Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Snippets

How do you free write? Do you free write?

My goal is to free write every day, even if I don't fit any other writing into the hours. Beyond that, my goal is to free write for at least five minutes.


Doesn't sound like a lot, does it? But I find I can make it until my idea runs out of steam (around the two minute mark, perhaps) and then I stop. I run out of ideas.

If I could just keep going, push through that stall, that inertia, maybe I'd get to the really interesting stuff.

How do you keep going?

This morning's (short) write:

She revisits the places of her dreams, the different houses
and their rooms of varying light, the large gardens,
the stairways and harbors, destinations she comes
to willingly as the clock ascends toward midnight
and she is ready to climb the stairs to her own room,
descend into sleep, the familiar strangeness,
and yet how often the houses become her mother's,
filled with preparations for food, with packing and waiting
for journeys to begin, with round puppies that she
in real life would never find there as though she is growing
as she sleeps a new life, building it backwards,
one step at a time.

4 comments:

Kelli Russell Agodon - Book of Kells said...

I write with a friend. We take a phrase (or title) from a book of poems and use that as our writing prompt. We write for 7 minutes. We read our work then move on to the next writing prompt.

She is REALLY good at writing like that and I become inspired by her and it improves my writing. I really think there is a lot to be said about the energy of others when writing.

Unknown said...

I do not write regularly - I have no such discipline. Rather, there are times when the words burst from my fingers into the keyboard. (It's interesting to notice that at those times my mind seems to be in neutral). Nor do I write past the decompression stage. Once the word flow slows, I'm done, even though I sense there's more. Pushing to eke more from within would ruin the fun. Those additional (incomplete?) thots will build and emerge into my consciousness when they are ready.

I like your stuff, it strikes a chord in me. Your subject matter is not oh so unique, but you see something in the mundane I didn't see. You breathe life into thots I've written off long before.
You dig into your cluttered closet much the way I do and come up with gems that I sometimes wish were my own. What higher praise than to say "I wish I'd said that."?

Tom - SoCal (yes, that one)

Joannie Stangeland said...

KA: Writing with a friend sounds like a great way to keep going and push (or plunge?) past any moments of inertia.

Tom: Thanks for your kind words. I'm definitely not looking to ruin any fun, but I just wonder what might lurk around the next two or three minutes.

Radish King said...
This comment has been removed by the author.