Writer's Unblock
I have had this blog for a few years now, and it is with a sense of pathetic deja vu that I return here with gusto every now and again filled with a purposeful desire to embrace my love for writing and unleash the blogger in me. Unfortunately, I know where this always leads so I am not going to make any little determined forwards to my blog (or speeches in my mind about it). I am probably meant to write a blog like I do so many other things- sporadically, moodily and clumsily- I might as well just get used to it.
I love to read fiction. I would love to be able to write it. Unfortunately, it is not my cup of tea. I hate to think of the reason as being a lack of imagination or a limited vision- for I have convinced myself irreversibly that I have both in good measure. I have to say therefore, that it is my restlessness. The inability to stay dedicated to a plot or a character or even a simple chain of events long enough to write it down. This, I have recently been told, unlike a lack of ideas, is ‘fixable’. I can train my mind to concentrate- to return to the same theme and to develop ideas to coherence. I have decided to try my hand at this, at a later stage in my life maybe- when I have more leisure. So it is that this finds its way to my wish list.
My wish list, by the way, is an eclectic list of anything I wish to have/do/be. There is no theme, no age of accomplishment, no rules to the list. That, as far as I am concerned, defeats the purpose of a wish list. I would encourage anyone as crazy, confused and full of thoughts as I am to maintain a wish list. I don’t know if it makes anything happen, but it is certainly nice to know what all I want.
Anyway, after the pointless diversion about the wish list, I want to get back to my writing skills. I have decided to “work” on them. In the first place, this will be difficult because I have traditionally turned my nose up at working on anything- an attitude and philosophy which life is beating out of me. (There are lots of other attitudes that life has beaten out of me which are suddenly flooding my mind, but I am determined not to let another distraction hijack my blog)
It is now top most on my wish list that I teach myself some discipline. I never thought I would say this one day- for all the years I have berated discipline as being a highly over rated, creativity restricting, happiness destroying, completely superfluous concept. And yet, here I am thinking to myself of how I need to get some and of all the things I would have done, if I had that. I could have sung well (which god knows how much I want to be able to), I could have played a decent level of basketball, I could have written fiction, I could have done a PhD in particle physics.
It is not that my life so far has been a series of disasters, it is just that I think of how much higher my wish to reality conversion rate would have been, if I stuck on through with a bit of discipline. Really, all the principles I will have to try to apply to my writing to get good at it, are also what I want to apply to everything else in life.
There are other, more private things, I plan to apply this to, and I hope 10 years down the line, I can have crossed certain items off my wish list as accomplished.
Of course, the test of the pudding as always is in the eating – I become a year older in 10 days, and with this decision hopefully, also a year wiser!
I love to read fiction. I would love to be able to write it. Unfortunately, it is not my cup of tea. I hate to think of the reason as being a lack of imagination or a limited vision- for I have convinced myself irreversibly that I have both in good measure. I have to say therefore, that it is my restlessness. The inability to stay dedicated to a plot or a character or even a simple chain of events long enough to write it down. This, I have recently been told, unlike a lack of ideas, is ‘fixable’. I can train my mind to concentrate- to return to the same theme and to develop ideas to coherence. I have decided to try my hand at this, at a later stage in my life maybe- when I have more leisure. So it is that this finds its way to my wish list.
My wish list, by the way, is an eclectic list of anything I wish to have/do/be. There is no theme, no age of accomplishment, no rules to the list. That, as far as I am concerned, defeats the purpose of a wish list. I would encourage anyone as crazy, confused and full of thoughts as I am to maintain a wish list. I don’t know if it makes anything happen, but it is certainly nice to know what all I want.
Anyway, after the pointless diversion about the wish list, I want to get back to my writing skills. I have decided to “work” on them. In the first place, this will be difficult because I have traditionally turned my nose up at working on anything- an attitude and philosophy which life is beating out of me. (There are lots of other attitudes that life has beaten out of me which are suddenly flooding my mind, but I am determined not to let another distraction hijack my blog)
It is now top most on my wish list that I teach myself some discipline. I never thought I would say this one day- for all the years I have berated discipline as being a highly over rated, creativity restricting, happiness destroying, completely superfluous concept. And yet, here I am thinking to myself of how I need to get some and of all the things I would have done, if I had that. I could have sung well (which god knows how much I want to be able to), I could have played a decent level of basketball, I could have written fiction, I could have done a PhD in particle physics.
It is not that my life so far has been a series of disasters, it is just that I think of how much higher my wish to reality conversion rate would have been, if I stuck on through with a bit of discipline. Really, all the principles I will have to try to apply to my writing to get good at it, are also what I want to apply to everything else in life.
There are other, more private things, I plan to apply this to, and I hope 10 years down the line, I can have crossed certain items off my wish list as accomplished.
Of course, the test of the pudding as always is in the eating – I become a year older in 10 days, and with this decision hopefully, also a year wiser!
posted by inconsequential at 11:53 am
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