Smee: I’ve just had an apostrophe. Hook: I think you mean an epiphany. Smee: Lightning has just struck my brain. Sometimes, my darlingest readers, lightning-esque is exactly how apostrophes happen. They’re pretty cramazing when they happen, but I must admit they do leave one somewhat stupefied with shock. In Pt. 1 of my Confessions, I …
Today, I thought that I would move on to Part 3 of my Confessions, but as I sit down to write, I find that it cannot yet be so. I need to dig a little deeper and give account…
Now, I must needs pick up a different thread and follow that into the creative tangle. That thread, my darlings, is the religious one.
Over time, I developed a view of God that ate away at my soul like a ravaging disease. Somehow, I came to believe that the only way I could make God happy was to sacrifice whatever I held most dear about myself. And, of course, what I prized most about myself was my creativity…
As a large, flippered, marine mammal once said, the time has come to talk of other things. But these aren’t easy things like shoes and sealing wax, dear readers. These are hard things, and they’re things it hurts me to talk about. I need to talk about them…but the telling comes with a painful price. …
If you know me in real life at all, you know all too well my penchant for scatterbrainedness. Most of the time, I can focus. Most of the time, I know FAR in advance what I want to do. I don’t necessarily live by a schedule — but I do know how I want my day to progress. And I get squirmy if I plan things and then don’t get them done. On the other hand, there are days like today…
Which side of my brain do I access during which parts of the writing process? Left side for outlines, character description, plot arcs, planning chapters scene-by-scene? Right side for writing the rough draft and letting the story flow? Writing the first draft requires me to follow my heart and let my characters get into trouble…
In “The Artist’s Way,” Julia Cameron talks about “touchstones.” My touchstones are tangibles that resonate with the intangible in me. My touchstones are physical representations of aspects of my soul. And lest I digress into some new-agey, psycho-spiritual ramble, here’s an excerpt from a list I made a few years ago…
I feel as though I’ve spent most of my life in a desperate search for air and light and time and space. Most of the time, I haven’t even been aware of what I was seeking…but now, I look back at certain hard times in my life, and I find myself nodding in wry understanding. “Oh. I see now. That’s what that was…”