It's not diminished - I'm drinking words in, grasping onto them like they're my final meal before a forty-year fast. But I'm not to create them.
My mind is asking for a sabbatical. For me not to be in a world where I pour out the words and finish, feeling exhausted. Instead, I have been relishing listening to words. Hearing the accents, hearing poetry, hearing rhythms that exist in sentences and in paragraphs and that flow on to make me feel content. Those rhythms and nuances serve to remind me that there is more out there, and while it may make you scoff (because people don't usually find these reminders in sentences), it's what I do.
I find words.
I love these words.
When I returned home this year, I decided I would write that novel, the one I'd discarded when NaNoWriMo hit me like a bullet and I couldn't write. That, I think, is where I gave up. I couldn't write. I couldn't finish the assignment. I had no inspiration, and I thought at home the inspiration might begin again.
It hasn't, but in my head my characters are having an extended nap. Carmen is lying, in an uncoordinated and frankly strange-looking position across a bed; Cristian is seated next to her on the floor, asleep and head tilting back onto the mattress. And I have no doubt in my mind that these characters will wake up. One day I'll write those words. Maybe this November, I will write that novel. But for now, I'm learning again.
When I did my HSC, I pushed books aside. I loved them, but I worked in a bookstore, where Twilight ran rampant on the shirts of twelve year olds and in the headspaces of those who thought Wuthering Heights had been written because of Twilight.
And really, no, I'm not kidding about that, I did have someone say that to me and my only response was a facepalm.
I digress; that bookstore was excellent besides the Twilight fanaticism. But thanks to the idiocy of Meyer, all I see now are vampire books. And escapism for me was not to be with vampires on pages, swooning in a pale, lacklustre imitation of Dracula. I found it in DVDs, movies. Scrubs became my escape; if I'm honest, Scrubs kept that stupid HSC year in perspective.
Eight exams, and millions of people around the world were dying from illnesses? I had it fairly good. From Scrubs, I learnt that words were not just what I spat out onto a page, or hurled across the room to communicate with someone, but they were just as important in what they missed. That pause, that thought. The moment where I can describe a room, but not one aspect - where I can tell my reader that it's their job to piece in the gaps, because it's not my novel once it's in their hands. And it's odd, because in television you're shown the surrounds. But from what they didn't say, from watching a character do something rather than giving it anecdotally?
Somehow that made a difference.
This year, I have fallen in love with remakes and with Offspring.
Offspring, primarily because I sit there totally in awe at Nina's headspace and how it's so similar to my own.
Remakes, because it's all about perception. Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice compared to that 1995 BBC one that everyone adores but I can't stand because Colin Firth makes me want to snarl; the newest Emma compared to that one with Gwyneth Paltrow. They all have their merits in some way, but I'm learning that I'll never appease everyone. But, and this builds on something I learned last year, if I write to appease myself, and make myself happy, that shines through.
When I had a consult with my tutor, Trent, about my first story in Short Story Intro, he said that the reason he loved it wasn't because it was about something complex, something that needed to be said to change the world. He loved it, because he said I wrote what I knew and what I wanted to write. And I can't write unless I feel the urge, unless the story takes hold of me and directs me. I wrote 2000 words before I got those words.
If I ever find that, I will post it.
I have a draft of it, but my old computer has died.
Likelihood is, I won't have it on there anymore.
When I find it, I will post it, because I doubt it'll be published.
One day, I'll get to my words again.
For now, I will absorb lyrics.
mood - contemplative. Confused. Slightly nervous, but an anticipatory nervous.
listening to - Heart That's Pounding, by Sally Seltmann. I usually don't like music like this, but I am charmed by the beauty of this one, and to steal what I said to Glen, it has crept under my skin and has set up comfortable residence there.
what i am reading - I am reading 2 Corinthians, Neruda, and Mother Tongue. For light reading, I've got Cathy Marie Hake sitting next to my bedside. I may pick up on Song of Solomon tonight. Who knows.
Happy Easter, all of you.
 |
| http://pqhobbit.wordpress.com/category/spiritual-life/ Thank you. The image makes me sing. |
No comments:
Post a Comment