I'm on a mission. I've been delaying this for
the longest time. I tried locking it away, I tried to bury it, I tried to
eat the key, burn the spade, I tried to throw it towards the deepest foulest
bowels of my mind's hell, I tried everything to keep my heart from reaching out
and claiming what it always wanted. I've climbed in and out of shit pits,
sinkholes, black holes, made an asshole of myself, I bled, I crawled, I've
traveled the depression highway, blindly (and barely) surviving the labyrinthine
urban guerilla warfare I imposed on myself, and yet I kept on refusing that one
thing that I know could truly save me. I need to write. Or to
borrow words from one of my favorite writers Adrienne Rich - "You must write, and
read, as if your life depended on it." And truly now, my life does depend on it. I know it will not get me out of the
financial rut I'm in, I know I might turn out to be the worst wannabe writer in
this fickle cruel world, I know it will not provide me the comfort and
stability people say I should have achieved at my age, I know it will not
provide a solution to any of my so-called "real life" problems. I know too that if I don't start
opening up my mind and let all the words, stories, images gush out, my
imagination will rot and fester away into non-existence. When you are all alone feeling like
shit for something that you regret you did or didn’t do, or for whatever reason
you suddenly find yourself inside the pitch-black cavern of moods, where the
darkness is a viscous liquid fear attempting to drown you in wretchedness,
imagination is the only thing that can save you.
“Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
(Albert Einstein)
“What is now proved was once only imagined.” (William
Blake)
This year started with me reading voraciously and
writing sporadically. This must
change. I need to sit my ass down
everyday for a few hours and fuckin’ write. I need to finish all the stories, all the poems I’ve
started. I can no longer defer
this dream. I need to write as if
I’m traversing a very sharp narrow mountain ridge where the winds are strong
and the drop full of spikes and boulders.
I need to write as if I’m dancing on hot coals. I need to write as if there’s an
electrical storm happening inside my body, with lightning shooting off my sweat
pores. I need to write as if I’m a
rocketship shooting towards the sun, skirting it’s teasing licking flaming
tongues. I need to write like a
lioness stalking an equally vicious prey.
I need to write as if a hot thick bubble of poison is waiting to explode
inside my mouth. I need to write as dangerously as a supernova waiting to
happen, daring to explode, consume an entire galaxy but birthing new stars in
the aftermath. I.Need.To.Write.
The writing process is different for every aspiring
nut like me who wants to take on the big fat trolls and muses and lava surfers
prancing around inside one’s mind.
Thank goodness for the masters who came before us, generous with their
nuggets of whimsy and inspiration:
Kurt
Vonnegut http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/03/kurt-vonnegut-on-writing-stories/
Margaret Atwood http://gu.com/p/2f62t
Jack Kerouac http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/03/22/jack-kerouac-belief-and-technique-for-modern-prose/
Adrienne Rich http://www.nbu.bg/webs/amb/american/5/rich/writing.htm
Federico Garcia Lorca’s Play and
Theory of the Duende is my Narsil, my patronus, my direwolf, my own ferociously tenacious weapon against that mammoth of a villain called mental block. http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Spanish/LorcaDuende.htm
These are my other valuable sources of techniques and inspiration:
Taken randomly from my shelf, some of the books that continually astound me:
A very good advice (that I failed to follow wholeheartedly) from one of my literature professors was this: Keep everything you write. No matter how ugly you think it is now, keep it. It may just prove useful later on. Thankfully, I managed to keep a few.
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| My old and new journals |
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| Old drafts of poetry |
A long long loooooong time ago, I used to make lists that I believe will inspire me in my writing journey.
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| A list of mythological characters |
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| A very old list of films and music I wanted to hear/see |
I have a burning curiosity that makes me want to experience and try a lot of things. I take photos, I shoot videos, I celebrate moments through various mediums available to me. And I DOODLE, a lot. I'M NO PAINTER, how I wish I am but I am sadly not. I just love to play around with color from time to time. It helps "de-clutter" my mind.
And to end my personal rumination on writing, I'd like to share with you something from, again, Junot Diaz:
You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.
