In something that I could call the paralysis of the mind, I tend to believe that my wild imagination would prevent me from falling into the abyss of the non-writing people. That little pen quality that makes me believe I have things to say, moreover, that I say them – if not better – at least well.
In a mind that I can call *almost* bilingual, I tend to believe that my hesitating in between French and English might be a cause of the disease. Time and again, I’ve been finding myself pondering days and days about how should the story be written. English for its dynamic, or French for its passion for the details. And granted, bilingual or not, I still am more qualified to express myself in my mother tongue. It just is, and not a hundred years of English speaking would change it.
Then, write about what? Internet, television, bokks and newspapers seem to have an answer, a model, a hint about whatever happen or exist under the sun…. Solution? Writing about non-existent things, create a new referent, that no one would sneake away from me.
Trouble is: my imagination is somewhat tainted by what I have been reading, thus accumulating, as mental images.
As the title says I feel blocked, my mind is blocked, my imagination is blocked, as for my pen, it lays idle on a pouch I haven’t opened in months. So here I am, using my blog as a crutch, but perfectly aware this is not the real thing. I wanna write with my blood and sweat, for Golly’s sake! I wanna unblock the feelings that seem tamed, too tamed, by some weird shame.
Ah… there we are//////////
Those things, I don’t want to see them back. I don’t want them to eat me again, to eat away the happiness I am enjoying now. Not of that rosy-cheesy happiness you can see in romantic movies, where everthing always ends well, like in the fairytales. My happiness is real, made of longing, desire, sadness and waiting. My happiness is made of two persons, and I am not always the winner. My happiness takes into account the happiness of the other person sharing my life.
And destroying everything for the sake of a writer’s pride (yes pride) is not the best idea I’d ever had in my life.
I remember I deleted my past blog. It contained too many many many wild emotions, too much of a past I don’t want to see again, even if I do not deny it. I am not what my emotions wants me to be. I am their master, somehow, and I say when and how I want them to show.
Even if I know that I am far too impulsive to control myself entirely.
There are so many events I want to write about. Maybe I will choose not to disclose them to anyone but me and my loved one. Maybe that way I won’t be under the pressure of “pleasing the audience”. As writers, we all crave for that acknowledgement, I know it. And do not tell me the contrary, I won’t believe you. It would be like “blogging for oneself only”, yet posting ones blog online and enable comments. I have 5 of them by the way. Only three are visible.
the fourth is for template test, and the last one isn’t accessible unless I give the link. There, I can write my heart unashamed. There I can be the real me. There I am writing under my Christian name, I am not Ichiban anymore. I let my red kimono and puppy ears to the cyberworld they belong to.
Don’t get me wrong. I never lie when I write around here. I simply present the facts so that they might be readable. I coat them with some literature artifacts. I transform my personal life into something worth reading. People are not interested in reading about others people’s life They are interested in how some people can transform their facts of life into something art-full.
I guess it is in that direction I have to go, if I ever want to get rid of that writer’s block. Letting my emotions go, but not as strong, so that they won’t destroy me, and with a little star quality, so that I could pretend to be read – unashamed--
5 comments:
My best friend, who is really my coach when it comes to a lot of life, especially writing, teaches me that in order to write good stuff I have to just write all the time--without regard for anything but creating language. That's the essence of the instruction, anyway. But at least in my experience it also teaches many lessons as you do it more and more.
Not that people don't already use language non-stop--and you yourself use it in an artistic, deliberate fashion quite often too (5 blogs! And if you're anything like me, that is just the leaves that fall on the river...): But maybe when you learn to say/write a lot, you eventually learn to say it well too.
Language definitely has limits as an artform, but simultaneously then, perhaps one could say that its power is sort of measurable; perhaps it's measured by how much information or meaning is conveyed. In that case, the more you experience, feel, think and write, the better you write. The other part of that equation of course is having the boldness/insanity to express in language--it doesn't matter to whom or not to whom, just somewhere--anything and everything of the information that is there.
Honestly, I'm not sure that following my friend's 'go crazy, soul over form' strategy has made me an instantly better writer, but then again an idea that you don't write, when you write it, will never look quite as you imagine. At the very least when you start to put down what you want to say, expression goes from the realm of decision and doubt to the realm of talent and work.
I already told you my process for writing a post. It only works for a certain few, but you may want to give it a try, Golly, and see if it works for you.
Start with a title that catches your interest and craft your post around that. It's often better to go into writing something when you don't have a subject matter in hand than when you do.
Wow, so many many topics worth developing… ^^ thank you for your replies!!
@ David: I couldn’t do without the writing. Even if I know where my limits are (never would I be able to plot a whole philosophical discussion, for example), I like the liberating feeling writing can offer. And as an only child, it helped me to tame solitude, learn to see it as an opportunity rather than trouble. Indeed, 5 blogs (well to be honest, only two are really active), and about 10 notebooks full of aborted short stories…
Maybe your friend has the answer to “how to unlock the writing process”. That’s what refrains me right now, too many emotions rushing wild, clogging the “exit door” know as my pen (or word processor, depending on the mood). I also like his views about writing all the time to get to write good stuffs…
I remember it was one of the (many ) reasons I have decided to set a blog in English. Getting more fluent and articulate in a language I but learned to think into… Which make me think (and certainly digress) about how you say that language is maybe measured by how much info/meaning is conveyed. Dare I say, maybe it is also measured, if not altered by the language the writer is using. No matter what my linguistic teachers told me, I do believe that languages, although equivalent as systems, are not anymore when it is about conveying an emotion. And as a translator, this was my job: getting the very core meaning, through different words systems.
That’s for the theory, and depending on the translator’s skills, it is always possible to at least render an accurate depiction of an original text into a target language.
I am not sure this is true when it is about writing a text, and having the choice between several languages… I’ve been taught that, to speak a language, I must think into that language; that language on that purpose is a matter of meaning, and not words. I now have come to realize that, following the emotions I am experiencing, I will rather choose this or that language to express them. Sometimes I wonder if, having in mind some ideas worth to be transformed into a story, its final impact would be the same in French than in English….
Amen to your last paragraph… Maybe I should learn again, get back to those teenage years when I was writing for myself only, and not in the fear of being judged…
I do like how you link talent to work, too …
***
@ Mojo: Oh my, I still owe you a chapter-reading…^^
Ah, yes, indeed! I remember our talks, when you started you rblog last year…
Indeed, this is a process I am not familiar with…. My writing tends to be diary-like (as in the blogs), thus rather random, or else I take notes about an idea trotting in my mind, then I stretches it, make it evolve in my mind, then when all the mental images are so strong that I become obsessed with them all the time, I know they are ripe enough to be jot down on paper. As a result: breathless writing, certainly honest, but that badly needs an ending….
Shall think about it though: It would be like writing for the sake of it, and come what may be out of it…
Sounds like a perfect cure ^^
I think your duty as an artist is to express yourself without boundaries, whether the result be unpleasant or revolutionary or just plain disgusting, as long as it comes from your soul and is true to you thats all that matters. At least this is the way I view things, I too have strong urges to write sometimes and reading some of the simple yet elegant and powerful stories out there it really inspires me to do so myself. I'm going through what you are right now where I always have this strong urge to draw, paint, photograph, read, write, etc but I cannot bring myself to do so for whatever reason that may be holding me back. Like David said if you want to be great at an art you just have to jump in and do it. I learned time and time again from my personal research and from the guidance of instrucor's that I should pay no attention to the quality and result of my drawings but instead to get the mileage down. I have noticed that I perform best when I lose myself in what I am doing, the Japanese call it Zen and I truly believe that its the key to achievement, whenever I pressure myself into a predefined boundary of what I'm to achieve I always fall short of that goal. My naivete is what fuels my creativity in whatever I'm doing. You just have to find your own method of losing yourself and letting go of your boundaries to write freely, you shouldn't be afraid of your previous blogs or how future ones will turn out. I remember reading some of the poems I wrote back when I was going through some dark times in high school, and as stupid and lame as they may be, they are still fine pieces of writing fueled by emotion and reading them now is rather insightful as facetious as it may be. I find that most times when I have a block of any kind I just jump into it and bounce off this and that and have it eventually catapult me into a passionate fervor to create. This is how I work anyhow, though more often than not I don't practice what I preach...this is something I am trying to work on so I can become accomplished in all my interests.
Anyways, apologies for such a lengthy comment as it's my first. Apologies for not commenting sooner, and I believe you added me on myspace to which I've yet to comment also.
BTW I want to thank you for that topleftpixel site, I remember you posting some great pics on the forum and looking through it now really inspired me. Especially seeing the lomographic page which eventually led me to the Holga camera that I've been wanting to get for a long while now. But I'll have some saving up to do before I can afford it but I see tons of creative possibilities with that camera I desperately want to see to fruition.
Till next time ~_~
thank you for your comment indeed !! ^^(hmmm, i have a guess about your forum identity ^^ )
nevermind the lenght, I am a greedy reader !! and i'd be glad to see what picures you come up with !!
ah yes, Topleft Pixel... this one has the most amazing shots I ever seen ... also check "Satan's laudromat", it's more about urban decay, but some of the shots are amazing....
^^ see you around!
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