Creativity

Intermission for a Word from the Editor

If this blog seems like it is in an odd phase, it might be. In 2022, I fell into a pattern of writing drafts and never publishing them. And for the past several months, I’ve been resurrecting those. It’s strange and uncomfortable to dig up these past pieces. And there were so many drafts of the same posts. I had a writer’s block of sorts, yet was still writing all sorts of things. Things that went in totally different stylistic directions, at times. I didn’t feel so good about the writing at the time, for reasons that didn’t feel like good reasons. Or maybe I just didn’t feel good about publishing them. For some of these pieces I didn’t know where, or if, they fit in. Or I felt that my sense of timing was off. Or I was just in a weird phase personally. Maybe a combination of all of that. In short, I did not feel great about what I was doing – but I was doing it anyway. I was simply not sharing it.

I am used to managing posts in mostly real-time, as it were – as events are happening and the writing is fresh. Right now it’s a real mix of past and present. And then tying it all together. The result of this production feels confused, if only to myself. I will sort it out, but it may not quite add up for a while. I am doing this because I want to practice allowing things to be what they are. For now. I have had to tell myself before, to consciously be in a state of allowing. Not only with craft, but also in life. I enjoy breaking out of my patterns. I enjoy patterns and cohesion; I also enjoy blowing it all up creatively. Unattached to what came before. Actively detaching. I like a good challenge. I do not always want to visit the same places I have been, and for better or worse it shows. Craft can be an adventure. An experiment. The rest of my life is fairly routine. Craft is the escape, the dream, freedom.

I could’ve just let those old pieces go. But I never intended to hold them back. So I will just keep adding in this random assortment; this chocolate box of different stuff. The habit of hiding is one I’ve been breaking for years.

Mystery is a lost art. I wanted it bring back, but I can sometimes do it too well.

Two Words, Two Worlds

prac-ti-cal (adj.)

*of or concerned with the actual doing or use of something rather than with theories and ideas.

*relating to experience, real situations, or actions rather than ideas or imagination.

————————

im-ag-i-nat-tive (adj.)

*new, original, and smart.

*good at thinking of new, original, and clever ideas.

————————

prac-ti-cal-i-ty (noun)

*the quality of being adapted or designed for actual use; usefulness or convenience

*the quality or fact of relating to actual activity, especially ordinary or everyday activity

*a detail or consideration involved in putting something into action

———————


imag-i-na-tion (noun)

*the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality

*ability to confront and deal with a problem; resourcefulness

*the thinking or active mind

*And the André Breton quote, aptly quoted in Barbara Guest’s Forces of Imagination. “To imagine is to see.”

———————-

Writ-ing

*the activity or skill of marking coherent words on paper and composing text

*the act or art of forming visible letters or characters specifically

*doing whatever you want





what to say when you can not pretend

i find myself moving away from writing. but i will always write. but it’s not the grand central station of my imagination right now.

i am more interested in pictures. writing is too perfect, or mirrors all that strives to be so.

so often i don’t know what to say anymore. because in an odd way i think all opinions, even the smartest ones, are stupid.

my world is full of words. communication is easy. but also i need to create in a world beyond words. i need to express without words. i know my words can be stupid. and banal.

as all words can be. and this is why poetry exists. and one is not always equipped to write it.

words are to be respected more than they are.




By Choice

 

I have been saying it is almost time, for a long time.  But now almost is very near.

My life is almost becoming a dream.

Soon I will smell, feel the paint again, the ink.  I will light candles again and sit down at my large clean desk and forget the rat race again.

With the door shut.