Monday, July 28, 2008

Fits and Starts


...which seems to describe how I'm producing this blog....don't get me wrong-I'm enjoying the writing. But writing with any sort of discipline or stated goal? Forget it.
Some of my most interesting thoughts remain unwritten. They come to me the minute I lay down to sleep-no chance of scrawling by the bedside, flickering candle-wise, when you're next to a light sleeper. And getting up to jot this stuff down could mean a serious loss of sleep. I've tried my best to commit stuff to memory, but that hasn't worked even once.
Which leads me back to fits and starts. I'm keeping a spiral notebook that is getting increasingly fatter with thoughts and possible beginnings for this or that-much like my sculptural work. I thought that I could get a laptop, but this would be overkill-a pencil and (a scrap of) paper are all I really need as my thoughts are really bits and pieces that I can develop, but I rarely explode into a torrent of writing.
This makes me wonder just how books get written. Of course, there has to be some discipline involved-if I stayed at it long enough, my fits and starts gradually become sentences and then paragraphs and so on. I've experienced this with painting lately-If you just keep at it, you really build a dialogue and a language up, block by block. But it does involve the old lock-yerself-in-the-room-and-keep-at-it routine, whether it's writing or painting or whatever. But you must have the desire to do it.
Here's a new one for me-I rarely remember my dreams, but today I carried one right through-from the sleep state right to present. The problem is is that this dream was a bad one and left me starting this day in a not-so-good mood. Ever happen to you? My dream was about having stress while working for others-look, I don't mean to sound snobbish because I've worked for others for a great deal of my life, but I really work best on my own. I don't need (or want)discipline from an outside source as I'm hard-wired with it. I'd personally hate to be snapping a whip over somebody or trying to teach someone a sense of how (and why) they could strive towards a goal....oops-back to the snobbish part-I don't want to work for anybody as I already work for a tough boss in a great job-but like most creative souls, the money just doesn't seem to follow-or at least follow consistently. I'm going to stop playing this here violin-you've all heard it before and all I meant to do was to tell you why I'm in a bad mood. Cease and desist and, while you're at it, have a nice day.
This is the start (or maybe the finish) of a painting I worked on last week. No title yet, about 20" X 20."

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