Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Writing to Stay Awake

A writing practice sounds so lofty, but to me it is often mundane and every day. It is something that needs to be done more than something that wants to be done. Some days I write profoundly in my writing practice, but more often my virtual trash bin is full to overflowing. What I am learning over time is to remove the notion that I have to make progress with the outcome on this day or that day, and instead use my practice to sink into saying what I want to say through the written word. I use writing practice to train my brain to keep working even when it is frustrating.

First, I have to admit that being paid did not make me the writer I wanted to be after all. Some of my writing was to meet the needs of my clients, and was skewed with keyword rich statements and incomplete thoughts that were word cliffs to hang upon. The writing that came out for pay was an expression of my job to please the client, and my job often distracted me from the process of writing very well. I often referred to myself as a "hack" because I could drop words into any project I was called on to write, but this did not make me into what I consider an honest writer, developing and using the skills of wordsmithing to communicate well. It was frankly bull shit.

I'm not embarrassed about this truth. I did what I had to do, to pay for food and shelter for my family. I didn't view this paid work as an opportunity to become a better writer because I assumed that I wrote well enough to be paid already. I didn't view this work as part of my writing practice. Of course, that is exactly what was wrong with my writing, but I didn't know it at the time.

Here's what happened to me: I lost my ability for written words slowly but surely until I hated writing and prayed I would think of something else to do. Really. I didn't know it, but I had a brain tumor near my left temporal lobe. Eventually, at my husband's office party, I had a partial aphasic seizure, and was unable to speak. I had images and even non-worded thoughts floating in my mind, and no way to connect them to my tongue, to words I knew so well. I said ridiculous things, and was truly panicked. It was not babble-icious. I ended up in the ER thinking I'd had a stroke. That was in October of 2011, when I was diagnosed with a benign meningioma.

I stopped writing much at all after brain surgery. My prayers had been answered in a strange way. I recorded events a little bit in a journal and a blog, but mostly I spent time drawing with oil pastels, and eventually digital painting. I let my mind wander away, but I found that I still wanted to write as stories bubbled up without my control. What happened next was a shock to me. I really didn't realize that I'd not been writing for so long until I tried to sit down and write out some of the ideas that had surfaced. Now, when I sat down to write, I fell asleep within a few sentences. Fell asleep.

It took me a year to realize that my left temporal lobe was actually damaged by brain surgery, even though I could walk and talk, and knew who the President of the United States was, I was still reaching for words, for my own voice. It wasn't the voice of "knowing" that I'd projected before. It seemed terrifying to me. I decided then that it was like recovering from any surgery. What I needed was practice. I began writing again nearly everyday with no purpose other than to be able to stay awake while writing. It has only been in the last few months that I could make writing last more than an hour.

I'm telling you all of this because I have no doubt now that writing is a lot like a sport. When I first began as a writer I experienced an accidental winning streak, called talent. However, eventually I discovered that to keep it going my mind needs to practice with no goal except to practice. This builds not only skill, but confidence in my writing. Practice builds a stronger mind that is able to awaken and respond to the words that I want to write. Literally, I mean to say a writing practice is the same as doing cardiovascular and core strength work everyday. It exercises my mind in ways that specifically lead to better writing. I believe that I'm becoming a better writer than I was before my seizures, but I still have miles to go. I still have to practice every day. When I don't, then I'm sore. My writing pays.

As with any exercise program, of course, I began too hard on myself and then reeled in mental anguish about it for months afterwards! Frustrated that I could not penetrate the veil between what I wanted to write and what was going onto the page, there are times I've wanted to give up the ghost. Every word seemed an arms length away from my heart. With reluctance, I learned the hard way to begin gently.

I can only recommend writing for ten minutes a day for several weeks with no purpose other than to write. I can't tell anyone what to write about. I write what I'm obsessed with, to be honest. Usually, relationships long past or events I'm not clear about, but sometimes I write about writing, about my dogs or about art. Stretching beyond ten minutes can happen later.

I realize that, for me, it is hard to focus on a topic even for ten minutes, and maybe this is true for more writers than I know. I try to stay on subject in a simple blog post like this, for instance, and find myself wandering. I am prone to catching on a tangent going someplace else, but I'm getting better at seeing that now,  Knowing when I have more to say on a subject, then, I can put it into a new piece of writing. A surgical rewrite, if you will, separating what might even be symbiotic so that each piece can stand on its own, rather than one piece collapsing on itself. This is a new skill for me, from practicing over the past months. Though, rarely am I satisfied with my finished product still as a writer, I now see my frustration is because I've not given myself the time to try other options. This is okay. Learning that I can write regarding the same topic in a myriad of ways has proven to me that flexibility is a craft I want to hone as a writer. I'll show you what I mean.

This is the first post on writing practice.  It is about getting stronger in my brain for the sake of my brain and communicating what my brain intends to communicate. I've placed a hint about the next topic. I'm continuing this theme of writing practice for both our sakes, in the hopes that there will be something that helps you feel writing is a worthwhile process in and of itself.

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