• Skip to main content
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Goodreads

ML Hart

ML Hart's journal of observations, obsessions and inspirations

  • Home
  • Books
    • The FAB Book
    • Inside the Music
    • The Art of Making Opera
  • Words and Images
    • Writing
    • Photography
    • Creativity
    • Opera & Theatre
  • Recommendations
    • Artists & Craft
    • Drama & Dance
    • Movies & TV
    • Music
    • Opera
    • Positivity +
    • Reading
  • About
    • Reviews
    • ML Hart résumé
    • Articles and Interviews
  • Blog
    • Books
    • Creativity
    • Film & TV
    • Miscellany
    • Photography
    • Reading
    • Writing
  • Contact

Playing with writing the words

April 8, 2009 by Martha

Novelists have the luxury of leading us down the neural pathways of a character’s mind, allowing us to wander the by-ways, stopping at every scenic overlook on our way to Casterbridge, Casablanca, Mordor, Starkfield, the Land of Oz, the epoch of belief, the heart of darkness. We laugh, we cry; we suffer, sympathize and triumph with the characters in a novel as the author lets us eavesdrop – leisurely, tangentially, mysteriously – on their thoughts and the full spectrum of their secrets. The not-novelists have no such luxury.

Poets and playwrights are tasked with using fewer words for their explorations. They may not have as much freedom to wander, but they’re not in any danger of wandering off the path, either. The writing of a poem, a story, or a play is all about the limitations.

That’s hardly a bad thing, as there’s nothing that’ll fire up one’s creativity faster than the need to find a way ‘round an apparent roadblock: a two-color palette, the twelve-tone scale, or sixteen lines capped off with a rhyming couplet. Stories cut to the chase with fewer words than a novel; plays are all about words; poetry is about the perfect word. So, are we denied an inner glimpse or the revelation of tortured thoughts in these forms? There’s an anguished six-word story attributed to Hemingway that’s as good as anything I’ve ever read.

But that’s not the point, or else Charles Dickens would’ve been Emily Dickinson. How do they do it? How do writers start? Is it the idea? Lovely morning, I think I’ll write about madness. Or is it the need to write? Maybe I have to pay the bills. I can make a case for having fewer options (limitations again) with no fall-back job in place. I wonder if Hardy, Wharton, et al., zapped by the creative spirit, smiled grimly at a blank page and mused, “Where do I start?”

That Blank-Page Syndrome makes me start in the middle, usually in the middle, because at the beginning is just too damn difficult. It doesn’t have to be the actual center, of course. It can be a tempting character or a tantalizing emotion; it can be a scene that haunts, a thought that won’t let go of me. I’ve done all of those. It can be get-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-and-put-the-words-down, just to grasp the pastel outline of the dream before it glimmers away in the dawn. Yeah, I’ve done that, too. And sometimes I start with what I want to call just-writing.

That’s the hardest, just writing. Great phrase, isn’t it? It sounds so simple. One foot in front of the other, one bloody day at a time, just write – whether it feels good, whether I’m in the zone, even if it’s the hardest thing ever. Sometimes I’m going along, my infernal internal editor fully on (the bastard) and the writing clunks and chugs and sputters Oh. My. God. It’s got to be the worst crap in the world.

Doesn’t matter. Because looking at it the next day, it’s usually not nearly that bad. In fact, I usually wonder what the hell I was thinking, because, y’know, this’ll work if I— and change this word— and oh, right, now I see where it needs to go.

So why don’t I just go and do it?

  • Exhibit A: I’ve got two years of research, all the photographs, a detailed outline, and a couple sample chapters for a kick-ass second book – but no more forward movement.
  • Exhibit B: I’ve got a dynamite ending to Act I of a play – the middle-of-the-night-gotta-write-it-right-now one – with a polish I put on that scene a couple years ago and it still reads like a dream – but no beginning and no second act.
  • Exhibit C: I’ve got a great idea and the perfect one-word opening line for another play, one with music – and that hasn’t happened either. Oh wait, that one’s about writer’s block – could be a problem.

Never mind how one starts. How does one overcome the inertia and continue just writing?

At the other end of the spectrum, Arthur William Radford airly intones, “Half of art is knowing when to stop.”

Maybe now would be a good time to stop this. I need to go and just-write.

 

This is one in a series of learning exercises, in tangible form, imperfectly recording my journey towards my own writer’s voice. See my introduction to the response papers and read the next in the sequence.

Category: WritingTag: writers block

About Martha

I tell stories with keyboard and camera. Words and images. Pull up a chair.

Previous Post:cut-out letters spell WORDS hung from strings like marionettesQuestion everything: art, words and form
Next Post:Reading is ‘something you do’my books remind me of this fanciful illustration of woman reading a book
ML Hart logo

MUSINGS ON THE ARTIST’S LIFE

ML Hart’s journal of observations, obsessions & inspirations

Writer. Documentary photographer. Artist.
I’m inspired by both shadow and light and curious about most everything. Welcome to my journal of musings.

More about ML Hart.

Contact Me

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Goodreads

Explore Topics

Comment Policy

Play-nice guidelines for commenting on posts and articles.

Privacy and Cookies

Privacy on the internet is as important to me as it is to you. Details about how this site may track and store data such as email addresses can be found in the Privacy Notice and Cookie Policy.

Copyright

Copyright © 1995 – 2022 ML Hart
Original writings and other works, including posts, stories, reviews, excerpts from books, extracts from interviews for The Tenor Book, unless otherwise attributed; all photography and artwork, except as noted.

All rights reserved.

Confused about copyright and why it’s important to a writer and artist? Puzzled about copying content from someone else’s site? Take a look at my Copyright Reference page and Why Copyright Matters post.

Permissions

Contact me for permission to re-post, quote from, link to in whole or in part, or for use in any form.

Copyright © 2023 · ML Hart · All Rights Reserved
LOGO BY RFG3 | SITE ASSISTANCE BY CALLIAWEB.CO.UK | POWERED BY SITEGROUND