The title says it all. I have grown older, and I have realized the degree of my foolishness in much of life. Now, this old fool muses about the past and present, and how to have an impact in the world around him. *NOTE: Review the creative commons license on the site before sharing/linking.
The cleric looks up, the unexpected company interrupting…well, not exactly interrupting anything specific. Nothing more specific than silent, aimless thoughts.
An observer of this pilgrim through the wasteland of lost thoughts would have readily presumed ennui – and been sorely mistaken. The baseless blank of such a state would be a welcome oasis from these thoughts. These thoughts that encompass nothing and everything. These thoughts that are aimless and yet share in Atlas’ burden.
Focusing on the source of this..could one call it unwelcome?...interruption, the parson’s eyes land upon the familiar visage. The kind eyes of his assistant retain their basic tenor, but are hued with sadness not normally present.
Oh Potter, please not today…not right now…not more. The unspoken prayer rises. Please, just one more moment without someone else’s problems…
But, the unsaid prayer fades away even in the ephemeral corners of the mind, as the standard courteous, if a bit tired, smile assures the intruder of their welcome. After all, this is the job, is it not?
Without a word, the aide eyes hands the clergyman a letter. Glancing down at the envelope, the prelate’s own eyes widen, and then join his friends – becoming shadowed over with a sadness…and then pain.
That damn handwriting…I’d recognize it anywhere. In just a few heartbeats, the loss is relived…the pain revived deep in the furthest recesses of his heart. Outwardly, the saddened eyes are the only evidence of this letter’s impact. A perfunctory exchange of grateful platitudes social custom demands was stiffly exchanged, freeing the intruder to scurry away from this moment.
A plain envelope, delivered by courier- or at least not the regular mail - “From the desk of…” the late Old Fool. The envelope was addressed simply, Dear Friend,
Slightly trembling fingers open the envelope, careful to preserve it. Inside, a handwritten letter from his beloved friend. The handwriting unmistakable, though marred slightly by the viscous drag of old age. Taking a moment to will the rest of the painful recollections away, he unfolds the letter carefully and begins to read,
A small smile cracks through the somber reader’s expression…You’re right you old coot…I’d be in your house drinking some of that blessed coffee right now if that were at all possible. He stopped abruptly. This admission was doing nothing but rekindling the pain he had just managed to wrestle back under control.
I say this, my friend, because you belong to that very special, very small, and very isolated class of people that I myself know only too well. We go by many names, my friend. We are both secular and mystics. We are lay and clergy. We are sponges, dumpsters, accumulators, relief stations, safe havens, asylum, shelter, stronghold. By virtue of our personalities, professions, or both, we have been given this assignment, this duty, this devoir.
In your own life, my beloved friend, the cause is double – both your profession and your personality have given you this errand in life. You provide the ear to listen, the comforting hand, the safe room for people to unburden. A place where people on the edge of bursting can come release the safety valve. You are the shoring strength of many, the solid foundation of a few.
And yet, through all of this human interaction, through all this sharing and all these emotions, there is but one feeling we do our best to not admit to ourselves. One betrayal of weakness that we’d like to ignore, but must confront. One word that we fear could be the breach that leads to the end. Isolation.
Yes, my friend…isolation amongst so much experience of all of humanity’s most intense emotional states. As the ancient mariner once said, ‘water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink’. For, if you are to remain the sponge, pillar, strength, and repository of so many people’s suffering, fears, insecurity, anger, disappointment, trepidation, and confusion, it becomes primarily a one-way street of human interaction, does it not?
Oh, my dear friend…you don’t know how much I miss your voice right now…
It is your gift, my friend…your ability that few could muster with as much grace and strength. And yet, no one person can be up to that task, can they?
If only you knew old man…today, more than any day, I know I am not equal to the challenge.
But then again…you did know, didn’t you…
My beloved, I am sorry that I was unable to know you for longer. The few months we did have were enough to impress upon me both your value, and your struggle. My Potter had other designs for me, however, and I am left with aught but this final letter to you – tendered in lieu of the conversation I wish you and I could be having on this day of your reading.
Words of wisdom on how best to do your job, how best to counsel, advise, and withstand, I have no more to offer to you than those you know well by now. Instead, I am writing to urge you to remember to care for that one final member of your flock that will need it the most – its shepherd.
If you are not careful, this lifestyle will swallow you whole and never, ever release you. The isolation will envelop you, sink you, and suffocate you. The burdens of others will become your own. And the burdens of a single life are enough for anyone…even you, my dear friend.
I can almost see that wicked old smile as he penned that…
Few and far between as those in our particular guild may be, we do exist in greater numbers than your wretched liar of an isolation would have you believe. I know I am gone, my friend, and for that no apology or begging forgiveness will change your situation. But, I urge you, with all the strength left in this old heart, to not stop seeking until you come across some more of our brethren.
Even if you must stand fast and alone before the daily onslaught, we all must have a place to let our guard down…to lower from our backs the burdens few could carry…to breathe and share. To be each other’s strength and support.
We, my friend, we don’t get to have a bad day. We don’t get to let the others in on our weakness, for if we fall…then they fall with us. But we do…we have bad days, we fall, we falter, we stumble, we cry out, we weep, we doubt. And without your guildmates, we are left with isolation in which to do this.
I beg, beseech, implore you to not go down this dark path, my friend. The road is steep, slippery, and exponentially more difficult to take each step back. I know in these days of isolation, the thought of the Pottter can seem like cold comfort…compared to a flesh-and-blood guildmate. But remember that your Potter never promised perfect days, never guaranteed a rosy existence, and is no magic genie to remove all pain, doubt, and frustration. Rather, the Potter is the grand master of our very special group. The one ultimate repository, sponge, safe place, haven, refuge, and strength. The one guildmate that will never flag, wane, or be overwhelmed with his own day’s troubles. Take heart in this, even as all else fails you.
Find that partnership…that give-and-take friendship. There won’t be many in your entire life…so cherish those few moments, those days that are so sparsely distributed.I enjoyed our short time together, and hope that in that time I helped ease some of that isolation as well.
But, as I leave you, I leave with a heavy heart…I wonder how you will handle the next step. I have faith in you…but I also understand the burdens and the dearth of relief points in our kind of life.
With this letter, this final opportunity for exhortation, I offer my ear to you one more time my friend…today is a bad day, but tomorrow you will be back out there. So, my friend…tell me about it…what has made today a bad day?
Your brother, your friend, your guildmate,
The Old Fool
The letter remains in the quietly weeping man’s hands a few more moments before dropping to the desk below…
My friend…I’ve missed you so much. You’re right…it is a bad day. There are days where I don’t know if I am going to have the strength to go out there and put on the strong face to that endless wave of need, pain, sorrow, anger, despair, and confusion. It’s a tsunami…slowly building, but infinite and strength and just as relentless. Today, Mrs………
Somewhere, the Old Fool smiles upon his friend across the chasm spanned by words, shared experiences, and personal bond. I am here, and we are listening…
Sensing his time was drawing nigh, the Old Fool had labored to generate a few final epistles to his cadre of young mentees and friends. Each note was left with instructions regarding its delivery time and method. Some were to be delivered at certain ages or stages of life such as graduations and weddings, while others were to be delivered immediately upon the Old Fool’s death.
These first two words bring a wet-eyed smile to the young man’s face, as the tender voice elicited by these words rolls past the grasp of death itself and through his mind with the strength and clarity of the original flesh-and-blood version.
The Old Fool and the young man had been discussing the young man’s frustrating and apparently never ending failures at love’s various gambits when that great life was cut short by the indifferent cold of the grave. The young man’s distress had only increased with the passing of his friend. Yet, as he gazed across the opening lines, the love and affection for his erstwhile mentor and friend proved yet again well-founded.
Dear Friend,
As you read this note, I will have joined my forefathers in rejoicing with my Potter. To this boundless joy, however, comes the dampening memory of leaving you behind with little of our conversations having come to much end. I am sorry I will not be there to share in the declaration and riposte that this discussion should warrant, but please lend me your eyes, but more importantly your heart, as I try to share some final words with you, my dear friend. I had spent a great deal of my time listening to you in order to better understand your grief…and was remiss in having contributed so little to you in person.
Before I can go much further, a very important definition must be established, my friend. Without definitions, our words are empty, and our thoughts misdirected. So, I ask you, my friend, take a moment and reflect on this question quite carefully:
How would you define “love”?
The young man stopped reading for a moment, struck by the question. After all, was this not one of those great indefinable words and concepts that philosophers had spent millennia arguing? Did this not rank up there with “why am I here”, and “what does this all mean”? How could he be expected to define something so vast, so deep, so fundamental?
Ah, my friend, I can just about see you now puzzling over the unfair question. Even now I can see a bit of that petulant pout at having been placed on the spot quite like so.
I don’t blame you. The question has rarely been asked and met with aught but some bumbling, hastily constructed reply. Depending on the circumstances, people will emphasize feelings, emotive descriptions, romanticism, eroticism, bonds, connections, spirituality, or some grandiose mixture of all of these things. I myself was put on the spot once by my very own father while he was preparing to speak to a group of young married couples. I was merely 14 at the time, and it was quite a few more years before I had digested and appropriately applied his answer. It made sense, but I had not allowed the truth and power of it to sink in and make sense to me. So many other definitions, even that found in the Potter’s own Book, describe love by what it is and is not, show examples of love, and try to paint a picture of love. But very rarely does a simple, succinct definition appear anywhere as it did for me that day.
My father squared my shoulders to him, looked me in the eye, and said:
“Love is the conscious and willing commitment to (be, want, desire, do, seek, ab pluribus disce omnes) the BEST for the person or persons loved.”
My friend, I love this definition. I live and breathe this definition. It has been the fundamental principle behind my own relationships, whatever they may be.
Love is a commitment, few people would argue that, I suppose. However, it is a commitment made in the full knowledge (conscious and willing) of what that commitment may someday and does at the moment entail. It is not a blind feeling, a fleeting emotion, or some overwhelming sensation. It is not a convenient desire, it is not a passing fad. It is a wholehearted commitment. A father does not cease loving his child when he misbehaves or is being difficult. In fact, it is that commitment that keeps love alive even through the difficulties. It cannot be something as fleeting as a mere emotional state, or it is nothing but a whim and of no ultimate significance.
The multifaceted application of verbs in the definition reflects the myriad aspects of what that commitment may someday entail. It can be actions, thoughts, prayer, emotions, and any combination of these things. But it is all of these things for one unifying purpose…to the end of bringing about the BEST for the one(s) loved.
Unfortunately, my friend, this is where so many of us fall short of our Potter’s perfection. For, being merely men, what we can believe to be the best for one loved can later be found to have been sorely misguided. This weakness is in us, not the definition, however. Just because we can be too hubris-filled or inexperienced to know what truly constitutes ‘best’ for someone does not mean that we cannot fill our hearts with the true commitment to seek this best, whatever it may be.
I wholeheartedly believe, my young friend, and have often experienced, that this commitment, made honestly and totally, will lend to self-correction by an honest man unafraid to evaluate himself or take evaluation by others. Being wrong is ok…persisting in the mistake is where the true failing often occurs. If we are open to correction, and committed to the best FOR the person loved…not to the hubris of being right or knowing what’s best, then I believe we can minimize the egregious errors of overconfidence in what “right” constitutes.
Now, my friend, this letter grows long, and I grow weary for the night, but I will leave you with these two thoughts, and I would ask you to set aside the other letters delivered today until their appropriate times. Before you get to the next letter, ask yourself these three questions:
Does this definition make sense to me? If not, what IS love, as succinctly and logically as I can define it?
Have I ever truly loved?
Can I say I have been loved?
Good night, my friend…I look forward to discoursing some more with you tomorrow,
Your friend,
The Old Fool
The young man slowly folds this first letter, as he begins to contemplate these three questions…a task which will surely stay with him over the course of the next few days.
And you, dear reader…what do these three questions spark in you?
--
The Old Fool
“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” -George Orwell.
The young man walks slowly down the familiar street, past the habitual haunts, towards the erstwhile frequent destination. The steps are all familiar, the ambient cacophony resonating with the echoes of a thousand similar days, the mingled scents a facsimile of olfactory delights oft encountered. But today, the familiar trip is different. Today, the trip has the somber shadow of difference...of shattered sameness.
As he approaches the steps leading up to the usual front door, the new adornment sharpens into a glaring relief the difference of this day. A simple length of cloth, unassuming and unimportant in any other configuration; even in this arrangement, festive in the colors of autumn and winter. This unassuming cloth, this assemblage of thread, weaving, and dye, stark in the color of mourning wrapped around the wreath on the door, welcomes the young man to a changed world.
The foyer, a site of a million warm welcomes and heartfelt greetings, the memory of each a precious treasure now, welcomes the latest visitor to this day's gathering with a silent dignity, a silence no doubt given in tribute to the warmth that still resonates through this point of admittance. Pausing for a moment in the stillness, the young man's recollection a collage his own prior stops in this very space, before moving on to the main gathering.
A cornucopia of friends, loved ones, and ones who loved and treasured in reciprocity has gathered for this last labor of love, but the young man moves past them all, and into the Sanctus Sanctorum through the door that has both imprisoned and provided refuge.
The soft lamp is already spreading its warm glow through the messy room...the young man is not the first today to have sought a small reconnection with the room's departed tenant, prisoner, refugee, and master. A slow perusal of the room reveals the comfort of things just as they are remembered, though unlike the other visitors, this one is not merely reflecting, but looking.
Finally spotting the object of his search nestled between two favorite and commensurately well-worn books, the young man pulls a crisp, clean envelope from the shelf, and sits with no small degree of reverence in the lone and now lonely chair.
The light of the lamp casts its warmth with enough strength to allow the wavering pen strokes of his departed friend's infirm hand. Three words grace the front of the envelope, one crossed out. The letter had originally been addressed, Dear Potter, but now read Dear Friend.
The young friend carefully opens the letter, and withdraws the short manuscript, sure to have been one of the final produced by that vaunted hand and beloved and respected mind.
Dear Friend,
As with many of my last missives, this letter had originally been intended for my Potter. But, with the time I have left, I am left to realize that whatever I may have to say to my Potter, I will soon be able to do so without the current indirect route. Instead, I believe it is an opportunity to leave a word or two behind for you that I must take full advantage of at the moment.
You know my life somewhat, though you know me well, my friend. You know my triumphs, and you have been acquainted with some of my failings. A history lesson or a long self-eulogy is not for these pages...
Rather, my friend, I have the opportunity to share with you some of my life stories, some of my fondest memories, and through these some of my most difficult lessons...
The strong, if sometimes slow and measured voice of his friend ringing strongly in his ears...the words on the page before him merely the final vehicle for those words to reach him, the young man reads on through the stories, recollections, and thoughts of his beloved friend. Laughter, sorrow, and a strange mix of the two pepper his experience of the next few pages, on through to the final anecdote, the final piece of advice,
...and so, my friend, I am left with little to tell you but to share some of the wisdom that my beloved Potter has allowed me to find after so many failures on my own.
Many times, I asked my Potter for the wisdom, the words, the strength to help those I loved, to help those who suffered so much, whose misery was overwhelming and crushing. Foolish is man to believe in his ability to be so wise and so strong. Remember this, my young friend, remember it and allow it to fill you with its simple truth: sometimes the true strength our Potter gives us is the ability to share in that pain, to drink from their cup of sorrow, to spill tears together, and have the eloquence to have nothing to say or add.
Silent tears whose comfort can outstrip any beautifully wise constructs generated from alphabets and spoken phonemes. There are many times, my dear friend, where we can do nothing more than offer ourselves to share in the sorrow.
Beg and implore the Potter to show you the wisdom to spot the difference between the need for eloquent words, and the need for eloquent silence.
More hearts have been brought closer to mending in my own life through this latter necessity, but do not be fooled by the apparent costs. Sharing in this pain, partaking in the tears, and yet standing strong with and for those you love can be, and usually will be, the most difficult task you set about to perform.
And now, my friend, the time has come for our mutual indulgence to end. I have enjoyed talking with you, for even as I slowly pen this, I can see your eyes scanning the pages before me and I share in the joy of having a young friend such as yourself to leave some of my final thoughts to. But my time to teach is now done, my time for stories is past, and your time to practice this most difficult art begins. You know those for whom I worry, those whose sorrows will accompany them today, and whose grief will be difficult to bear. I know it will be difficult, but I know you will have what it takes to persevere.
Go, and go with all my best love, gratitude, and hopes, my friend. Go, and help those left behind...
Once and always proud of you, my young friend,
The Old Fool
Reluctantly, the young man folds this last sheet of precious communication. Standing slowly, drinking in the strength left in this room by his friend, the young man braces himself, and in a faint echo of a thousand actions before this one, he opens the door, and crosses the threshold of this refuge to seek those in desperate need to share from their overflowing cups.
My friend, may I never forget how I am merely His clay either...and Dear Potter, I do beg and implore...give me the eloquence I need, and be my strength and my foundation, my anchor and my support. For alone, he could never, and him I'll never be.
-------------------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d9BIvthwJM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KtF7ql3FJc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdQDYrOAht4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlhmigaacJc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erPnyi90cIc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5srpggS-2-g
-- The Old Fool
“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” -George Orwell.
The Old Fool’s instruments have been silent these past weeks now. Once in danger of an early grave in the rubbish heap from overuse, they feel the cold grip of forgotten obsolescence creeping into their very cores.
He has never been this quiet before, has he? And even in troubled times, he always found comfort and solace in the work we help him accomplish. These days it seems it’s merely voices in a distance we hear; always different, always new ones, but with one homogenizing characteristic – the sadness, despair, and grief in the voices.
Could it be our beloved master has passed on, and we can hear naught but his mourners these days? Surely not…but then again, we have not heard his voice, his booming laughter, his commanding presence these past days. Sad strangers and murmurs have been our only company of late…could our work be finished now forever, what of…
The subtle click of the opening door is enough to silence the current idle talk, although repartee it was not. The door has been a constant barrier to the knowledge of what has actually occurred, and an expectant hush falls over the old fellowship. A soft lamp is reawakened, casting its warmth about, dispelling the dark cold that had roosted in the quiescent room.
An unheard gasp shocked around the room and reverberated in the undisturbed air as the collected instruments, the Fool’s constant companions, finally witnessed the invader to the formally dormant space – the Fool slowly settling into his familiar place.
Absently, his fingers flit and caress from one instrument to the other, the familiarity of years giving the task a surprising intimacy, “I have missed…” The words spoken so softly and ended in the thoughts of the fool would have been lost in the silence of a graveside service…but to the gathered audience they strike the sweet timber of life in what had been a dead space for far too long.
The searching hand settles on the most familiar instrument of all…whose employ had written more ideas into existence and commanded more things be done with a flourish of the Fool’s name upon an unassuming line than some could accomplish in several lifetimes. Their mate pressed back into service, the reserve units eagerly await their own call up for today’s duty.Yet, one by one they are bypassed by the unoccupied hand of their master until it settles on the small stack of unofficial stationary. These scraps of dried pulp, usually relegated to the mediocrity of a scrawled note pinned to an official document or creation, suddenly called to the front for first-wave duty.
Before the confusion sets, the deflowering words upon the pristine space clarifies the Fool’s intentions on this day…
Dear Potter,
Not again! So much silence, so much disuse…and for this we are called to duty again? Shall we never perform a service of value again?
Dear Potter,
What self-serving nonsense will it be this time? Wet dirt? Mudpies? Children’s crafts? Better to have been left alone than returned to this…
But this time, there is no hesitation in the Old Fool’s advance from the beachhead of these formerly hated words. Slowly, at times unsteadily, but always determined, the words march onto the page. The Fool keeps up the assault, unrelenting, unyielding; the grief ever more apparent from the old and darkening eyes that once held such spark. Eyes whose appearance now silenced the protests, as the Fool’s words march on.
Dear Potter,
I have been a fool. I have embodied hubris. I sought your succor, pleaded for strength, sought the purpose you set forth. My beloved Potter, these weeks you have had more faith in me than I and my life should have ever engendered.
What shall I say to all those you’ve brought to my door these past few weeks? Those whose pain, sorrow, loss, confusion, despair, emptiness and ache has daily shamed me for every moment’s self-pity my own diminutive woes begat? Mistaking my shame, my unfound wisdom – my silence – for a good ear, their hears they’ve laid bare.
Sweet Potter, I have not the words, the wisdom, or the ability to quaff even one of these overflowing cups of suffering you’ve laid at my door. I have no consolation to offer but lie that is the silence they mistake for wise listening. I lack the refuge of separation, impersonal distance, for they are all my beloveds, those I love and know, their grief my own as mine has often been theirs. I alone am unequal to the task.
Loving Potter, this Fool is left with naught but to arrogate, supplicate, plead for your guidance…your wisdom…your aid. Will You see fit to give me the words, the wisdom I do not have, to show them Your succor? Will you give them the wisdom to find their answers on their own, and simply leave me the strength to listen?
Dear Potter, I asked you to show me that I was your clay, now I redouble the entreaty and beg to be molded…I lay my own self bare…help me light the way to the comfort they need. If you would take my wealth, my joy, my life in payment, I would gladly surrender it all. Their anguish echoes in my heart…I cry out to you, show me how to one day echo with their joy!
Your unworthy, foolish clay,
The instrument finishes the final stroke on that once proud name, and joins its brothers in silence as they gaze upon their once proud master. The concept, once so easily dismissed by the gathered fellowship, now reaching clarity. Not a child’s toy. Not a mudpie. Not dirt and dirty water. Clay. Not just clay…the Potter’s Clay. His clay.
And if the Potter’s clay commands us, drives us, applies us…what are we after all?
The Old Fool rises and with a slow breath steels himself to welcome the next visitor, he returns the room to its erstwhile darkness. As the door, once a prison gate, now the access to a refuge, closes again, the Fool utters just two more words, a self-reminder on the way to his new task, ”His clay”…
And with the final click of the door, an unheard chorus quietly fills an undisturbed room,
Us too, sweet Fool, us too.
----------------
Cry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX_xz5RYkXo
King Nothing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ9y4jzwXaA
Hero of the Day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPB3c6E7p44
The Unforgiven: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhryYbyTZ2M
--
The Old Fool
“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” -George Orwell.
It is very interesting to me that for me, a person whose last year and next year will be very much focused on writing (papers, dissertation, reports, lecture notes, etc) and reading (homework, research papers, journal articles, etc), a relaxing hobby has become to write non-academic work.
I've always chalked it up to a passing fad, something I was doing just to while away some of the time...but I believe it is time to admit I may have a problem. :-) I recently did a bit of inventory, and between some autobiographical "memories" letters, prose, and a novel I'm in the middle of finishing, I have accumulated a lot more writing in the last 3.5 years than just "a passing fad". Depending on how one does their page counts, at last inventory I had between 400 and 600 pages of non-academic writing filling my "it's just a temporary fad" electronic ledgers. That number stunned me. Maybe not any of you who have been subjected to my overwrought verbosity, but it certainly did to me. It was like the "social smoker" who finally had to admit they were up to a pack a day...an eye-opener.
Another thing that has been extremely interesting to discover is exactly how this creative process works for me. I have long been a fan of Stephen King, and enjoyed just about anything he's ever written. When I have read his own essays on writing, and listened to interviews and missives he has from time to time released, as well as included in some of his fiction, he makes it very clear that he does not often (if ever) feel in control of the writing process. He seems to often describe it as somewhat of a spectator sport for him...he's writing a story, but it's almost because he's writing down something he's observing, and not necessarily planned and outlined out ahead of time.
The idea had always intrigued me, but to be perfectly honest, I had summarily chalked it up to "artistic exaggeration". After all, one does not really ghostwrite as he described, right? I mean, that was more the realm of fairy tales and bad horror movies...not real life.
And yet, after finding myself smack dab in the middle of a growing pile of words, I come to the realization of exactly how RIGHT he is. Almost all of my non-academic work that I end up writing down and either blogging, posting in a note, or filing away for my own eyes only, is very, very close to a first draft rough. I tend to move slowly through the writing (1-5 pages per writing session on my novel, for example, and spaced apart by days or months), but that's because of the constant pauses to "observe" what the characters are doing, and where this is going.
Most of the stuff I finish, and even post, follows the same pattern:
Put on some music (I can't work in the deafening world of just words in my own head without damping them out with the focusing effect of external stimuli...but I use music instead of TV because of the visual distraction from the TV)
Write it slowly, correcting words, usage, and structure within the current sentence only...rarely going back to revise the previous one(s).
Read through once to make sure I haven't made any glaring faux pas that will annony the living crud out of me later.
Put it aside to store or post later.
I find that if I spend too much time going back through and revising, I get lost in the changes, and they become eternally recurrent. It also seems to lose some of the original flow and idea. It seems...almost tarnished or dulled...a weird way to describe it, I know, but it's as best as I can describe the feeling of working over the writing too much.
A benefit of this "first draft" approach is that very, very, very often, my own writing is new and surprising to me if I go back and read it later. I am sometimes pleasantly surprised, and at times frustrated with myself for not writing it differently. More often than not, however, this latter feeling comes from having grown in experience and writing style from attacking other projects in the interim.
But of all these projects, the novel has been the clearest indicator of the Stephen King effect in full-force. Every time I think I have a section all planned out, I'll get to writing it, and realize that this is not really what is going on...the writing changes on the spot, and I'm usually happy with the result. I am almost as surprised by my own tale at this point than an outside reader would be. I say almost, because I have a vague idea of where the over-arching story arc is headed...but each time I write some more, my certainty in the direction and contents of that arc fuzz up just a little more. And I'm not sure that the idea stems more from the plot prediction any movie-goer or reader may do themselves when coming across a new story, or from really having an idea of where this will all end up.
I must admit, however, that this third-person perspective in the creative process does somewhat attempt to dull the personal satisfaction in the work done...after all, I often feel like more of a reporter than a creator. And yet, even this is not enough to dampen how cathartic and relaxing this hobby can be.
Fact is, I enjoy it just for the sake of doing it. That I put some of it out there in the wide world of the web is merely to share some of that with my friends and family...but so far the store of what I keep to myself or very close to myself is growing as large or larger than that which I have let out...and I'm comfortable with that. :)
So, writing, writing, and writing it will be. Dissertation and papers for work, and missives, prose, and fiction to relax. It's a good thing I renewed my enjoyment of Aikido...or I could very well never have a reason to leave a desk. :)
Musing accompanying this latest episode of single-pass ghostwriting:
From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDQS1bFgjN8
From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9IixYR_p-4
From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il-9_CudEu0
From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwbIkzDVVFQ
From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziThYl6B2vw
From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjZoIxCx-HY
From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmjNM85hbnA
From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOVv39cPOKk
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The Old Fool
“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” -George Orwell.
A wandering old fool. See the blog's title and description.
George Orwell: “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."
"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
Albert Einstein: “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”
"Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character."
Ayn Rand: "Government "help" to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off."
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