A Writer's Graveyard

by compound complex 14 Replies latest jw friends

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  compound complex

  Immersed in Dickens and Hawthorne, I cannot easily shake off the dusty antiquity of a bygone era. However, its scant reality inhabits, not the present, but my sad hearkening back to the shadows of long ago.

  Hot blood pulses anew within fingers I thought stilled forever in a writer's graveyard of unwritten verse. It is a reluctant awakening to a life much sadder than that endured by storybook friends who cannot see me, know me.
  

  Permit me, therefore, to reenter that precious twilight betwixt my present and the past, the faraway there of dearly departed poets. If I search within the darkened channels of elusive time, may I find old friends who have been rendered immortal in ink?

  
  
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  compound complex

  Well, I do think the picture of the contemplative poet is pretty cool.

  Do you, fellow writers, ever experience the look above? Not to mention what's going on inside the skull . . .
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  humbled

  That image you posted, if it were of myself, reflects the effort it took to let thoughts flow directly, without religious ox-bows that warped around forbidden impulses or perceptions.The floods of feelings l had were ever hitting snags piled up by regulations, the finger waggles of old holy men.

  The muse avoids us when we post “no trespassing”signs to ward off our genuine feelings.

  To create poetry —even fiction—as long as we are not lying to ourselves as we write.

  Strong fiction tells truth.

  l am fighting for truth now that l have left religion behind.
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  compound complex

  Dear humbled:

  I always look forward to your extraordinary way of making your thoughts, expressed in prose, so poetic. Excellent point regarding all those inhibitors. I wrote on the "Moonlight" thread that I initially feared my forays into moon lore would constitute me a pagan. Big deal.

  Thanks, as ever, for your contributions!
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  vienne

  My dad who wrote science, nuclear physics and separations chemistry and the like, would sit in his chair, his fingers steepled, and think through each sentence. There was seldom any need for revision. He wrote by hand with an old Shaffer fountain pen using a quadrille tablet.

  I sit at my computer and just write it. There's a tonne of revision and rewrite. Which of us that picture would reflect is an open question.
  
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  sparrowdown

  Creativity ebbs and flows the trick seems to be to understand that the ebbs and flows are as normal as breathing in and out or the waves of the ocean.

  During the ebbs I find it helpful to paint a study of someone elses work just to mark time while waiting for the next flow because I think it was Picasso(?) who said inspiration will come but she has to find you working.
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  compound complex

  . . . inspiration will come but she has to find you working. -- sparrowdown

  I can really use that advice.

  Thank you!
  
  
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  Wasanelder Once

  Sometimes it seems as if a writer gets caught up in the sound of his own words rather than expressing what he has to say in common English. The speed bumps of pretentiousness are a trap. Spit it out man and you'll do fine. If you want to go back and pretty it up, have at it. The best work is done in the 2nd or third edit. Good luck CC.
  
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  compound complex

  Points well made, Wasa. Simplicity and clarity.

  The above is about the third edit. Cutting out the so-called dead wood is not the problem it used to be.

  I could start a bonfire. Of course, the use of certain words and phrasing is intended as a transport back in time. I really don't talk like this. It's meant to be specific to an era. Nevertheless, I appreciate the wise counsel regarding pretentiousness.

  Thanks!
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  compound complex

  Immersed in Dickens and Hawthorne, I cannot easily shake off the dusty antiquity of a bygone era. However, its scant reality inhabits, not the present, but my sad hearkening back to the shadows of long ago.

  I'm hooked on Dickens and Hawthorne and can't get them out of my head. Not them, not their time. It's not real -- I get it -- this going back in time to yesterday's shadows.

  Hot blood pulses anew within fingers I thought stilled forever in a writer's graveyard of unwritten verse. It is a reluctant awakening to a life much sadder than that endured by storybook friends who cannot see me, know me.

  I'm writing again, fingers to the keyboard, when here I figured I was washed up as a writer. Yet, I wonder if my old, dusty friends were better off than I am. Who knows? There's no way to bridge time.

  Permit me, therefore, to reenter that precious twilight betwixt my present and the past, the faraway there of dearly departed poets. If I search within the darkened channels of elusive time, may I find old friends who have been rendered immortal in ink?

  In any event, I need to get back, back to that time and place where my favorite writers lived. They have lived forever in the books I read. I want to join them.