I'm stalling. I was working on my book (2.1). . . ech. I hate the sound of that. My book. Now that I've done a little exploring into the local writing community, I've run into so many people that like to toss that phrase around. My book is about 20,000 words, so it's more of a novella, or is it novelette? It only cost me $5,000 to get 200 copies of my book published. My book is a period piece about a Victorian chimney sweep. mybookmybookmybookmybook. I don't know why, but it rubs me wrong when I listen to people talk like that. Hypocrite I guess. . . Anyway. I'm stalling. I was working on my latest writing project, and I did what I usually do: I go good for a half a page to two pages; then I have a little hiccup; then I stand and pace for a bit; then I irrationally and unrealistically build whatever I've just written into a masterpiece that I cannot possibly equal; then I get a kind of writing fear that tells me if I mess with it any more, I'll just ruin it. Why do I do this? First, nothing I have ever written is anything that even resembles a masterpiece. Second, if something I wrote was a masterpiece, it stands to reason that I should be able to create another masterpiece. Once again my rational self and my emotional self are in conflict, like a north-going zax and a south-going zax, neither wanting to budge, both freezing while life builds up around them. . .
I feel I should write about the concert I went to last night. Kitty Donohoe. It was good. Really fun. . . Nice description from the 'writer,' huh? She sings a lot of songs about Michigan and a lot of Celtic songs and a lot of traditional songs and a lot of traditional Celtic songs. The first hour of it was recorded for radio, but they never told the audience when it was going to be on, so if you want to listen, you'll have to look it up yourself. Donohoe has a good voice and her songs are beautiful and silly and moving and a variety of other flattering adjectives, but I didn't care for her guitar/cittern/piano playing. She was a bit heavy handed (smash, smash, smash) and fat fingered (oops, oops, oops) on all three instruments. She was accompanied by a guy that was really good at the guitar and mandolin and pretty good at the fiddle. But her pounding on whatever instrument she had in front of her often drowned out his lead parts, so that was a bit disappointing. But other than that the show was great. She had a bunch of fun stories that she told that got everyone laughing, and she took some requests. And. . . I've blathered enough. It was good. Really fun. Let's move on.
I'm grateful for Combos (20).
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4 comments:
Why did you have to mention Combos?! Now I'll think about nacho cheese all day.
I write a lot. Not the cool kind of writing that you do, but the matter-of-fact kind of writing associated with my job. When I hiccup (which is often) I just save a copy of the first version and make a gazillion changes to the next version and decide later on which is better. Maybe it's different when it's cool writing vs. matter-of-fact writing.
Maybe you should get some inspiration from the piano pounder. Maybe you should just pound way in your writing with an oops here and an oops there and live with it as an oops piece before it becomes a masterpiece. Maybe the piano pounder barrages you with pounding because her message is less about perfection and more about being human. Hmmmm...
Here an oops, there an oops, everywhere an oops, oops.
Yes. You've touched on my problem exactly. Intellectually, I know there will be mistakes all over my writing. Actually, I recently had a conversation with someone whom I was giving a little advice on a paper, and I said that the editing process should usually take longer than the actual composition process. In theory I know that nothing comes out perfect the first time, that everything takes a hell of a lot of polishing before it's presentable. . . hey. . . did I just stop writing about writing and start writing about life? . . Ah crap. Am I turning into Robert Fulghum? Should I be working on one of those cheesymotivationallifelesson books that everyone gets for high school graduation? . . where have I wandered to in this thing? . . anyway. Thanks for the advice. It reminds me of band class: If you're going to make a mistake, do it with confidence. So, you've prompted a first: an addition to the list in the comments section. You should be proud.
30. Don't shy away from mistakes. Learn from them.
I'm not sure I like the way I worded that. But that actually seems appropriate in this situation.
By the way, that here an oops bit is quite good.
I don't know how many times a week I have to remind my students about the "confident mistake" bit! Of course, then there's always the one smartass who then intentionally screws up the next time around, loudly. The trick is knowing who that kid is and specifically telling him not to do it...
Strange. It's like you and I used to have the same band director or something.
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