Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Moving Clay
I've been trying to write something for several days now and it's coming out slow and jerky, which makes me want to abandon it and try again in another couple of years. It's an essay, which is easier for me than poetry, but not this time. Not this time. I'm going to keep working on it a couple more days, then file it away if it doesn't come. What to do with the lumpy clay that absolutely swears it is a pot? Clay is just earth, isn't it? Can't it go back where it came from, rattle someone else's bones?
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4 comments:
Nope. Once you take it out and start moving it, you can't re-bury it. That's the bitch about playing with clay. :)
The only way I've found to move away from a lump is to start on a new one, much like distracting a child. Or to look at someone else's finished pots.
Have I taken this metaphor far enough? A couple ideas: freewrite without stopping for a set amount of time, read someone you either love or have never read before. Look at art anywhere.
All great suggestions, but I'm afraid today is cleaning day. Thanksgiving is coming! I'll mull things over while I scrub the carpets.
Remember Charmi, that you tend to want it all spit out perfectly. Write some crap and then re-mold it into something nicer...at least you'll get it out.
Yes, I know. I wrote several paragraphs and put it away. But that's okay. There will be other years.
I was thinking, too, about public writing versus and private writing. I keep no journal, no diary, nothing. Just this blog. All my writing is public, because I just assume that once you commit anything to written words, it spirals into the public sphere.
But remember how we listened to the talk last week about the writing of the Te Fenua culture was all private, something that was simply buried with the writer, literally? I like that.
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