To read like a writer you have to
know something about what type of writer you, yourself, are. I am referring to
that which you have “penned” and that which you have expressed vocally. What
extravagant statements do you fondly recall making as a group of people took
pause and interest? We all need to be able to label what we know as truth or as
a lie, even if we find out otherwise later on. These things are required
because we each need to be able to rate our level of doubt and know how
impressed to be. That lets us be critically aware.
Reading something that I feel is good writing means that my imagination
has been called with the utmost sense of urgency. By urgency I also am
referring to the first impressions I have of a story. First impressions,
written or spoken, matter because they determine how you get to your
next set of impressions. I am a writer and I enjoy writing. I want to tell my
story in a way that I have yet to fully define, but I know is authentically to
me. Like I said, first impressions are important. I want to communicate an urge toward imagination and a drive
that makes me want to write with beauty. I want to stand un-terrified at the center of a house
of mirrors and find that my typed thoughts and
feelings were easily
reached reflections.. To allow myself
(and feel allowed) to write with the kind of beauty and creativity that tends
to swim in the puddles left by the storm clouds in my mind.
{I want to produce good writing based on the
urge I described above. I want critiques, to be exposed
to the genius of others thorough their lens on life and super smart comments. I want to learn what
others value in my writing and their overall impression (a.k.a. my overall
style). My career path definitely involves writing and I have been cultivating
knowledge about my own style for many, many years, but this evolves like everything..}
I feel it's important that you to have
something to say about what you write or are reading. This does not require
planning. As an actress, I’ve used stream of conscious writing as a tool to enrich
characters that I’ve played. For example, let’s say you’re going to be Santa in
a play. Stream of conscious writing about a story from Santa’s childhood could
reveal that, like you, she also was
scolded for clothes bleeding in the wash and turning whites to red. Maybe this made her embrace red and wear it
often. Perhaps that is the mysterious feeling you would portray while wearing
the suit tied to just that secret. (The thing to remember is, even when you are
standing up as someone else, you are standing up for yourself.)
It's a brilliant thing to kick away limitations. A great rule of
improv is that you can always heighten in a scene. Meaning that your
imagination is solely responsible for the characters you play or those you
interact with. I can always express my feelings through
my eyes or anyone's of my choosing. I can embody whomever (or whatever) I needed to in order to say something.
I think that, while asking what it means to read like a writer is
important, I must also ask how do I read text as poetry? A poem is not a song until you sing it. A
rhythm is not silent until you read it. If you are mentally wading through a
thick peanut-buttery text and want to find a poem in it, you’ve gotta feel it.
You’ve gotta feel your story, not the one that’s been laid out. You must ask
what your imaginative urge looked like when you were reading the text? If you
think that rearranging words is stealing then you’ve already lost your story. -And it is and will be yours every time.- When we write, with any words, we are
echoing a past life- our past in our life.
I use words like echo and reflection because
our words repeat and this factor is of huge importance and necessity. You may
have noticed that I’ve referenced Britney Spears in my title. I do this because
repetition, adaptation, beauty and likability are important in words and in
life. Her hits have won favor across every social, economic and racial
demographic. Once words with that much draw are out there, it doesn’t stop at
just one more time. Everyone from Tori
Amos to Old Dirty Bastard (a.k.a. Big Baby Jesus) have coveted her lyrics and
have made them their own. They could do so and be successful because they knew
what kind of writer they are. They were critically aware of what they were
doing with their words. They made
sure that they had something to say and (because of this) they could surmount
the genius of another and also have their genius surmounted.
While I, personally, haven’t traveled
the world to visit adoring fans or won prestigious and recognized awards, I do
have my own methods for crafting something I can deem successful. If it is a
body of writing that is composed by myself alone, I really need solitude and
silence. Also, creature comforts are required. I tend to stick to my home to
write, zone in and rarely take breaks. If I am reading, I tend to want the
same, but there is a little more flexibility and the location could be debated.
This is because, unlike mine, all the author’s thoughts are tidy and kept in
waiting until I need them. The only spontaneous part that I play in their writing comes when I, say, jot a
note in a margin or cross out words and write “fuck that” nearby.
I have what could be called a mantra that
I say, and it goes, “feel what you feel until you feel something else.” Another
way you could read this is- feel what you feel so you can feel something else. Good writing is an action that helps to
get you to that “something else.” To me, being a writer means wanting to echo
my past in a story I write and also being able to read my future. Whether I read an author or I am the writer of
the story, that action is taken for love and hope. It’s a way that I can claim
my future by moving into the next chapter of my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment