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Dec. 30th, 2003 03:01 pmI wrote this in a comment response to a post by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thamiris here, about writing and some of the difficulties thereof associated. I really liked the way my thoughts crystallized, so I'm posting it here.
There is a richness, a rhythm and a beauty to language that we, I think, as female writers, are trained to avoid as an unsavory example of excess abandon. We are guided into a puritanical, recitative role of objective narration, discouraged from enjoying the lush sensuality of our own prose, instructed with the literary equivalent of, "Lie back and think of England."
Like orgasm, writing happens best and most successfully when we don't think, don't obsess, don't worry . . . when the words and the characters flow as they will, not as we might have them. When we *create* rather than *narrate*, bloom rather than sprout, explode in a great and glorious burst of the jism of creativity rather than doggedly pursuing the outlined destination . . . *that* is when we are happiest with our work and our words.
That said, I fear most the loss of that literary orgasm -- the departure of the muse or the circuit breaker that allows my creativity a direct channel to my keyboard, as if my fingers are no more than a physical conduit to the words that are pouring forth. "Jumping the Moon" is still the story I love best, the one of which I'd never change a letter, the one that says it all for me and then some. And I wrote it in two days, typing in such a rush that I did not even recognize sentences as something I'd written, as if my mind and my body were completely divorced from each other.
The fact that I've been blocked on all my other fic tells me that, like with sex, I've been trying too hard to make the story come, and not spending enough time just lettting it happen. With the invariable end result the same . . . throwing my hands in the air, literally or metaphorically, putting on my robe and wandering off to find myself some ice cream.
thamiris here, about writing and some of the difficulties thereof associated. I really liked the way my thoughts crystallized, so I'm posting it here. There is a richness, a rhythm and a beauty to language that we, I think, as female writers, are trained to avoid as an unsavory example of excess abandon. We are guided into a puritanical, recitative role of objective narration, discouraged from enjoying the lush sensuality of our own prose, instructed with the literary equivalent of, "Lie back and think of England."
Like orgasm, writing happens best and most successfully when we don't think, don't obsess, don't worry . . . when the words and the characters flow as they will, not as we might have them. When we *create* rather than *narrate*, bloom rather than sprout, explode in a great and glorious burst of the jism of creativity rather than doggedly pursuing the outlined destination . . . *that* is when we are happiest with our work and our words.
That said, I fear most the loss of that literary orgasm -- the departure of the muse or the circuit breaker that allows my creativity a direct channel to my keyboard, as if my fingers are no more than a physical conduit to the words that are pouring forth. "Jumping the Moon" is still the story I love best, the one of which I'd never change a letter, the one that says it all for me and then some. And I wrote it in two days, typing in such a rush that I did not even recognize sentences as something I'd written, as if my mind and my body were completely divorced from each other.
The fact that I've been blocked on all my other fic tells me that, like with sex, I've been trying too hard to make the story come, and not spending enough time just lettting it happen. With the invariable end result the same . . . throwing my hands in the air, literally or metaphorically, putting on my robe and wandering off to find myself some ice cream.
