Week Twenty-seven: Sunday 1 – Saturday 7 April
What a week. Radio workshop Monday - Wednesday; editing and production for the course's online writers website on Thursday. Lack of sleep due to a restless night-time daughter. It's all functional, and functioning, with a tired mind and trapped flow.
I find myself losing sight of what it is I wanted to write in the first place. No, not a 'script' or a 'novel' or a 'feature'; more what it is that I want to say. What's my message? Every writer writes because they have something they want to say. That can be morose, vacuous, manipulative, misleading, meaningless or any other negative connotation: but they all have something to say.
It helps, in my humble opinion, if what you want to say has the potential to contribute positively to the greater good by making people think, feel, engage, laugh, learn, change, improve, et cetera. But whatever it is you want to say as a writer, and for whatever reason, you need to know what it is.
At times you get so bunged up with commercialism, professionalism, competitivism; with angles, opportunities, trends, and with careers and money. You get so bunged up with all that that you forget what it is you want to say. You forget about the messages you want to impart, the lessons you've learned, the experiences you've had: the story you want to tell.
It doesn't take much to lose sight, to stop being focused, to be out of your zone; lack of sleep and a full-on week where you don't get any work you need to get done done, does it for me!
Easter weekend was a chance to reconnect. Lovely sunny weather, a trip to the beach with my wife and daughter to play and relax. A roast beef and potatoes dinner. Easter eggs and new story books for my daughter. It doesn't take much to remind me that, yeah we all need to make a living, yeah I have aspirations as a writer based on a strong desire to say something meaningful, my greatest achievement in life is the life I share with my wife and daughter.
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4 comments:
It's funny, I've just finished reading "Five People You Meet In Heaven" and was thinking this morning that I'm sure before I started all of this that there was something bigger, more meaningful, that I wanted to say. In the blur of the course, I kind of forgot what that was...
For me, it's a daily experience. I sit down at my computer during weekdays at 9 am BST and dive right into the words, ideas, philosophies and emotions.
By 12 - 1pm, I'm really stressed out and functioning at a very low level.
My quick lunchtime snack removes my hunger but it's my lunchtime walk on the green and golden hills of Exmoor that clears away the morning's mental stresses and enables me to get productively back to work in the afternoon.
Hi, Thank you for your comments. I'm not good at taking things easy - I get defiant, fight back more and end up with a breakdown. It's a vicious circle, which I recognise but can't quite break from.
Your post makes a lot of sense - I think there's a lot of us who can relate to that at the moment. I've spent the week playing around with In-Design and whilst I've enjoyed it, the writing almost came secondary - mainly because i found the writing easier than the designing - but it made me feel detached from what I'm really trying to do.
Glad you had a lovely Easter - and hope you're feeling suitably re-charged.
xx
Mr D, you are a wise wise man and in fact your words are a tonic against getting bunged up in the first place.
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