Seasonal Plume

I’ve started a new habit: I wake up at 5:30 AM to write.

The alarm goes off at 5:25 AM, and then I drag myself out of the bed to fire up my computer, open StoryMill, hit Command-Shift-F for full-screen, and start typing away. I haven’t gone through the ones I’ve written yet, but they’re usually just a couple of paragraphs each, with typos all over the place (I hear Typinator going off about once every other minute, correcting my typos). That’s what happens when I type with sluggish hands and with my eyes closed.

Why am I doing this? Basically for two things:

1. to train my body to write creatively again, and
2. to find out which kind of writing I instinctively fall back on when most of myself is still not functioning properly.

I got this activity from Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. I seem to remember talking about this a long while ago, but as I can’t find that entry, I must be dreaming (I swear I’m fully awake now though). In chapter 5 of the book, she tells us that we “must teach the unconscious to flow into the channel of writing”.

So if you are to have the full benefit of the richness of the unconscious you must learn to write easily and smoothly when the unconscious is in the ascendant.

The best way to do this is to rise half an hour, or a full hour, earlier than you customarily rise. Just as soon as you can–and without talking, without reading the morning’s paper, without picking up the book you laid aside the night before–begin to write. Write anything that comes into your head: last night’s dream, if you are able to remember it; the activities of the day before; a conversation, real or imaginary; an examination of conscience. Write any sort of morning reverie, rapidly and uncritically. The excellence or ultimate worth of what you write is of no importance yet…your primary purpose now is not to bring forth deathless words, but to write any words at all which are not pure nonsense.

And so I write. I’ve actually “cheated”, and I think I know the answer to #2 (what writing type I fall back on) but we’ll see how this goes. In any case, I don’t see any pattern yet in my morning writing; it should come out in a month or so, I’m gauging.

The good thing? As early as now, I feel like I’m finding what my writing voice is. I already know, in a way, but I’ve written in the same “voice” at least thrice already (and I only started this week). Writing while my brain’s still muddled with sleep has its rewards, for all it’s difficult to get words in order sometimes. :D

I’ve decided to admit to cheating when I started reading Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer. It’s light reading, and I would have finished it already were it not for a certain book activity which I tried doing. I cheated and read ahead to the results interpretation, so the exercise is spoiled for me; but I think I know what the results are for me anyway.

Basically, the goal of the is to help you determine what sort of writing you’re more inclined to do. I’m sure that sounds like a no-brainer, but sometimes, I find that my brain ignores what’s right there in front of it. To cut it short, in my case, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m more of a short story writer than a novelist. Gasp!, oh noes! and general bellows of outrage! — the eye-opener met with quite a bit of resistance.

I suppose a part of myself has always known that I’m more inclined towards short stories than a full-length novel: there are lots of signs pointing to it. Previous finished work has always been under 25,000 words; I am irresistibly drawn towards exercises in brevity and enjoy writing them immensely. But I resisted; ever since I was a kid, I’d wanted to write books, and here was a book who was forcing me to see that I wasn’t really up for it. Or at least not yet.

The result was a long drought in writing. A subconscious strike? Maybe. I’ve been thinking more about it recently, though, and the more I think of it, the more I realize how I’m essentially strangling my writing and holding up practically every single creative thought-process. Because The Dream feels so difficult to reach, I subconsciously stopped reaching for the smaller dreams that may, who knows, one day lead to The Dream.

So, two days ago, I started fleshing out a short story plot, letting characters wake up and tell me their stories. I think I like this new phase.

I’d like to share something from the book that I’m still digesting:

…if you confess so much you are likely to go further and talk of the things you mean to write. Now words are your medium;…but your unconscious self…will not care whether the words you use are written down or talked to the world at large. …You will have created your story and reaped your reward…you will consider it as already done, a twice-told tale.

And before I leave — the culprit has been found: my namesake Angela was the one who nominated me for the Philippine Blog Awards (thank you!), who has just released the 2007 Philippine Blog Awards Finalists list. And, even more surprisingly, I made it. o.o;; I have no words as of yet to explain what I feel (such is my plight a lot of times these days). My co-finalists are: Far From Neutral Notions, Ironwulf.net: En Route, Midori-X, and Noel Perlas. You should check out all the rest. Good luck to everyone! *pompoms*