Gotta Write
May 1, 2008 by rilla
There's this hokey scene in "Singin' in the Rain" which is supposed to be a glimpse of the movie that the main characters are filming. Did you know that "Singin' in the Rain" is totally meta? It is. Anyway, about the hokey scene. It features this very excited, passionate, young dancer who keeps sayin' "GOTTA DANCE!" and then dancing. The mini-story doesn't end well, but it does have a lot of dancing and a lot of repetition of the "GOTTA DANCE" line. Well, today I've just got the urge to write something, anything, but I don't particularly know what I should say or how I should say it. So, this could be a meandering and directionless post, but it should purge the "GOTTA WRITE" itch for the moment.
I haven't written a poem for over a month, and that poem was preceded by several months silence as well. I've got a couple stewing, but they're not ready to be eaten yet. I think that there's a correlation between my level of contentment and the quality and frequency of my poetic expression. As I am currently at a high level of contentment, my artistic expression is at a low. The sadist within me is making me ask questions like whether or not contentment is the correct trigger. The sadist pokes at me and wonders whether it's complacency, or whether it's self-denial or something else. At my last poetic height I was rapidly cycling from misery to happiness, I was on mood-altering prescription drugs, and living on my own. That is no longer the case, and the general satisfaction and contentment I feel in every day is, I'm sure, good for my psyche, but seemingly bad for my poet.
Before I married Rob I wrote bad teen-agey type poetry. It was crap, but it was dear to me. It was also self-expression, and it was good for my soul. Then, I stopped writing for years. Five, maybe six years passed while we were together and I had no urge to write a single poem. In fact, I didn't write much of anything. My journaling dwindled, and then it stopped as well. I wrote essays for classes, and that was the limit of my creative endeavors. I can't pinpoint what changed, but the desire to write grew, and then I started blogging, and then I started writing poems again. And now, my poems are leaving me again, and I'm worried.
A lot of my anxiety about this is wrapped up in my new relationship with Kaz, since my creative writing stopped as my previous relationship continued. It's so hard to look back and say, "There. That's the thing that happened that prompted me to stop writing. It was That One Thing." There is no That One Thing, obviously, but I really wish there was. As it stands, I do this horrible compare and contrast thing between Current Relationship to Past Relationship, and that's no good for anybody. I am smart enough to keep my inner monologue inside, but I don't particularly like hearing it either; it generally makes me feel like an asshole, but I keep looking for That One Thing that happened and is happening again that is turning off my creative drive.
Don't even think about offering the possibility that it's Something New that is making me feel less poetic. That would just be a whole giant barrel of monkeys that I can't even begin to sort through. They would be angry monkeys, and they would pull out my hair, and also throw poo. No no... let's just continue with the assumption that there is something happening now, that is similar to what has happened in the past which is making me feel less creative. Then, let's just bypass the whole drama of comparing my situation now with the situation then by writing some damn poems, shall we?
I haven't written a poem for over a month, and that poem was preceded by several months silence as well. I've got a couple stewing, but they're not ready to be eaten yet. I think that there's a correlation between my level of contentment and the quality and frequency of my poetic expression. As I am currently at a high level of contentment, my artistic expression is at a low. The sadist within me is making me ask questions like whether or not contentment is the correct trigger. The sadist pokes at me and wonders whether it's complacency, or whether it's self-denial or something else. At my last poetic height I was rapidly cycling from misery to happiness, I was on mood-altering prescription drugs, and living on my own. That is no longer the case, and the general satisfaction and contentment I feel in every day is, I'm sure, good for my psyche, but seemingly bad for my poet.
Before I married Rob I wrote bad teen-agey type poetry. It was crap, but it was dear to me. It was also self-expression, and it was good for my soul. Then, I stopped writing for years. Five, maybe six years passed while we were together and I had no urge to write a single poem. In fact, I didn't write much of anything. My journaling dwindled, and then it stopped as well. I wrote essays for classes, and that was the limit of my creative endeavors. I can't pinpoint what changed, but the desire to write grew, and then I started blogging, and then I started writing poems again. And now, my poems are leaving me again, and I'm worried.
A lot of my anxiety about this is wrapped up in my new relationship with Kaz, since my creative writing stopped as my previous relationship continued. It's so hard to look back and say, "There. That's the thing that happened that prompted me to stop writing. It was That One Thing." There is no That One Thing, obviously, but I really wish there was. As it stands, I do this horrible compare and contrast thing between Current Relationship to Past Relationship, and that's no good for anybody. I am smart enough to keep my inner monologue inside, but I don't particularly like hearing it either; it generally makes me feel like an asshole, but I keep looking for That One Thing that happened and is happening again that is turning off my creative drive.
Don't even think about offering the possibility that it's Something New that is making me feel less poetic. That would just be a whole giant barrel of monkeys that I can't even begin to sort through. They would be angry monkeys, and they would pull out my hair, and also throw poo. No no... let's just continue with the assumption that there is something happening now, that is similar to what has happened in the past which is making me feel less creative. Then, let's just bypass the whole drama of comparing my situation now with the situation then by writing some damn poems, shall we?
Posts
Sometimes, it just ain't there.
Sometimes, you have to tackle it to the ground and sit on it until it agrees to tell you what's going on.
Sometimes, it sits right beside you and whispers in your ear, and the whispers are ephemeral tones of words combining in strange new ways.
It may or may not have anything to do with your contentment. Often times, it has more to do with what your hands are doing than it has to do with what your heart is doing.
I would love to read a Rilla poem. :-)
cenobyte: I'm in a wrassling mood. I hope I win.
the ms. s.: I would love to write one. I'm gonna try.