I've been working on a couple of pieces that I just can't seem to get right. Write and then go back and hack out a word. Write and go back and hack out a sentence. Write and go hack out a paragraph. Write and hack out a thought. Write hack out the title. Write out the meaning. Write.
Doesn't it always come back to write? Sometimes though, it's not that easy. We can pull out the journal and let our pen flow. Like a Thanksgiving dinner without mashed taters however, something is missing. We can muster up our willpower and sit down at the boards. "Okay boys and girls, one of us is walking out of here and one of us isn't." Author Julia Cameron says not to try and think something up. Instead, let it come to you. Write what wants to be written. At times this works. Other times you concur, it's safe to rule out stake-out-artist from your dream jobs list.
Here is an idea that came to me this morning. Well, came after I went looking that is. The Phantom Professor conducts an online writing workshop . She offers a lesson and then encourages her readers to do an exercise. That the wildly talented Phantom Prof does not brandish steel, to me, is her greatest asset. So, without fear of two-inch spiked metal rulers whacking our backside, we are free to be free.
Unless you are under a writing deadline, I simply cannot see how embelishing in the Prof's exercises will not somehow free up the stuck bolts in your mind and lubricate your thoughts.
Postscript: I wrote a poem in Prof's lesson #7. It's small, quick and the first one I've written in years. (it's in the comments section)
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