What it looks like when it’s born

Here is a word cloud of the first para­graph of a short story I’m work­ing on:

wordle

This is the first fic­tion I’ve writ­ten since grad school. I’ve writ­ten here before that I don’t feel the com­pul­sion to write. And now I have to con­fess that here I sit, feel­ing that gen­er­a­tive energy after all, and kind of resent­ing it. It’s hard to build some­thing from the ground up when it doesn’t come in a struc­tured way. I like impos­ing some order on the chaos, or find­ing the order in what looks like some­one else’s mad­ness. I even like just watch­ing the chaos churn. What I don’t like is get­ting these ran­dom zings out of the blue and hav­ing no idea what to do with them.

But this is a real story, some­thing worth exca­vat­ing despite my often vocal mis­giv­ings. Pieces of it come at me in dif­fer­ent forms, usu­ally when I’m doing some­thing else. I throw it all into a Google doc, watch­ing for signs of life with­out know­ing what those signs might look like. I seem to have a nucleus but not the atoms, and a fully-formed elbow, and a small clus­ter of stars. And I don’t know whether I’m build­ing a boat or a jig­saw puz­zle or a planet-destroying death ray.

2 comments to What it looks like when it’s born

  • It can be tough to trust the cre­ative process — espe­cially when it seems so hap­haz­ard, and when it’s some­thing that’s new to us. I strug­gle with it all the time, the trust­ing of this weird, unwieldy process that’s so new to me. But that’s the cool thing — no mat­ter what it looks like or how it devel­ops, it’s all part of the cre­ative process, and a win-win situation.

    Look­ing for­ward to read­ing your story, when/if you’re ready to release it. You already know I love your writing.

  • Sherry

    Hi David,

    I love drop­ping in on your blog. I share some of your gen­eral cre­ative instincts and angst so I always feel I get to know myself bet­ter when you share your own reflec­tions. The com­pas­sion I feel for you echoes back. That’s quite an achieve­ment in a vir­tual rela­tion­ship. Thank you!

    One of the really use­ful frame shifts we talk about with respect to hav­ing a vision is whether it’s yours or your its. Clearly you are in this dance with your cre­ations — very beautiful!

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