Morning pages, of a sort, for a change
Nov. 24th, 2004 07:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shalannaTried something new today: I got up early to write. I started working on the NaNo at 6:30 and have made good progress. I'm taking a brief break, but will go back to it and continue until 8:30. I'll probably be right in line for the month's goals. (For me, though, except when I'm taking a life-induced or disappointment-induced break, every month is write-daily month.)
This larkish behavior is unusual, for I am normally a night owl. But what with having been sick (I had a five-day intestinal/stomach flu thing that also apparently affected me with a respiratory component, meaning I have had stuffy nose, dizziness, weak/feverish spells, and general malaise on and off--yuck) and all the family-holiday chores this past weekend, I somehow got on a "normal people" schedule. Been going to sleep around 12:30 or a little after, and therefore waking up around 5:30 or 6. So has the dog, who wants to go out as soon as I stir in the morning (or will wake me up if I don't get him up to go.)
There's a blue Norther blowing in this morning, around forty-four degrees according to my outdoor weather station. After six days of rain, rain, rain and last night's thunderstorms, we're ready for a little sunshine. Richardson didn't flood, though the streets crew came to the WallyWorld parking lot and had to pump some creek water out from under the cars yesterday when I came to shop for all that food--the ground was saturated from the constant rain, and then we had a little gully-washer that the storm sewers couldn't handle. All over the Hill Country and down in Houston, though, they're floating. (When we lived in Houston, flash flooding was a reliable seasonal event.)
Someone asked "why do you REALLY write?" The short answer may be, for posterity. "Litera scripta manet" (the written word endures.) I suppose most people are thinking about that, even though they say that they "have to" write because they need the creative outlet. Having seen the way that a course in cartooning, a few months of seriously preparing to play the piano in public, or a week or two of doing lots of homely little crafts can take that creative drive and subvert it away from prose, I suspect it's not a "have to write" vibe so much as a "let this creative force out somehow" vibe. Still, if writing is what we're best at (ahem), then that's the proper channel. And there's always that chance we'll be "discovered." Whee.
Back to the prose stream. . . .
This larkish behavior is unusual, for I am normally a night owl. But what with having been sick (I had a five-day intestinal/stomach flu thing that also apparently affected me with a respiratory component, meaning I have had stuffy nose, dizziness, weak/feverish spells, and general malaise on and off--yuck) and all the family-holiday chores this past weekend, I somehow got on a "normal people" schedule. Been going to sleep around 12:30 or a little after, and therefore waking up around 5:30 or 6. So has the dog, who wants to go out as soon as I stir in the morning (or will wake me up if I don't get him up to go.)
There's a blue Norther blowing in this morning, around forty-four degrees according to my outdoor weather station. After six days of rain, rain, rain and last night's thunderstorms, we're ready for a little sunshine. Richardson didn't flood, though the streets crew came to the WallyWorld parking lot and had to pump some creek water out from under the cars yesterday when I came to shop for all that food--the ground was saturated from the constant rain, and then we had a little gully-washer that the storm sewers couldn't handle. All over the Hill Country and down in Houston, though, they're floating. (When we lived in Houston, flash flooding was a reliable seasonal event.)
Someone asked "why do you REALLY write?" The short answer may be, for posterity. "Litera scripta manet" (the written word endures.) I suppose most people are thinking about that, even though they say that they "have to" write because they need the creative outlet. Having seen the way that a course in cartooning, a few months of seriously preparing to play the piano in public, or a week or two of doing lots of homely little crafts can take that creative drive and subvert it away from prose, I suspect it's not a "have to write" vibe so much as a "let this creative force out somehow" vibe. Still, if writing is what we're best at (ahem), then that's the proper channel. And there's always that chance we'll be "discovered." Whee.
Back to the prose stream. . . .
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Hello...
Date: 2004-11-24 11:00 pm (UTC)i was moved to read your journal because the nature of your comment tapped me on the shoulder and said "Hey, this person is interesting." After coming to your journal and reading a little bit, i'm really and truly glad--yet sad--that i listened to the impulse.
For, on the one hand, i feel reassured at the peek into your mind offered here... reassured that another person exists with some similar thoughts, aspirations, and beliefs about writing.
However, on the other hand... you've described a number of situations that cause me a high degree of sympathetic pain. And while i would like to elaborate, i fear it would be very improper to barrage a newly-met person with my opinion on such personal things.
Thus i'm simply going to tail off rather lamely by saying that i admire your efforts to chase the muse, so to speak, and i admire that you haven't let circumstances or naysayers hold you back. As an author myself--with one completed novel to my woefully short credit--i relate very strongly to your overall attitude towards this art of ours, as well as to specific items (e.g. your lamentation on how one of your works is intended to show character growth, with action as a secondary effect, yet people continually ask for the opposite).