Well, to start off ... just before I clicked here to blog I thought I'm going about this writing thing the wrong way. I am thinking of it as a chore to accomplish, even though I WANT to improve my writing, I have been looking at it as something I HAVE TO DO so in my head I think "I don't have time right now because there are other things I have to do more urgently" but really I just need to do what I can, when I can and leave it at that. Now, I don't know why this became clear today but it is a freeing thought!
Even tho' today is gorgeous and we just got back from a wonderful walk on the rail trail, just like the past few days I have been more and more aware of growing uneasiness, even sadness as the summer days' numbers dwindle in my head ... they do actually appear in my head automatically and involuntarily whenever I think of the day or the date. I am one of those people blessed with spatial-sequence synesthesia* so each day of the week, week of the month, month of the year, year of the century actually appears in my brain as a visual object. This also occurs with numbers and letters as well ... they all have a spatial pattern in my head. This phenomenon is actually quite beneficial to my life the majority of the time but I am realizing this year for the first time that since I am unfortunate enough to have SAD (seasonal affective disorder) ... I am more acutely aware of the "closing in" of autumn, then winter because it appears automatically and involuntarily in my mind's eye.
So, what do I do about this? Go back on antidepressants? I just stopped them after 18 months because I thought I wanted to try living drug free in the summer - my best time of year. But I feel it closing in on me and I want to nip it in the bud. So, I am thinking LOTS of exercise - tai chi, couch to 5k like program, gym with weights and maybe we can swing a winter sunny vacay ... that's kind of a dream this year since I cut down work hours but who knows, we may be able to swing it if we choose carefully.
*From Wikipedia: In spatial-sequence (SSS), or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, and/or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (for example, 1980 may be "farther away" than 1990), or may have a (three-dimensional) view of a year as a map (clockwise or counterclockwise). A new study shows that those with SSS have superior memories. They were able to recall past events and memories far better, and in far greater detail than those without the condition.
So, I guess I kinda lost the motivation to finish this post ... oh well, if at first you don't succeed, we all know what to do about it.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Writing again
So, my new year's resolution of ACK! 1+ years ago ... to write every day has obviously gone astray.
I don't know why ... I guess life got in the way, but we can all use that excuse. I've not been disciplined about writing, that's all.
So, today I begin a less ambitious goal ... to write as much as I can while still living life. If this venture is successful, I will give credit to Colson Whitehead whose article in the NYTimes on 26 July made me laugh & think "yeah, I can do that". His irreverent descriptions of HOW to do it spoke to me ... I like wacky how to's, they make me think of inventing recipes with whatever's at hand. And I do that so easily, why can't I use that same creative bent to actually put on the screen what's percolating there in my head?
About 9 months ago we went to a flamenco wine dinner during which I thought "this would make a good story" ... the two young couples seated with us at the table were strangers to us (and each other) & couldn't have been more different from each other in their interaction. A juicy disagreement between the couple just to my left was audible to many (including during the flamenco performance, which visibly did not sit well with the dancer) and I had all I could do to keep from saying (to the woman with the loser bf) "just dump the schmuck". The other patrons were equally interesting in a "I could describe their lives & how they got here tonight" sort of way. The flamenco dancer, from her Boston accent, to her mesmerizing performance, to her lofty ambitions was a story waiting to be written. Then there was the food ... oh how I wish I kept that list to somehow weave it into the telling of the night's happenings. I even wrote some notes (at my boyfriend's insistence) because I somehow got it into my head that I WOULD start writing. I found the notes sometime later & although I think I saved them somewhere (?!?) they could have been tossed out in one of my "I'm not keeping every little scrap of paper thinking I am going to do something with it" moods.
My bf writes and although I encourage him to put more detail in his stories, I think my problem is I want to put TOO much detail in ... it's what I do when I tell a verbal story, relate a recipe to others or even just think through an idea in my head. I feel like my brain is too full of details! So when Colson Whitehead said: "Rule No. 4: Never use three words when one will do. Be concise. Don’t fall in love with the gentle trilling of your mellifluous sentences." I thought yep, that's me! And ya know what? It's probably what STOPS me from writing ... and other noble pursuits. Because it seems too much effort to write down everything I think about ... it's part of why I LOVE this new website I found. It's called "key ingredient" and it has a cookmark which is a tool that allows you to copy & save recipes from the web, putting them in recipe format. So you can have a whole cookbook online that's in easy readable format, you can even add pics. It's so darn cool for us recipe-philes.
Ok, so we are going to go to the Maine coast this week ... I have a few days off & while there are a few items on the list to see, we are going to wing it mostly. LLBean is one, Old Orchard Beach is another & we are going to visit my bf's best friend somewhere along the line before ending up at a pow wow in North Conway. Geesh, pow wow's certainly give me lots of images & story lines. I always end up leaving them peaceful & with a sense that we rarely know people until we talk to them. Mostly b/c the outfits you see at the pow wow give you an impression of a person that doesn't necessarily give the whole picture of the person. It's hard to describe ... it's as if they have a public persona there in that arena which carries into their life outside a pow wow but you wouldn't know it if you passed them on the street. Truth be told, that is part of what intrigues me about people in general ... you cannot tell much about a person by just looking at them. One never knows what people are dealing with, have dealt with, what they have weighing on them at any given moment which causes them to do or say what they do, it's very interesting to me.
Ok, enough babbling for today ... this stream of consciousness just reminded me of the story my bff & I planned to write. We actually began an outline toward that end over 4 years ago. It all started with a dead body. But that's a story for another day. I'll do what Colson Whitehead suggested "Try to keep all the good stuff off the page. "
I don't know why ... I guess life got in the way, but we can all use that excuse. I've not been disciplined about writing, that's all.
So, today I begin a less ambitious goal ... to write as much as I can while still living life. If this venture is successful, I will give credit to Colson Whitehead whose article in the NYTimes on 26 July made me laugh & think "yeah, I can do that". His irreverent descriptions of HOW to do it spoke to me ... I like wacky how to's, they make me think of inventing recipes with whatever's at hand. And I do that so easily, why can't I use that same creative bent to actually put on the screen what's percolating there in my head?
About 9 months ago we went to a flamenco wine dinner during which I thought "this would make a good story" ... the two young couples seated with us at the table were strangers to us (and each other) & couldn't have been more different from each other in their interaction. A juicy disagreement between the couple just to my left was audible to many (including during the flamenco performance, which visibly did not sit well with the dancer) and I had all I could do to keep from saying (to the woman with the loser bf) "just dump the schmuck". The other patrons were equally interesting in a "I could describe their lives & how they got here tonight" sort of way. The flamenco dancer, from her Boston accent, to her mesmerizing performance, to her lofty ambitions was a story waiting to be written. Then there was the food ... oh how I wish I kept that list to somehow weave it into the telling of the night's happenings. I even wrote some notes (at my boyfriend's insistence) because I somehow got it into my head that I WOULD start writing. I found the notes sometime later & although I think I saved them somewhere (?!?) they could have been tossed out in one of my "I'm not keeping every little scrap of paper thinking I am going to do something with it" moods.
My bf writes and although I encourage him to put more detail in his stories, I think my problem is I want to put TOO much detail in ... it's what I do when I tell a verbal story, relate a recipe to others or even just think through an idea in my head. I feel like my brain is too full of details! So when Colson Whitehead said: "Rule No. 4: Never use three words when one will do. Be concise. Don’t fall in love with the gentle trilling of your mellifluous sentences." I thought yep, that's me! And ya know what? It's probably what STOPS me from writing ... and other noble pursuits. Because it seems too much effort to write down everything I think about ... it's part of why I LOVE this new website I found. It's called "key ingredient" and it has a cookmark which is a tool that allows you to copy & save recipes from the web, putting them in recipe format. So you can have a whole cookbook online that's in easy readable format, you can even add pics. It's so darn cool for us recipe-philes.
Ok, so we are going to go to the Maine coast this week ... I have a few days off & while there are a few items on the list to see, we are going to wing it mostly. LLBean is one, Old Orchard Beach is another & we are going to visit my bf's best friend somewhere along the line before ending up at a pow wow in North Conway. Geesh, pow wow's certainly give me lots of images & story lines. I always end up leaving them peaceful & with a sense that we rarely know people until we talk to them. Mostly b/c the outfits you see at the pow wow give you an impression of a person that doesn't necessarily give the whole picture of the person. It's hard to describe ... it's as if they have a public persona there in that arena which carries into their life outside a pow wow but you wouldn't know it if you passed them on the street. Truth be told, that is part of what intrigues me about people in general ... you cannot tell much about a person by just looking at them. One never knows what people are dealing with, have dealt with, what they have weighing on them at any given moment which causes them to do or say what they do, it's very interesting to me.
Ok, enough babbling for today ... this stream of consciousness just reminded me of the story my bff & I planned to write. We actually began an outline toward that end over 4 years ago. It all started with a dead body. But that's a story for another day. I'll do what Colson Whitehead suggested "Try to keep all the good stuff off the page. "
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