I think, I write, I am.
Why do we write?
Climbers famously climb mountains “because the mountains are there”.
The motivation to write lies a little differently.
It’s true that writing can seem like an uphill struggle sometimes, but we don’t scale mountains which have already been created and have been in place for millions of years. We’re faced with a blank page; there are no words already there so we create something out of nothing. We create mountains out of molehills! 😉
In creating we morph our imagination into words. We’re the conduit between ideas and words. We give our ideas space to grow and the chance to live.
A picture paints a thousand words
Personally, my ideas tend to come as images so I use unlined paper for my notes because it’s easier for me to draw out a spider web of interconnections between different elements of my idea.
As a writer I seek to translate this two-dimensional idea-picture into a simple flow of words. In this sense I’m an anti-painter — instead of using a picture to replace words I tease out the right words in the right order from the picture. And I must admit it’s this conversion process from a two-dimensional idea map to a linear flow of words I find most difficult.
Brain dump
Sometimes I’m already behind the laptop so getting my first thoughts into words goes via the keyboard. It makes sense — I spend a lot of time behind one! (It explains the irony of my handwriting getting worse!)
On a keyboard I have no choice but to go straight into the words. I’ve found that over my past few articles I’m getting better at pre-filtering my brain dump and getting my thoughts straight into words in a reasonable first order.
Practice makes perfect, and I have confidence in myself! 🙂
But that said, I’ve discovered a dark side…
The curse of being a writer / creator
Writing gives a sense of reality to our imagination. Consider this:
“If…did it happen?”
Did what happen? I’ll re-write that.
“If…a tree falls in a forest and no-one writes about it, …did it happen?”
Now a tree really has fallen! 🙂 The idea has become alive! I guess in all fairness, readers are also required for reality too — but I wonder how many of us write purely for external validation.
Personally, I write to satisfy my creative urge — but it comes with a curse.
We’ve heard the expression “use it or lose it” plenty of times. The opposite is true too — the more you use it the more it develops. Athletes get better when they train their muscles, for example, and I’m sure the same is true with writers. We’re encouraged to write regularly so that we train our writing muscles.
When I refer to “writing muscles” I refer also to the imagination and creativity which lie at the start of the writing process.
And this is where the crux of the curse lies.
Since I’ve committed to writing and flexing my writing muscles every day, my head has started to constantly churn out thoughts, ideas, the perfect sentence — anything and everything!
But the crazy thing is that I feel I’ve got to get these thoughts written down straight away! If I don’t, I might lose them! Maybe it’s a continuation of the writing process, but I think it’s something more. My imagination needs life!
I twitch for a pen in the same way a smoker twitches for a cigarette. And there’s trouble if it’s not possible! I might be in the shower, driving, eating, or at work. If I can’t write my thought down I feel stressed. It’s pent up and I’m tense. I’ve been struck with the writer’s curse!
My creative juices are swirling in abstract whorls and they need an outlet. They need somewhere to flow. They need to be set free.
My thoughts need to dissipate among words.
To be written.
To be.
Paul
Header image credit: 1102g2fall2013.wordpress.com.
Originally published at http://paulsterliniwrites.wordpress.com on May 14, 2019.
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