Okay, so, clearly, the last five months have been rough on this writer. I'm not ashamed to admit, I've had my first bout with "writer's block," whatever that is. Whatever that stems from. Down the road, certainly, when asked about writer's block, I have to imagine myself saying, "Yes, I had that once, it was caused by the loss of my first novel," and that might be true, or it might be a cop out, or, most likely, it will be like this: I doubted writing for a while, the way some folks doubt their religion, but I worked and I prayed and I read and I sat down and pounded the keyboard and pounded the keyboard . . . and here I am today.
Perhaps it will be part of my acceptance speech for the Pulitzer Prize . . .
Certainly, by then, I will have got over my need to use so many elipses.
At any rate, I am becoming a writer again. That is, in large part, what this blog is about. The recurring narrative, of course, is about loss, but the bigger idea, the one that will carry on after the sad-sac recounting of the early life and times of Scrap, is that I am learning how to write again.
And, and I have to stress this, it's not just happening for me. I am not just waking up in the morning feeling a little more like a writer each day. No doubt Michael Jordan never stepped back onto the court after a month or two of hardly touching a ball and leap from the foul line (did I just compare my writing to MJ's basketballing? Oh, my. I'm getting out of control). It isn't just happening. I'm reading; I'm writing; I'm seeking out my writerly spirituality (again, very similar, I imagine, to folks who follow other religious practices).
Will I please be more concrete and specific, please?
"Afraid of running out of books," Francine Prose writes in Reading Like a Writer, "I decided to slow myself down by reading Proust in French." I've been reading books about reading and writing is one thing I'm doing. I have no fear of running out of books, but I love Prose's notion here. I love that she gives herself permission to slow down her reading: clearly, she is not suggesting to read less or to read sloppily, lazily, half-assedly -- she is suggesting we look more closely at every word, to make connections, to love the work. Again, I'm thinking of sports: in all my time around sports, I have never heard a coach say, "Get your ass out there and shoot 10,000 foul shots as fast as you possibly can!" Rather, we ask an athlete to slow down, to perfect a particular motion, to focus on Feet Elbows Eyes Followthrough (FEEF? That doesn't sound right).
I taught this book in the fall and am teaching it again and am taking this advice to slow down. The easy thing for me, at this point, might be to skim through the text, focus on a few notions that I underlined, checked, starred or circled last quarter and summarize the rest. But I don't think that would be as good for my writing.
At the same time, I don't think I have it in me to write a 500 word blog post every time I find a sentence I like. Or do I . . . ?
No. I don't.
Perhaps it will be part of my acceptance speech for the Pulitzer Prize . . .
Certainly, by then, I will have got over my need to use so many elipses.
At any rate, I am becoming a writer again. That is, in large part, what this blog is about. The recurring narrative, of course, is about loss, but the bigger idea, the one that will carry on after the sad-sac recounting of the early life and times of Scrap, is that I am learning how to write again.
And, and I have to stress this, it's not just happening for me. I am not just waking up in the morning feeling a little more like a writer each day. No doubt Michael Jordan never stepped back onto the court after a month or two of hardly touching a ball and leap from the foul line (did I just compare my writing to MJ's basketballing? Oh, my. I'm getting out of control). It isn't just happening. I'm reading; I'm writing; I'm seeking out my writerly spirituality (again, very similar, I imagine, to folks who follow other religious practices).
Will I please be more concrete and specific, please?
"Afraid of running out of books," Francine Prose writes in Reading Like a Writer, "I decided to slow myself down by reading Proust in French." I've been reading books about reading and writing is one thing I'm doing. I have no fear of running out of books, but I love Prose's notion here. I love that she gives herself permission to slow down her reading: clearly, she is not suggesting to read less or to read sloppily, lazily, half-assedly -- she is suggesting we look more closely at every word, to make connections, to love the work. Again, I'm thinking of sports: in all my time around sports, I have never heard a coach say, "Get your ass out there and shoot 10,000 foul shots as fast as you possibly can!" Rather, we ask an athlete to slow down, to perfect a particular motion, to focus on Feet Elbows Eyes Followthrough (FEEF? That doesn't sound right).
I taught this book in the fall and am teaching it again and am taking this advice to slow down. The easy thing for me, at this point, might be to skim through the text, focus on a few notions that I underlined, checked, starred or circled last quarter and summarize the rest. But I don't think that would be as good for my writing.
At the same time, I don't think I have it in me to write a 500 word blog post every time I find a sentence I like. Or do I . . . ?
No. I don't.
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