{"id":572,"date":"2011-01-27T13:58:17","date_gmt":"2011-01-27T18:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=572"},"modified":"2012-10-08T10:02:27","modified_gmt":"2012-10-08T14:02:27","slug":"writing-floodgates-of-the-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=572","title":{"rendered":"Writing: Floodgates of the Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"

Input and Output<\/span><\/p>\n

Writing is a cornerstone of literary living.<\/p>\n

I love reading a story, memorizing a poem, or watching a good movie.\u00a0 These expand and fill me, my heart, my mind, my soul,\u00a0and provide\u00a0valuable raw material for growing, maturing, and simply enjoying life.\u00a0 They are input for me, part of the fuel that keeps me going.<\/p>\n

Writing is the opposite: it’s output.\u00a0\u00a0Expressing thoughts, ideas, feelings and impressions on paper\u00a0helps\u00a0me own and\u00a0incorporate\u00a0the input.\u00a0 Writing provides an outlet for things that really need to get out: joy, anger, ideas, dreams and so much more.\u00a0\u00a0Living literarily involves both in and out, a balance between the two.<\/p>\n

Steam Released<\/span><\/p>\n

Setting words to paper is like releasing steam from a kettle: it relieves pressure.\u00a0 Writing can even open the floodgates of the soul, providing an outlet for deeply felt things.\u00a0 I want and need to express myself and writing is a primary way that happens.\u00a0 I find I can write worries away, or at least whittle them down to size with words I set to paper.\u00a0 I can understand a concept or recognize a feeling by writing about it.<\/p>\n

Over the last 12 years I have lived abroad in some fascinating places and from two I wrote about the life, culture, and people.\u00a0 I sent those accounts in emails to family and friends who forwarded them to their friends.\u00a0 Many wrote to express their appreciation.\u00a0 Ever since I stopped writing these essays, a loyal handful of dear ones have regularly asked when I would start writing again.<\/p>\n

Well?\u00a0 Now!<\/p>\n

One Doable Bit at a Doable Time<\/span><\/p>\n

I’m sold on the idea of doing a little bit of something rather than not doing the thing at all.\u00a0 Over the next months, I’m going to write ideas for writing that are more attainable than, say, write a novel or your memoirs or seven pages of a journal per day.\u00a0 Somehow, since writing the last batch of essays from abroad (2004-2006), I have imagined the writing task too big.\u00a0 I’ve thought I needed just the right setting.\u00a0 I’ve thought that with my day job, I really didn’t have time to be a full-time writer (sadly, I don’t).\u00a0 Or that I needed to write something completely original, or at least something as good as John Updike or John Irving or other great writers.\u00a0 Or that the world and the literary market and the Internet are so full of words, words, words, what original thing could I possibly write?<\/p>\n

What I’ve discovered is that I can write\u00a0one sentence a day.\u00a0 Or a paragraph.\u00a0 Or even a page.\u00a0 I can incorporate writing in small, doable, and for me, fun ways.\u00a0 I can also be and trust myself, my eye, my\u00a0ear, my voice.\u00a0 This is another crucial recognition.\u00a0 And, if it’s words put together by me then it’s original enough to write.<\/p>\n

Along with all the ways to live literarily, I will be writing about writing in this blog.<\/p>\n

Writing Venues<\/span><\/p>\n

I’m going to write about lots of ways you can write.\u00a0 Can’t wait to tell you how a commitment to write a Daily Sentence put me back on the path to regular writing.\u00a0 Also, though it’s not original, the practice of writing morning pages had a lot to do with me finally picking up the pen again.\u00a0 I combine doing that with keeping a Family Journal where I mix thoughts and poems and ideas with shopping lists and phone numbers and whatever comes up that needs to be set down.\u00a0 I’ll be including the letters and essays I sent from Bombay and Jerusalem, plus a new set from\u00a0where I live now on the banks of the Potomac River.\u00a0\u00a0Looking forward\u00a0to writing about keeping a Calendar Journal, possibly one of the simplest ways to start writing.\u00a0\u00a0 At some point I’ll write about Burns’ Commonplace Book and the other journals and notebooks artists and writers and composers have used.<\/p>\n

Ready to let off a little steam, to start your literary output process?\u00a0 Write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Input and Output Writing is a cornerstone of literary living. I love reading a story, memorizing a poem, or watching a good movie.\u00a0 These expand and fill me, my heart, my mind, my soul,\u00a0and provide\u00a0valuable raw material for growing, maturing, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28,13],"tags":[61,60,1078,62,1076],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7367,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions\/7367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}