About Complications and Clouds

Post 277:

            There are billions of ways to approach creative work. Combinations, attitudes, precepts, imaginings. It’s easy to get to become embroiled in the infinite permutations that can have an effect on the outcome of your work.

            Writing is projection, and not really knowing ourselves, we don’t really know what’s going to be projected onto the page. This can be scary. I’ve gotten to the end of a story or a scene and wondered where the heck it came from, from what previously unearthed corner of my body, soul or spirit.

            It may be that it’s not for knowing. The key is to make your writing as true as possible, deliver something that is as real as can be, given our vicissitudes and limitations.

            We’re all just messengers, really. You take what you know, what you’ve seen and heard all your life, and you try to cobble together something that looks or sounds fresh. It’s a paradox that requires an excess of iron in one’s blood. Because it’s always the same old story, but there’s always a brand new way to tell it. I’m simplifying to an enormous degree, of course, because it just goes on and on.

            The key is hard work. The key is lining up your soul to the page and the characters, project well. Casting your light and darkness onto a piece of paper is better than doing it to another person. At least the person who picks up your story and reads it is making a choice.

            If a writer has a status, it’s this: It’s complicated.

            But so is everything else, so deal. I’ll talk to you later, I’ve got to sift through today’s cosmic-sized cloud of thoughts and whatnots.      

            Cheers you animals. See you after.