My ill-disciplined approach to writing has a habit of occurring in fits
and starts. Staring at the blank page or empty screen, willing myself to action,
often ends up something akin to pulling teeth. You can’t force yourself to be
inspired, or inspiring for that matter. Much of what I do tends to feel like labouring
up winding mountain roads, hoping the next bend will reveal some friendlier
terrain, walking in last place with my bike because I’ve run out of puff, while
all the elite cyclists disappeared into the distance long ago and are receiving
the accolades at the finish line.
Once in a while though it’d be rather nice to not have to pedal so hard.
Aah…to feel the wind in my hair while coasting down the mountain for a change, now
that would be good, picking up speed, relishing the freedom, steering around
the hairpin bends with skill and bravado. What a lot of rot. I’ve watched
enough Tours de France to know you have to go through the agony of the uphill
before you can be rewarded with the downhill run to the finish.
And there’s my problem, my
lack of discipline brings me undone every time. My doubt that I have the
wherewithal to make it to the end means I don’t make the effort to start. I
have years’ worth of half-finished, barely started and nowhere near
half-finished stories coming out of my ears. I can write a great opening line,
a good first paragraph, several chapters, setting the scene time and again to
draw the reader in. But most of the time there it stops; I simply can’t sustain
it.
All us wannabe writers would
love the writing process to just happen, so it’s heartening to hear that even some
of the most accomplished authors approach each new project with fear and
trembling. Most of it is simply turning up and doing the work, it’s not magic. Garrison
Keilor says it succinctly in his novel Love
Me…Every writer I know is on a winding
mountain road in the fog.
So the question remains, will I ever make it out of the fog. I‘ve made
two large artist journals in recent years which I pull out now and again,
especially when I get to that give up line and am on the verge of dragging
every poor attempt out of the filing cabinet and tossing it in the bin. They
are a collection of pictures, phrases and words cut out of magazines, all
strung together with my own narrative. An attempt to think in depth about the
whole creative process, and how to personalise it, they ended up turning into something
of a message to myself, encouraging me to keep going, even when it all seems
like an uphill battle.
Hence this diary, a pro-active step, fronting up to the keyboard every
day, sticking to the commitment made on New Year’s Day to put something of my
world into words. It might sound somewhat clinical, but bringing poetry into my
daily regimen lightens the task and has a way of keeping my mind active, and my
eyes, ears and heart open to what might appear unexpectedly during the day. The
rhythms of nature and reflections of private contemplation hold a wealth of
material to direct anyone’s thoughts into corresponding word rhythms.
No false starts
every step forward
leads somewhere
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