How and what others do to elicit the optimum success with writing always interests me. I suppose we all probably have a bit of that child quality that makes us wonder about others and if we are like most people of if we are some sort of oddity in the writing kingdom.
One that I often think about is the time of day that most people find conducive to best results. How may can simply set aside any time morning of afternoon or night and find little difference in results? I suspect few. I think most seem to have an internal clock that tells us the best time from our own personal experiences. I'm interested in hearing from others that have identified a best time, or persons that have found relatively little difference altogether.
The other thing I'm curious about is what approach people take to writing. How do you kick start yourself when writing a new poem? Start with a concrete idea? Let something drift into being? What external stimuli best helps facilitate this process? Music? Quiet? The woods? A coffee shop? Busy city street? Come one folks... talk to me here! Help feed my curiosity.
12 comments:
Michael, I've given up on inspiration. I just sit and and write a poem -- one of the reasons I started writing sonnets was that I had a fighting chance of taking an hour-and-a-half from work, family, all the rest, and saying "this is mine" -- and then getting a draft out before the 90 minutes was gone. That's opened up other kinds of writing, too, since I find now I can steal half-an-hour in the oddest places and get something done. But it works best for me when I've made at least a semi-public commitment to produce x number of lines per day. That makes it easier for my wife, too, who can look and say "Yep. 10 lines. Now go clean out the attic."
I have also given up on inspiration. In the inspiration-less periods (ie most of the time), I rework and revise old poems (I find that technical editing doesn't require inspiration, only concentration). New poems are for when inspiration comes, and who knows when that will be.
Michael & Gilbert:
Thanks for the replies. Sounds like both of your responses express a fair degree of reality based temperment to the questions I have posed. Both have perhaps a bit of pessimism that kind of comes through as well. But I suppose in creative ventures as much as anything else, reality is what it is.
I write most easily after the rest of the household is asleep and all is quiet. Less distraction. To knock out first drafts (i.e. to overcome the reluctance to put "something bad" on the page), I've found music helpful in drowning out the internal critic. All told, I tend to draft in the daytime and revise/polish late at night. Carrying a notebook in a pocket on long walks (or anywhere) is also helpful for making little observations that often turn into poems or find their way into them.
Thanks Cindy... you've told me a lot. I am curious to know more about your internal critic. I'm sure we all have them, I know I do. I usually don't hear from mine so much until I've already started rewrites. He usually shows his ugly side after I've done several rewrites and I'm starting to get comfortable with what I have in front of me then... bam! That is when he becomes the most vicious.
My non-helpful critic likes to be in control. Likes perfection from word to word, line to line, the first time through. It uses words like "stupid", "corny", "sappy", "preachy" and "so what?!" It's main weapons are nagging and intimidation.
There is another critic that is more helpful in the revise and polish stages. Only now, after fourteen years the other side of my writing program, has it begun to lose my mentor's Arkansas accent. This critic questions my use of line breaks; word choices; repetition; sound play; possible multiple meanings/interpretations of words, lines and phrasing; stanza breaks; punctuation or lack thereof; spelling; rhythm; etc...
I'd not thought about it, but after you mentioned your critic becoming agressively critical, I realized that this second critic of mine has gotten much more cooperative over the years. One of the things that has helped when I hit that point of infatuation laced with the urge to flay the thing alive, is laying the poem totally aside for a two or three weeks at a time and working on other things before coming back to it. Helps loosen up the raging critic and the besotted lover both.
Excellent suggestion in your final paragraph. I do think that where writing is concerned, poetry in particular, there is value in eliminating the rush to produce. Or even more so, the rush to complete.
Patience is a virtue and patience with one's self while in the creative process is maybe the most virtuous of all.
Michael,
I didn't mean to express any pessimism about writing when I said I'd given up on inspiration. It's rather the opposite, actually: I've discovered that as long as the TV isn't on I can write. Of course, I do indulge in what's known as cat-vacuuming over at rec.art.sf.composition. But if I make myself sit down and type, I can make a poem. Making it good is another issue, and usually not resolved for months.
Ah, patience once again becomes the key.
I know what Cindy means when she talks about her inner critic. I have one too, and he is a mean fella.
Years ago, when I knew a lot less about poetry, I wrote a lot more of it, and quite easily, and was really prolific.
Nowadays that rarely happens for me. Before I even get really started, the inner critic goes,
"Who's going to publish that?"
"Is there really anything new about what you want to say?"
"Ugh, your title sucks."
"Are you sure this is a poem?"
Today I still get the occasional poem published here and there. But publishers don't know that it's old stuff that I wrote years and years ago.
Hum... this all seems to confirm that every writer has his or her own method to their madness. This has been an interesting thread. I'm thinking on posting a second part of this to explore this subject and exen expand it a bit later.
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