Inspiration #21

Every Sunday, I choose a passage of wisdom from someone who knows better and much more than I do about writing, life, the universe and/or everything.

Share and enjoy!

“Almost every single thing you hope publication will do for you is a fantasy, a hologram—it’s the eagle on your credit card that only seems to soar. What’s real is that if you do your scales every day, if you slowly try harder and harder pieces, if you listen to great musicians play music you love, you’ll agent better. At times when you’re working, you’ll sit there feeling hung over and bored, and you may or may not be able to pull yourself up out of it that day. But it is a fantasy to think that successful writers do not have these bored, defeated hours, these hours of deep insecurity when one feels as small and jumpy as a water bug. They do. But they also often feel a great sense of amazement that they get to write, and they know that this is what they want to do for the rest of their lives. And so if one of your heart’s deepest longings is to write, there are ways to get your work done, and a number of reasons why it is important to do so.”

~from Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott

Inspiration # 10

Every Sunday, I choose a passage of wisdom from someone who knows better and much more than I do about writing, life, the universe and/or everything.

Share and enjoy!

“We write to expose the unexposed . If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise, you’ll just be rearranging furniture in rooms you’ve already been in. Most human beings are dedicated to keeping that one door shut. But the writer’s job is to see what’s behind it, to see the bleak unspeakable stuff, and to turn the unspeakable into words – not just into any words but if we can, into rhythm and blues.

You can’t do this without discovering your own true voice, and you can’t find your true voice and peer behind the door and report honestly and clearly to us if your parents are reading over your shoulder. They are probably the ones who told you not to open that door in the first place. You can tell they’re there because a small voice will say, ” Oh whoops, don’t say that, that’s a secret,” or “That’s a bad word,” or “Don’t tell anyone you jack off. They’ll all start doing it.” so you have to breathe or pray or do therapy and send them away. Write like your parents are dead. “

-Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

A Short Note of the Personal Kind

Day Fifteen: 23,214 of 50,000 words

I hope to catch up soon.

Er,

I will catch up soon: replying to comments, word count, social activities, sleep. All of it.

But right now it’s hard to keep up with what I’m doing when I’m having a hard time even keeping up with myself.

I’m experiencing something I suspected might happen when I started this project. I’m different. I’m not entirely changed – no one in my life is saying that I’m not the same as I was, for instance.

Of course, not very many people have seen me recently… because I’m, you know, writing all the time.

Ahem.

But there are subtle things. It’s like I’m so busy actively writing that I’m forgetting to be the person I think I am. So I’m slipping into the person I am.

More like catapulting than slipping.

It’s as though there are two of me, and while one is busy trying to figure out the next plot twist or what might drive a person to become a murderer (remember, I’m doing dark things this month), the other me is busy repainting the walls and taking over my wardrobe while the rest isn’t looking.

Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird talks about characters developing like a Polaroid, and I feel like that – I’m a washed out image of someone fading into existence, a hand, hat, foot at a time. Like I’m a Cheshire Girl and all that I know is my grin.

It’s fascinating to be someone else, but someone also so familiar. Uncomfortable, yet like coming home.

If I wasn’t so intent on writing, I’d stop what I’m doing and go make myself look like Who I Think I Am again, make it all tidy and safe and acceptable. But I don’t have the time, so I’m letting myself blossom into something and someone else. It’s beautiful and frightening and confusing.

What I’m really doing is writing myself real.

And it makes me wonder if maybe when we stop writing in the middle of something, is it because we touch something in ourselves that is true and naked and really not who we think we are at all – so we run away?

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