write it down.  I read a passage in a book that succinctly describes something in a way that I've not read before and I ensure that I can return to it, time and again to be inspired, I started to make an effort to write for pleasure over the past few years. It wasn`t something I had done for fun since childhood.  It has indeed been a pleasure. Having writing to turn to has been like having a funnel to catch my gushing, tumbling thoughts, my awareness of language has become heightened and I enjoy reading more.  Writing more has helped both my physical and mental health too. I often walk home or to work composing something in my head. As much as writing has improved my life, the longer I write, the more aware I am of my limitations.  I admire good writers for their ability to compel the reader to understand another point...

Write down your thoughts. Write down your dreams, even if you only remember half of them. Write down your fears. Write down the books you want to read. Write down the books you want to write. Write down the movies you want to see again. Write down every detail of that room that used to be yours. Write down what he said. Write down what you said. Write down what you should have said. Write down your passwords, no matter what they say. Write down your demands. Write down the license plate number, just in case. Write down the thing you heard on the radio. Write down the cost. Write down your needs. Write down your extravagant wants. Write down the weather that day. Write down what you ate. Write down his name. Write down to the ground.

Short paragraphs put air around what you write and make it look inviting, whereas one long chunk of type can discourage the reader from even starting to read. -William Zinsser

When I step away from writing for a while due to illness or work or whatever, I force myself to write something. Anything.  I try my best to not get too down on myself about what or how I write that something.   I write to Prime the Pump.  Sure enough, once primed, I start to get eager to write, I start to narrate posts in my head on my way home. The tap begins to drip.

I am writing a  novel in a month. I've read lots of books and the narratives of all of them are being called to action each day to satisfy the 1666/per day word count goal. Just like reading a book, I'm not sure how this one will end. I have used up all my words in this novel (I use the term very loosely) and now I am having to use a lot of them over again. Just 25, 100 words to go. I better not use them up here, there are no spare words at the moment.

so you want to be a writer? "If it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it, unless is comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it. If you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently, if it never does roar out of you, do something else." -Charles Bukowski I am waiting patiently for it to roar out of me.

A maxed out tweet contains 140 characters. Along with tweeting, I am learning how to write sentences, sentence by sentence, tweet by tweet. I think tweeting logic helps me write sentences in the real world too.  Tweets corral self-contained thoughts into a small, restricted space.  There is little room for complex structures.  Advanced users can pull off all kinds of things with this format, but I am very much an amateur at both tweeting and sentence writing.   Tweets can be deleted. They can be immortalised. They can ruin a career or make one. They can send chills down your spine or give you insight in ways a whole book might not be able to. The same goes for sentences.  They both can be taken out of context. They do not tell the whole story, but they are structures that build something bigger than themselves. If they are flawed, the whole rest of what they constitute can fall apart. Lately, I find myself reading books scouring them for good ones. Ones t...

"Begin anywhere." -John Cage

Writing down words, typing them, has really helped me say things out loud. Writing has broadened my vocabulary and like doing scales helps improve ones music, writing has strengthened my communication abilities. Those solid words, sometimes spurting out in rivulets, other times squeezed out in pebbles, give the words spoken into the air more shape. The audible ones are uttered with more confidence and chosen with more care. Words always used to trip me up, hold me back, create nets in which I would get tangled, and block communication.  Words would shroud me in heavy cloth that muted my real intent. By allowing myself permission to write through mistakes and sift through what's left, I'm also allowing myself to talk in the ways I want to, not out of fear or for purposes of crowd control or to manage my audience, but to speak, to communicate, to represent myself.

Last week, I shared my confusion over this  new game .  So, I got my daughter to write down the rules so I could understand them better. 1. Set the game up 2. Roll the die. 3. Go how many steps the die says. 4. Try to get past the evil markers that are trying to block you. 5. Get your right birthday penny. You win by the getting the right penny of your birthday. The prize is your own birthday date which you can make 3 wishes on. I have to say, that clears things up considerably.

WifeMotherExpletive  extended an invitation I could not refuse: " Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking" on the word, Real . real is what I always strive to be.  in a hurry to be as real as possible, I've overlooked so much.  I have denied myself things that would have helped me understand things better.  real, but real for who? as I age, I want to be more real to me because I suspect that there will be many surprises. hard to believe that I will be surprised since I have lived with myself for 36 , going on 37 years, but I don't doubt it for one minute.  Honesty is where I falter.  I can achieve "real" (does it qualify as real if it is in quotation marks) but it may not be true.  In general, I want things to be tied up in a package and smooth even it is too jagged to fit.  I want this, I know that to be real, it cannot happen but I think true is what I need to really aim for.  I know some things are tru...