Skip to main content

Writer's craft

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been trying to resuscitate my writing activities.  This can be challenging, as it requires "head space" in order to make sense of words and work out ideas that sing on paper.  I suppose it depends on what one tries to accomplish with words in terms of how much "head space" is required, but in my case, pursuing something more creative requires more space.

I am reminded of the books packed away in a box somewhere on the lower level of my house that describe the writer's craft.  These books are assembled in some haphazard collection over several years when aspiring writers pursue a quest of enlightenment, similar to finding the fountain of youth.  Some recipe or some insight must lurk in the words cast off by famous writers who have somehow discovered their voice and created methods to produce word count, plot lines, and finished works.

The interesting conclusion that I have reached is that the writer's craft is ultimately a personal affair.  Certainly, we often fit into archetypes regarding how our brains work and how we make sense of ideas and how we structure our thinking; if one can find another writer or thinker that shares the same working process to achieve results, then all the better.  But that pile of books and other tools are much more of an enterprise to take away time and money from putting pen to paper (or computer screen, in my case). 

Practice and words are what matters.  Like forming a habit.  I am trying to reform the habit now.  The writer's craft starts here and follows whatever path the mind takes to lead it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Little Bit of Proust

Somehow I started to read Proust. The blame goes to Alain de Botton , a writer whose witticisms deconstruct modern thinking and make intellectualism seem but a trifle and a whim. He wrote a book in 1997 called "How Proust Can Change Your Life" which distills the enigmatic French novelist into a self-help dispenser of pithy ideas. How clever I found Mr. de Botton to be when I dipped my toe into the vagaries of Proust; I picked up volume one of "In Search of Lost Time" and instantly fell into the deep end. What author dares to run sentences onward into the stratosphere that sometimes seemingly mellows behind the stars of a bright night, but never so much as an introspective person that wretches for the meaning of a simple thought, sometimes stumbling, but always emerging strongly as that same night in starry sky, almost an homage back to Van Gogh, whose rich paintings greatly represented the mood of a generation - and generations often afford a few mis-steps in l...
2 comments
Read more

Try Something New: 750 Words

If there is anything universally redeeming about writing, it is the ability to delve into the inner thoughts of one's own psyche and come back with perspective on feelings, motivations, and desires. In this way, journaling as the specific form of writing that provides this redemption can be a worthwhile pursuit. One might suppose that the internet world would offer various tools to make journaling simple, easy, and relatively painless, but that has not always been the case - until now. I came across this from Lifehacker, who was promoting the site back in March: 750words. The site is run by a former Amazon product manager who has an interest in journaling for the creative process and data visualization. Mash those things together, and you have an interesting site that is built around the premise that creative juices get flowing by consistently writing 3 pages worth of stuff on a daily basis, which translates to roughly 750 words. Logging in by using your Google or Facebook use...
2 comments
Read more

Netscape, We Hardly Knew Ye...

In 1995, I started using email. In my first college days, my friend Virge anointed me with a playful email handle - toddity. She never told me that your email address was somewhat permanent, and I spent the rest of my university days with an username that amused most who got a message from good, old Eudora. At that time, I used Netscape as my web browser. Fast forward almost 15 years. I moved on first to Internet Explorer (Microsoft had a monopolistic hand in it), and then to Firefox from which I am penning this blog entry. Somewhere along the way, Netscape was acquired by AOL and sent down the river on a slow obsolescence. Until next week, when Netscape will end up on the scrap heap with Prodigy, Compuserve, and Excite@Home. How much the internet has changed. I can wax poetically on blogs and social networks, but I can also remember messageboards, usenets, IM, forums, web 1.0, HTML, and the world wide web when www. was a foreign concept. The concept is still the same - connec...
2 comments
Read more