Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Writer's Helper

I was killing some time at lunch the other day so I decided to go into Books A Million and peruse the writer's section for a good book. I'm always interested in improving my craft so I decided on "A Creative Writer's Kit".
It's a short book but it has flash cards that are supposed to help you to break free of writer's block.
I closed my eyes and pulled out a card and it said practice "Stream of Conscientiousness Writing." It immediately occurred to me that if I had a "stream of conscientiousness", I'd jump right in the middle of it and swim until I got an idea! I shuffled the cards again and the next one I pulled out was "Write the Truth." Well the truth is, I feel like an idiot paying good money for a writer's kit that instructs me to "Read Your Writing Aloud." WELL HEREIN LIES THE PROBLEM LADY, THERE AIN'T NO WRITING TO READ OUT LOUD!!!!!! THAT'S WHY I BOUGHT YOUR BOOK!!!!!!
OK, I'm calm now. I've found my center. I have learned that struggling to come up with an idea is like trying to pick up a marble with chopsticks. For a moment it's within your grasp and the the next moment it's streaking away at the speed of light leaving in its wake a frustration that makes you want to toss something through a nearby window. The downside to that it that you have to replace the window at great expense which takes the fun out of the entire venting process....so instead I sit here and stew.
When I mention this to my friends they say why put yourself through it? It's very hard to explain. I feel deep down that it is important on some level- not necessarily the words I write but the pursuit of something extraordinary.
I started to trash the writer's kit, but as I read over this post, I realized it did its job for me - not in the way they intended, but life is strange like that.

1 comment:

  1. Aha.... I think you've now got the idea about stream of conscientiousness writing.....

    Ms Soup

    ReplyDelete

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