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Zen And The Art of Writing
Hey there, all...
Yesterday was very good. Not only did I pick up "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"(!!), I got new albums from Radiohead, Third Eye Blind *and* Ashley MacIsaac! Sorry, Fraggle...I haven't even checked out all of the music you're trying to turn me on to. <:) I also picked up a few Ray Bradbury short story collections, two Changeling fiction books that I couldn't find up until now (at the good ol' Bookshop!), and a book of quizzes and such. Not a bad little haul, even if it did eat quite a bit into my paycheck...far more than it should have. I also made a few rather important realizations yesterday, about where I'm going, what I'm doing. I don't think I need to say this because people already know, but I've been paying far too much attention to the social aspects of existence; being sure that I'm liked, that I don't step on toes, that I keep the peace, that I'm...well, *viewed* as virtuous instead of coming up with my own ideas on what virtue is. In a lot of ways, I feel like I've been living for other people. The Story, to me, is a sacred and holy thing. The art of storytelling is an immensely spiritual practice that links us in a very primal way to 'undercurrent' emotions that we normally don't get the chance to experience fully, for various reasons. It might be social decorum that dictates that we don't truly feel whatever it is we feel at the moment, that restraint is the proper and 'sane' way to go about things. Stories lift that veil of decorum, in a way. They link us to something incredible under all of the bullshit we wear, well...a lot do, if we get into them. It's always been my idea to become a storyteller in various ways. At times I've wanted to be an actor, or a writer, and a singer (before I discovered my voice is the result of an unholy union with Thom Yorke and Alanis Morrissette), but the ultimate goal was always the same: to tell the Story. I want to be a story-teller first and foremost, to awaken the things that are always under the surface with people, a deep...river (for lack of a better cliche) that folks always seem to want to hide and bury, to subvert, to channel. I want to make those rivers flow. Anyway I know how. The reason I don't write much at all is because I always feel that my meager abilities as a storyteller will fail to do the Story justice, and telling a story badly is just this side of sacrilege to me. I'd rather not tell a story at all than do it poorly. I'm not going to get better, though, unless I figure out a way to weave words in such a way that people *get* it. And that takes practice, and work, and passion, but above all empathy, experience and clear sight. I really don't feel like I possess any of this. And I'm not quite sure what to do about it. Now that I do know what I want though, it's just a matter of getting to do it. And that takes work. ;) I feel like I'm still...forming in a lot of ways, and there's a lot I have to learn about how things work. Hmm. More later.
Yesterday was very good. Not only did I pick up "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"(!!), I got new albums from Radiohead, Third Eye Blind *and* Ashley MacIsaac! Sorry, Fraggle...I haven't even checked out all of the music you're trying to turn me on to. <:) I also picked up a few Ray Bradbury short story collections, two Changeling fiction books that I couldn't find up until now (at the good ol' Bookshop!), and a book of quizzes and such. Not a bad little haul, even if it did eat quite a bit into my paycheck...far more than it should have. I also made a few rather important realizations yesterday, about where I'm going, what I'm doing. I don't think I need to say this because people already know, but I've been paying far too much attention to the social aspects of existence; being sure that I'm liked, that I don't step on toes, that I keep the peace, that I'm...well, *viewed* as virtuous instead of coming up with my own ideas on what virtue is. In a lot of ways, I feel like I've been living for other people. The Story, to me, is a sacred and holy thing. The art of storytelling is an immensely spiritual practice that links us in a very primal way to 'undercurrent' emotions that we normally don't get the chance to experience fully, for various reasons. It might be social decorum that dictates that we don't truly feel whatever it is we feel at the moment, that restraint is the proper and 'sane' way to go about things. Stories lift that veil of decorum, in a way. They link us to something incredible under all of the bullshit we wear, well...a lot do, if we get into them. It's always been my idea to become a storyteller in various ways. At times I've wanted to be an actor, or a writer, and a singer (before I discovered my voice is the result of an unholy union with Thom Yorke and Alanis Morrissette), but the ultimate goal was always the same: to tell the Story. I want to be a story-teller first and foremost, to awaken the things that are always under the surface with people, a deep...river (for lack of a better cliche) that folks always seem to want to hide and bury, to subvert, to channel. I want to make those rivers flow. Anyway I know how. The reason I don't write much at all is because I always feel that my meager abilities as a storyteller will fail to do the Story justice, and telling a story badly is just this side of sacrilege to me. I'd rather not tell a story at all than do it poorly. I'm not going to get better, though, unless I figure out a way to weave words in such a way that people *get* it. And that takes practice, and work, and passion, but above all empathy, experience and clear sight. I really don't feel like I possess any of this. And I'm not quite sure what to do about it. Now that I do know what I want though, it's just a matter of getting to do it. And that takes work. ;) I feel like I'm still...forming in a lot of ways, and there's a lot I have to learn about how things work. Hmm. More later.