John Swinburn

I’ve been awake for several hours, but the usual routine of writing just after I got up eluded me.  Even the basic stuff like the thoughts for the day seemed akin to pushing a boulder up a long, wet, mud slope. Maybe it’s just that the weather is wet and sullen, the sort of weather that conspires, along with susceptible moods, to drown creativity in dirty wet pools.

Last night, I wrote an odd poem that I posted both on my blog and on Facebook for some reason.  I didn’t like it a lot then and it hasn’t improved much since, but I may be my own worst critic.  Probably not.  So I wrote another one this morning.  Hmm.  But didn’t I just say creativity was drowning?  Perhaps my efforts at poetry were vain attempts to pull it out of the pools of dirty water.

The words spilling from my fingers this morning aren’t helping.  Half-hearted efforts to get the creative juices flowing succeed only in getting them to leak out of the wrong places.

Writing well requires more discipline, more energy, and more talent than I’ve been exhibiting of late.  And it requires time dedicated to getting words onto the page without “tinkering” with them during the process of getting them written.  The time for tinkering is after the rough draft has been completed. And then, the draft may need more than tinkering; it may need an overhaul.  But that’s the way it is; you must have a product before you can begin to shape it and mold it into something of which you might be proud.

Lately, my writing has, by and large, been limited to the words I post on this blog. That is nothing short of shameful for someone who hopes to wear the badge of “writer.” Volume, copious volume, is what I need to produce. Coupled with that, I must read more, much more.  That is a problem, especially now with the map dot fingerprint dystrophy of my right eye (I assume that’s what it is, based on an earlier diagnosis with similar symptoms, though this incidence is far worse in terms of vision than before).  First steps first: see an ophthalmologist to verify the problem and seek a solution.

See how I did that?  I blamed my failure to be a more prolific writer on a physical ailment of my eye?  I suppose I could blame my mood swings on the same thing.  Or I could invent something, basing the invention on reality; yes, that’s it, my dark moods tend to follow the cycles of having dry skin. I can invent excuses for all sorts of things.  That’s what writing is doing for me.

Private thoughts that cannot be—must not be, can never be—public. Hidden longings that one dare not reveal. Throbbing desire that racks the brain and the body, concealed beneath a diaphanous facade of  self-control. Barely restrained joy at something as simple as the accidental brush of skin on skin.

These are the unspoken, private thoughts that can drive people mad, causing them either to spiral into angst and depression from which there is no emergence or to experience joy so overwhelming that no words can begin to express its intensity.

Lonely experiences, these are, that shred sanity into a thousand pieces, splitting the brain cleanly in two as if an ax had fallen so precisely as to create two people, their motivations a dichotomy between what is pure and right versus what is deeply, richly, and excruciatingly—but deliciously—wrong.

He could reveal none of his desire to her; she was forbidden because of who she was. Or perhaps it was because of who he was. No matter which, because the longing was impossible to satisfy; sharing with  her the words he wanted to say was as inconceivable as turning back time a thousand years.  So he just watched her and ached for those rare brushes of skin on skin.

Playing with writing and words and language and ideas here this morning.  Seems like the thing to do on this chilly Christmas morning. Somehow, this “telling” has to be transformed into “showing” if it’s going to morph into a story worth reading.  That has been my dilemma all along; crafting descriptive language into action sequences, versus the words of an omniscient narrator.