(no subject)
I have massive writing amnesia. And it's not the convenient kind, say like the politicians have when they say, "I don't recollect selling weapons to that rouge leader..." The brand of memory loss I'm experiencing is the kind that side-cars itself to writing. Like, "I don't remember the last book being so freakin' hard to write." But, when I delve down deep toward my big toe, I can scrape up a flinty spark of memory that tells me it WAS hard. Really hard.
The hard part being the fact that a piece of writing, or my writing, has to struggle through several sessions of revision to become remotely cogent. So, I've just got to "trust the process." It sounds so cliche and accepting and bean bag-barefoot-armpit hair-hippie-love like, but if that's what I need to tell myself to get get to the end of this first revision, so be it. Trust the process, man.
Each time I walk the dog on a certain route, we pass this chicken coop with the most gorgeous chickens. When I talk to them ("Heeeeere chicky-chicky-chicky!") they strut and cluck over to me, doing their tottering, tremoring head thing. They are not stupid, and I feel guilty that there is chicken in my refrigerator. And my freezer. And in the dog food. (If I read the small print on the side of the oatmeal box, I bet there's a trace of them there, too.)
I just finished MISS AMERICAN PIE by Margaret Sartor. It's a autobiographical journey through the diaries of her adolescent years (during the 70's in the South). It was a lovely read: Spiritual, innocent, thought provoking. What resonates the most is that no matter what decade we inhabit, what wars we fight, what political engines are running the country--no matter what and where, even, the teen experience at its core remains universal, riddled with love, anger, melancholy, euphoria, confusion, etc...ad infinitum.
The hard part being the fact that a piece of writing, or my writing, has to struggle through several sessions of revision to become remotely cogent. So, I've just got to "trust the process." It sounds so cliche and accepting and bean bag-barefoot-armpit hair-hippie-love like, but if that's what I need to tell myself to get get to the end of this first revision, so be it. Trust the process, man.
Each time I walk the dog on a certain route, we pass this chicken coop with the most gorgeous chickens. When I talk to them ("Heeeeere chicky-chicky-chicky!") they strut and cluck over to me, doing their tottering, tremoring head thing. They are not stupid, and I feel guilty that there is chicken in my refrigerator. And my freezer. And in the dog food. (If I read the small print on the side of the oatmeal box, I bet there's a trace of them there, too.)
I just finished MISS AMERICAN PIE by Margaret Sartor. It's a autobiographical journey through the diaries of her adolescent years (during the 70's in the South). It was a lovely read: Spiritual, innocent, thought provoking. What resonates the most is that no matter what decade we inhabit, what wars we fight, what political engines are running the country--no matter what and where, even, the teen experience at its core remains universal, riddled with love, anger, melancholy, euphoria, confusion, etc...ad infinitum.