I was reading another blog the other day when I was struck by an idea. Not immediately, mind you. There was no eureka moment. Just a thought that occurred to me the next day at work. (Yes, I think about non-work things at work. Doesn't everybody?) It's not the first time this has happened, and there's another idea from another blog lurking in the wings here, but this one first, because it occurred to me that perhaps it's part of the reason lately why I've been so bad at keeping up with this one.
... Though, in all honesty, while it would make a nifty excuse, the truth is I just haven't gotten around to it as often as I should have. There have been real-world distractions over the past year, some of which allowed me to come to the realization that while there are writers whose volume of productivity is increased in hard times, I am not one of them. I do not find solace on the page, or at least I wasn't able to distract myself enough to focus on writing. On the plus side, I don't find solace in drink, either, so there is that.
Now that I've digressed enough, the idea was that it can be difficult for some people to write on the computer because it creates a layer of separation between the writer and the ideas. That by writing longhand, ideas flow more freely, more naturally. And there isn't the distraction of the shiny internet.
Which is when it occurred to me that, back in the old, dark days before the internet and yes, children, before computers - er, personal computers, not computers in general as I am not that old quite just yet - whenever I would write down my general thoughts it would be by hand. My journal, which on some days was a writing journal, and on other days just a repository for personal ramblings and musings, was always done by hand. So perhaps one of the problems for me in trying to keep this, a blog, which on some days is a writing journal, and on other days etc, is that I'm having to process things through the interfering medium of the keyboard and computer.
At which point I laughed until I cried.
Ok, not quite so much, but it was good for a chuckle.
There were two immediate problems with such a thought: one, I stumbled across my old hand-written journal some years back. Let me tell you, if you want a good laugh, go back to whatever personal stuff you may have written as a teen. Wow. For an exercise in both self-deprecating amusement and sheer embarrassment, it doesn't get much better than that. Therefore, writing by hand does not guarantee an improvement in the process. If anything, I think knowing there wasn't an immediate audience would directly correlate to a lack of improvement.
Two, and this is perhaps the more important reason: I can't read my handwriting. Granted, lots of people say this, but I have actually taken notes I could not read later on. The only time my handwriting is even approaching neat is when I'm writing on the board for my students.
So unless I start keeping this blog via white board, it's going to have to be on the computer.
Although the Macbook does have a nice white surface. Wonder if it's dry erase friendly?
(In case you are curious, the blog I read was over here. I think you have to appreciate a blog that is run by someone calling herself Zombie Monkey. Which, come to think of it, would be a scary prospect. Monkeys are potentially ill-tempered and prone to violence enough as it is, without being the walking dead. Also, despite the title, I don't prefer writing longhand, for obvious reasons. I'm not terribly sure I'm a gentleman either, so it works out.)
Showing posts with label voices in my head. Show all posts
Showing posts with label voices in my head. Show all posts
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Muse Also Moos
(Try not to think about this week's entry too much in conjunction with the last one. Cows in scuba gear is a subject best left for a Far Side cartoon. Though, having said that, I am picturing a Gary Larson-esque cow in a swim cap.)
I was reminded the other day that I live in the country. This is not something I generally forget, especially as the local grocery store closed and the next nearest place for a half gallon of good ice cream is ten minutes away by car. Yet there are times when it is less prevalent in the forefront of my mind, made easier by my home being in a small community where I do actually have neighbors that I can see out of my own windows. Well, their homes, anyway, lest someone think I am spying on my neighbors. Which if you'd seen my neighbors you'd understand is a scary concept. Real life is not Hollywood, and my neighbors have never, ever been the kind of people I'd want to even catch a glimpse of running around in their underwear.
Nonetheless, it was brought home to me when as I was making the commute into work, there were cows alongside the road. They were on their side of the fence, thankfully, but they were as close to the road as they can get. Now, within a ten minute radius of my house (and each other) there are cows, sheep, alpacas, and buffalo. It's quite an eclectic mix of grazing livestock. Certainly not the kind of assortment you'd expect to find in an urban environment.
As I drove past the cows, I mused to myself about the bucolic environs, and how conducive it is to easing stress and such. In short, the usual cliches. Which was going to be what this post was about. Only I realized that not only did I not want to do that, but that it wasn't accurate. While I like being out in the country, with the flowers (to which I am not allergic, or my reactions would be very different) and the green and the cows and yes, even the sheep and the alpacas and the buffalo, I have been equally inspired in any number of places in the city. There is an overpass in downtown Chicago, towards the waterfront, for example, where as a pedestrian once I stopped and watched the traffic humming back and forth in the evening gloaming. Not to mention the half dozen other places in Chicago, or Boston, or even Pittsburgh, where I have done much the same.
It occurred to me that this is what it is to be an artist. My medium is words, of course, so I call myself a writer not an artist, but that is what writers and poets are, just as surely as anyone who works with paints and brushes or a camera and a lens. And as such, our muses tend to take on a myriad of forms. We have the gift of looking at the world in such a way that many things inspire us. Some more so than others, to be sure, but we retain some of that childlike sense of wonder at the world that allows us to appreciate not only the joy of chasing fireflies, but the firefly-like blinking of road construction signs along a road. (Provided we aren't stuck in traffic because of them.)
And so, while we tend to speak of a single muse, this is perhaps misleading. Possibly even incorrect. We have multiple muses, who inspire us in a multitude of ways, providing that we are willing to listen to them when we do.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to reread my Far Side collection.
I was reminded the other day that I live in the country. This is not something I generally forget, especially as the local grocery store closed and the next nearest place for a half gallon of good ice cream is ten minutes away by car. Yet there are times when it is less prevalent in the forefront of my mind, made easier by my home being in a small community where I do actually have neighbors that I can see out of my own windows. Well, their homes, anyway, lest someone think I am spying on my neighbors. Which if you'd seen my neighbors you'd understand is a scary concept. Real life is not Hollywood, and my neighbors have never, ever been the kind of people I'd want to even catch a glimpse of running around in their underwear.
Nonetheless, it was brought home to me when as I was making the commute into work, there were cows alongside the road. They were on their side of the fence, thankfully, but they were as close to the road as they can get. Now, within a ten minute radius of my house (and each other) there are cows, sheep, alpacas, and buffalo. It's quite an eclectic mix of grazing livestock. Certainly not the kind of assortment you'd expect to find in an urban environment.
As I drove past the cows, I mused to myself about the bucolic environs, and how conducive it is to easing stress and such. In short, the usual cliches. Which was going to be what this post was about. Only I realized that not only did I not want to do that, but that it wasn't accurate. While I like being out in the country, with the flowers (to which I am not allergic, or my reactions would be very different) and the green and the cows and yes, even the sheep and the alpacas and the buffalo, I have been equally inspired in any number of places in the city. There is an overpass in downtown Chicago, towards the waterfront, for example, where as a pedestrian once I stopped and watched the traffic humming back and forth in the evening gloaming. Not to mention the half dozen other places in Chicago, or Boston, or even Pittsburgh, where I have done much the same.
It occurred to me that this is what it is to be an artist. My medium is words, of course, so I call myself a writer not an artist, but that is what writers and poets are, just as surely as anyone who works with paints and brushes or a camera and a lens. And as such, our muses tend to take on a myriad of forms. We have the gift of looking at the world in such a way that many things inspire us. Some more so than others, to be sure, but we retain some of that childlike sense of wonder at the world that allows us to appreciate not only the joy of chasing fireflies, but the firefly-like blinking of road construction signs along a road. (Provided we aren't stuck in traffic because of them.)
And so, while we tend to speak of a single muse, this is perhaps misleading. Possibly even incorrect. We have multiple muses, who inspire us in a multitude of ways, providing that we are willing to listen to them when we do.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to reread my Far Side collection.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Wait, That's Not My Voice
Every once in a while I will go an author spree, usually with an author I have either just discovered or perhaps rediscovered. This is when a trip to the library finds me coming home with several titles, all by the same writer. (Used to be the bookstore before the economy tanked.) It doesn't have to be that the writer uses the same characters, as I've been known to do this with author's who invent new characters and stories every time out.
When I get deep into an author like that, I find I have to watch myself when I write, otherwise something I think of as "authorial voice creep" comes over my work. This is when, even though by now I have well-established my own voice in my work, the words I'm putting down on the page start to sound more like someone else. Specifically, whichever writer I'm currently reading.
It's not always a question of just voice, either. It may also be style. I may find myself writing more lyrical descriptions than is normal for me. Or writing more descriptions, period. Or I may suddenly find all my characters have taken on a philosophical tone to their conversations, where beforehand they spoke in sentences that were short and to the point. Sometimes this is even a conscious effort on my part. I learned much of what I know about dialog from reading Robert Parker, and I can see that influence in more than a few - though not all - of my characters.
There have been times, however, when I look down at the page I've just written and realize to my chagrin that instead of it sounding like me, it sounds like someone else. I did this once with Mark Twain. Now, Twain's not a bad voice to emulate, but his voice isn't my voice, and attempting to copy him is not something I'd recommend for anyone. I've also done it when I've been reading poetry. For a while, some of what I wrote had a very James Dickey quality to it. Until I went back and edited it so it sounded like me again.
It's not a conscious effort on my part. I'm not trying to emulate these people, I just am. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (a dictum television and film clearly take to heart and beyond... but that's another entry entirely) and in a way I suppose it's a reflection of my enjoying the voice of the author. On the other hand, some of it's just what happens with any immersion, which is why if you live some place long enough you eventually pick up the local accent.
Unless you're my freshman calculus teacher who had an incurably bad French accent. Not that her French was bad, just that her accent was tougher than day old French bread.
So I wonder, does anyone else do this, and does it ever stop?
When I get deep into an author like that, I find I have to watch myself when I write, otherwise something I think of as "authorial voice creep" comes over my work. This is when, even though by now I have well-established my own voice in my work, the words I'm putting down on the page start to sound more like someone else. Specifically, whichever writer I'm currently reading.
It's not always a question of just voice, either. It may also be style. I may find myself writing more lyrical descriptions than is normal for me. Or writing more descriptions, period. Or I may suddenly find all my characters have taken on a philosophical tone to their conversations, where beforehand they spoke in sentences that were short and to the point. Sometimes this is even a conscious effort on my part. I learned much of what I know about dialog from reading Robert Parker, and I can see that influence in more than a few - though not all - of my characters.
There have been times, however, when I look down at the page I've just written and realize to my chagrin that instead of it sounding like me, it sounds like someone else. I did this once with Mark Twain. Now, Twain's not a bad voice to emulate, but his voice isn't my voice, and attempting to copy him is not something I'd recommend for anyone. I've also done it when I've been reading poetry. For a while, some of what I wrote had a very James Dickey quality to it. Until I went back and edited it so it sounded like me again.
It's not a conscious effort on my part. I'm not trying to emulate these people, I just am. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (a dictum television and film clearly take to heart and beyond... but that's another entry entirely) and in a way I suppose it's a reflection of my enjoying the voice of the author. On the other hand, some of it's just what happens with any immersion, which is why if you live some place long enough you eventually pick up the local accent.
Unless you're my freshman calculus teacher who had an incurably bad French accent. Not that her French was bad, just that her accent was tougher than day old French bread.
So I wonder, does anyone else do this, and does it ever stop?
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