On Writing, Part 1.

Recently, I decided to set aside 30 minutes a day to sit in front of my computer and give myself some time to let any stewing stories come out. So on the days when I am not too tired, or forget, or decide to look for a real job, I sit down, and note the time (I try to keep myself to 30 minutes). I am discovering that if the stories and writing come out at all during that time, they come as a drip. I am not a writer with a churning mass of stories. Things seem to come to my brain in packets. Like, I get a little packet, write the words from it, then have to wait for the next packet of info to arrive before the words come out. OK, next packet please.

Stop. Think.
(That was the entire last packet.)

I think I used to write down words right away because I was afraid I would forget them if I let them sit around and dust off completely. I am now starting to trust that I will not forget the important, brilliant things I think of. Or if I do, I will remember them. Or maybe I am just a tired mom who will not only forget the brilliant thoughts, but forget that I thought them in the first place, thus releasing myself from regret that I didn’t write them down immediately! Any of these is fine.

Sometimes I sit for 25 minutes and then write for 5 when something occurs to me. The process of writing is so much not-writing. And the not-writing part of writing is so not concrete—there is no finger clacking or progress. And I dislike and distrust things that are all in my head. So I write crap when I should be doing the not-writing part of writing.

But the not-writing part is not just not-writing. It is, oddly enough, not-thinking. Thinking seems to kill the things that are burbling up to the surface. So really writing involves not-writing and not-thinking, for long periods of time. It sounds so easy.

Here is my new exercise: I will sit, not-write and not-think. Something will occur to me (I hope). I will not write it down right away. I will wait until it is urgent that I write it down. Perhaps then I will know it is worth writing down. Some timer will go off – “ding!”—and it will emerge as a fully-formed thought loaf.

Or maybe I will just go make cookies.