Test test 1 2 3 test.
Morning Haze.
I can’t say specifically why I creatively write; for me, that would be explaining the functions of my mind, and the things that make me work, because more than anything, writing is an impulse. Often I have no control over when I feel like writing, and I have napkins and receipts that prove it. Sometimes all I can think about are a few opening sentences or snippets of clever and snappy dialogue of the type that I’ve always wished happened in real life. Alas, they lie on the scripts of more talented writers than I.
On occasion, my writing reflex has been struck by things I’ve seen. Two men, meeting for the first time, offering their histories in a noisy restaurant. A name, anonymous and unique, tagged on to a comment. Usually, I write for emotion. Rarely, though not altogether impossible, I write for emotions I am feeling. I admit my stories do take on a mood; for instance at this moment in time I feel particularly factual. Perhaps it is the time in the morning, when everything has this yellow glow on it already, my favorite kind of light; but I am unprepared, with only five hours of sleep behind a mask and an overwhelming sense of stress from the past eight days. Emotion is tangled within consciousness, which I haven’t reached, leaving me a little concise and short with the reader.
Most often, I write for mood. Mood and emotion may not differ so much, but mood is more of a sense. It’s as undefined as the shade of yellow infiltrating my curtains, lightly brushing through the fabric onto my already tinted skin. Mood is airy and vague and has no edges. I don’t write to make it have any.
Certainly I don’t write for an audience. Which is probably more of a lie than I understand. Still, somewhere around 98 percent of my writing is completely unseen by eyes other than my own. Yes, I always choose words to appeal. Sentences need punch. Points cannot lack that panache, that sense of attention they may or may not deserve. But the only reader I expect is myself, returning to snip and clean and refine and experience again the feeling of the moment.
I suppose it’s funny I say experience. Life is so full of experiences. My life is full of experiences. I never want to write about any of those. Often I sit around and muse about life (it’s likely a great deal of what I write stems subconsciously from those moments) and occasionally, reflect on the good writing material within mine. I vow I shall write a story that themes on things and places and people in my life, and then I sit down to my keyboard and tap out a couple of things about events I’ve never had the chance to encounter.
In that way, writing is living vicariously. I can create a character who is the precise way I wish I could be at that moment and I can make him or her act with other people I’ve never met. Their interactions can be sparky and witty and dramatic and senseless and perfect, all in a neat little file in my computer. All of the things that don’t happen to me happen in the uncontained world of Microsoft Word, in a file titled “Document 2.” It is an effective way to clear the mind, or to clutter it with thoughts of my characters, whichever way my passions choose.
As for weaknesses, I encounter many. Let me offer up the writing style I’ve adopted this particular day. I sound preachy and condescending, and as I read along in my head (I form my sentences the way I imagine them being said, not written) my inner voice is high and lofty. Flow is nothing in this emotionless state—I am effective and efficient. I can’t force it away, but I don’t always have to enjoy it.
I would have said a year ago my strongest weakness was my inability to write more than 1000 words. My stories were short and somewhat defined and that was it. I liked them, but I wanted more than that. I finally broke that barrier sometime over this past summer, where during a week with my father’s side of the family I not only created characters I didn’t mind, but wrote nearly 6000 words about them. Unfortunately, the characters weren’t the problem, the story was, and it died soon after. That doesn’t mask the accomplishment to me, though; I had overcome something, something that had been nagging me from the corner of writer’s block, and even if I had written 6000 words I didn’t like, there were still 6000 of them. And in each of them, ideas.
Bumped from second place on weakness ratings is my love for dialogue. This is not fundamentally a bad thing, I know, but after three pages of quotes and not much to fill that, things start getting messy. Practice slowly is making a more satisfied writer of me, but somehow thinking of things people might think or do between talking is difficult. I often have to shoo one of the other characters away before anyone can get a decent or sufficient action out, or any deep or satisfactory thought. In the style I prefer, this is essential; when I write I jump into the character’s mind, often in a visual sense back from the situation, but mentally inside it all. Thoughts and emotion and conflict within are what I write about, so dialogue without inner reflection or motion or pretty much anything substantial is more than not out of place.
Even with efforts to better my work, I don’t plan on doing anything specific with my creative writing. To me, writing is a free flow of mood and thought, and I’ve always believed it should happen when it wants to. For me, that is often. I can sometimes even will it. The times where I can’t are obvious, often punctuated by bleak spaces of uninterrupted white. That’s perfectly fine with me. I would rather write for myself than feel pressured to produce something that is personal. At the same time, I need not affirmation, but honest feedback, and sometimes I seriously need some prompting, which is why I enjoy this sort of forum this paper is being constructed for. I realize that is a contradiction, but at the very least it is an honest one.
Did I mention I find it impossible to construct a conclusion?
Originally I uploaded it. But I feel bad making people download it.
Mata ashita.
