The Writing Show

It's becoming clear that I'm going to have to invest in learning to take indoor people photos and also invest in the equipment to take the photos with.

Unfortunately for me this particular session was a difficult one. It didn't seem to have any sense of cohesive thought or focus. All my notes are random ones that are nearly impossible to interpret into something with logical flow.

Eliezer Sobel discussed the various aspects of being a writer. Journalists write to inform. Diary entries are written as therapy. Spritiual writing needs to serve a more useful purpose. The first step is to, "make a distinction between our thoughts and who in our minds is aware of these thoughts." Second is to use writing to get past itself. Write until this voice, the critical one that is aware of the written word, is no longer heard. Finally when the spirit flows through you the words will flow out. This becomes Zen writing which is, "trying to serve that which is a spritual impulse."

Jeannette Drake talked about the best way to use dreams. Every night she tells herself that she will dream. When you're working on a project it will be in your dreams so that when you wake you need to pin point some aspect of that dream. Maybe it is a color, an emotion, a feeling, and then take that box and ask how is it related to the project I am working on.

Stephen Corey spoke about the aspect of writing which is often referred to as getting into the zone. The key to making this happen is to put yourself in a position to write. You have to allow some kind of shift to take place.

Eliezer told an amusing story about his experience as a writer. First the publisher had the book for a year. He would call them up every so often and inquire about the status and be told that they were interested, they just needed more time to think about it. Finally after a year passed he told them that's it, either take it or leave it. They got back to him. They didn't want it because the central character just doesn't hang together. When he got off the phone he laughed heartily. This was a memoir, he was the central character, and his life just didn't hang together.

Later on Eliezer's manuscript was picked up by a movie producer. She called him telling him how good this was, this was big, and she kept using the word big as she got more and more excited. She was only on the first chapter, she would take it with her on her vacation to Greece and get back to him from there. A couple weeks later he got a postcard, not a Greek one, a plain 3x5 white card that said she didn't like it and since she was on vacation she would just throw it away here. Eliezer had this image of all his pages floating on the Agean Sea.

Stephen told us about the time this woman got really mad at him about his poetry. It wasn't real? His poems were written about events that never happened! She was very angry because it was fiction. It set me to thinking about how we sometimes see poetry as merely an expression of our emotions and our lives rather than as stories. One of my favorite poems ever tells a story. Actually so does my second favorite. Poetry is how the bards would remember the tales in order to pass them on to the next generation.

Quotes:

Eliezer Sobel: "Language is how we interpret ourselves. We are languaging our lives into being."
Jeannette Drake: "This prayer was not supposed to stay in my house."
Stephen Corey: "Poets never use the words agents and money."