Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Five by Five

20091007 typecast pt1
Portable Plotting Kit
20091007 typecast pt2

4 comments:

Joe V said...

That's a beautiful metaphor you've described. I think you've hit on one secret to good writing, which is that you find a means (in your case the notepad and fountain pen) to document all those music inputs from the aether. I also like the idea that you describe stealing moments here and there, between the events of our busy lives, to get real creativity done.

I've noted in reading the biographies of famous people that they seem to get much more done than I, yet they've only been given the same 24 hours per day.

So the real issue is how we use our time, finding a means to accomplish that which we "must" get done -- the demands of the external world -- and also finding the means to focus on our internal creativity.

Great post, thank you.

~Joe

PS: word verify: "shleb". I feel like a total shleb for not doing NaNo this year.

deek said...

AlphaSmart 3000 for writing at work during lunch, check. Carrying a pen on me at all times, check. Placing a typewriter in every sitting room of the house, check.

Yeah, it certainly is about making use of those little bits of time. They all add up and hopefully, more than their sum.

PS I'll be going into my first NaNo this year cold. I always did like a challenge and I've never had a whole lot of common sense:)

Jessica said...

The way you described your writing process was really inspiring -- in a Writing Down the Bones way. I found myself pulling out my own little notebook to write something that popped into my head after I finished reading this post.

I also really loved the analogy.

mpclemens said...

@Joe: it's all about using those slices of time to your advantage. One of the reasons I like NaNoWriMo so much is that it wedges the impossible task of drafting a manuscript into those same spaces.

@deek: good luck! My first year was rough going because I got far afield from how I thought the book "should" end, instead of letting the ending happen. And now I like to map out with a little structure, thanks to my shy muse. And of course I didn't know about the magic of typewriters in that first year. I'm wiser now. Lucky you getting it right in your first try!

@Jessica: that may be where the idea first came from -- that and Bird by Bird (both books are on my shelf as favorites.) We need to give ourselves permission to stop trying to do everything and let that little spark crackle through now and then.