I don’t know when it happened, perhaps sometime over the last year, but I lost sight of why I wrote. I’ve been partially immobilized ever since; not casting around for topics, but always slightly off-balance.
It can be hard. You know…writing. There are so many factors to consider.
- What am I writing about?
- Do I focus on the content, or the quality of the finished piece?
- Should the piece be written in a single block of time – or spread out over multiple sessions?
Even starting with a title, something so innocuous as a title, feels like a strait-jacket. Everything conforms to it. Naming something, “My Day” for example, immediately limits your focus and every word you write expounds on that theme. A title can be a limiting thing.
Multi-session pieces? Don’t make me laugh! Maybe it’s lack of practice, but I can’t retain an emotion, a state-of-mind over days. Can’t go back and say “Ah! This is what I was feeling”, pick up that thread again and run with it. It’s not a burning “urge to write” that I refer to, no Kafka-esque period in which words flow freely. It’s simply trying to put a handle on an emotion, something so tenuous that you instinctively know that letting go is final.
It can be very hard to accept your limitations.
The film called, “Adaptation”.
Watched it.
Like it.
Oh.
Then I shant say anything more :)