Blogs not quite flowing last night. Having had a not bad first week back after holiday, struggling a bit more this week. The Scottish greyness-that-lasts-mightily has set back in, rather than last week’s sunshine.
It’s not quite C S Lewis’ ‘always winter and never Christmas‘ but the mood is a little in that direction – though given that we live so close to the coast, I doubt there’ll be any of the Lewis snow etc. of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” sense.
But I did find myself thinking that writing is the point, whether or not it always flows. Good write, bad write, it’s still keeping the discipline going.
Now is the time of year to bury myself in a big book that gives me another country for my mind to hibernate in. Or write one. Or kick around a few ideas, like fallen leaves, and see where they pile up.
Found myself having a linguistics type thought the other day on the bus, re penetrating the ‘speech streams’ – linguistics speak for the patterns of sounds we make when having conversations or just talking solo.
Rather like a nano-adventure where people are swept round the body or something, maybe there’s some way for characters to ride out the streams of sounds…? Rather more research needed for that, and what can be carried on sound waves, or radio waves.
But still, even if I can capture the thoughts that seem half way interesting, even of the ‘interesting for at least 10 seconds while you mull them over’ kind of thoughts, that’s a start. Reading the ‘Mind Gym‘ while on holiday re having idea generating sessions, and ways to do the idea generating before you do the assessing.
Similar issue to an author who came into our office one time to do creative writing stuff – talked about imagining your internal critic a bit like a parrot on your shoulder, and knocking it off mentally when it interrupted too much.
Ideas first, shaping later. Good, bad or indifferent write comes later.
In a line of a Larkin poem, there’s the question “Where can we live but days?” I think I’ll try a bit more living in ideas, and see what comes of it.