Stories are films that reel all the time in my mind. I have many stories to tell. What excuse do I have for not sharing them?
Seven days a week, between 8:30 and 9, I come down to my office. I read and answer emails; I peek in Facebook; I open Catalyst and read posts from my Whidbey Island MFA students and colleagues. Answering the latter takes me until noon. After lunch, I begin to write my stories, interrupting myself here and there to check and answer emails and posts again and again. My goal is to write a page a day. Some days I accomplish it. Some days? One page? Wait a minute! I am a writer. It's a sin not to share my stories.
I have to go back to work at the Mulnomah County Library's Writer's Room. I used to go there with pencil and paper. No computer. Cell phone off. In four hours I couldn't see anymore, but I ended up with many pages.
Isn't this Lent? Now that I have confessed, I better go and write--or the inspiration given to me will go to another writer.
8 comments:
Carmen,
That Molnomah County Library Writer's Room and a simple pencil and paper might be the best answer!
My own structure is a yellow legal pad and a blue pen, sometimes a pencil even. Reading and listening to the words I am writing and thinking, and realizing they are encouraging me; I think I need a new pad and pen/pencils. Merci, merci.
I'm definitely a pencil-and-paper writer too. May it be a productive Lent for you (and all of us), Carmen!
Yes, it does sounds like the Molnomah Library is a very good place for writing for you Carmen. Pencil and paper. I have heard that there is a different response in our brain when pen is to paper than when fingers are to keyboard-- a more focused response.
Carmen, I love how you capture the step by step routines of a writers work. These simple steps offer our work structure that writing demands. Thank you for this gift. It reminds me to rely on my own practices . . . and practice them, again.
Carmen,
I appreciate the notion that as a writer, it's your duty (and joy?) to share the stories that live within you. Nobody else can tell those particular stories, and the world would be a poor place if you--say just took up playing Farmville all day. Write on.
Carmen, your attitude about an artist's "obligation" to share her vision with the world, coupled with the idea that if she doesn't do it someone else will, sounds like a good way to keep focused. I think I will adopt it and hope it works for me, too!
You sound very productive to me:)
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