It’s interesting–and sometimes tragic–what life does to creativity. Pictures have been going through my mind this morning of when I was young. Very young, pre-teens. If I didn’t have a book in my hands, I had a sketch pad or any blank piece of paper so that I could draw, sometimes out of my imagination but often trying to capture figures and forms from the book of paintings I had. My other constant was a pad and paper, or a notebook, or whatever I could find, so that I could write stories.

I remember one story in particular because I showed it to my mom and though her face blanched a little, she praised it like she did all my work. I grew up in Hollywood in the midst of the hippie generation and free love and all that and though I didn’t talk a lot, I listened closely to my older brother’s friends and to various adults and, of course, to other children. So my story was filled with sex (as far as I understood it at the time — I was about 9 or 10) and free love, and people sharing partners, men partnering with men and women with women, then sometimes switching off and all sorts of fun things. I had no idea at the time what gay, lesbian or bisexual was, but as my brother was gay and many of his friends also, it was just a natural part of life and relationships to me.

(I think, sometimes, people think I’m a bit of a prude because I rarely enter into the conversations about sex and sexuality and orgasms and all that. But it’s not prudishness, mostly; it’s boredom. Not only was I surrounded by peace and love and sexual freedom and all that during most of my childhood, for part of the time I attended a “free school”, Summerhill, where pretty much anything went, everyone talked about everything and any questions you had were answered, even if you never asked them.

Every generation “discovers” sex, but the generation before me not only discovered it, they never shut up about it. I was bored to tears with the topic by the time I hit my mid teens. Now, if it’s not happening to me, I simply don’t care.)

Anyway, I don’t have the story anymore and I’m pretty sure I’d die laughing if I read it today, but my mom… she just read it and smiled and told me I did a wonderful job. She never discouraged any of my art or creativity, or that of my brother. I don’t know what happened that I came to the conclusion that creating, in those ways, was not only a waste of time, but that I wasn’t any good at it. I don’t recall anyone actually telling me that, so I must have been the one to tell myself. Which is not surprising–I’m really good at discouraging myself.

But still, the creative instinct had to go somewhere. Once I got online it came out in the building of sites and communities. I loved it, and always had so many ideas of what to do. I wanted to build the perfect sites, and have them do this and that and the other thing. Even when one was done, I’d want to add this, or change that, or have this happen — why can’t this happen, and that do this instead?

In other words, I’m pretty sure I drove a number of people working with me absolutely batty. I love new ideas, but I don’t like to stick with them all the time. I like to put them out there and move on to the next new idea. Great if I had a lot of money or investors and people who wanted to do something but don’t know what to do. Not so great if you are me and my one friend who is willing to help me implement things (poor thing, she’s gotten the brunt of my “why don’t we do this!?” stuff.)

But… now that I have rediscovered writing, and have decided that, yes, I can write fiction, I realized something. This, I think, is what I have been looking for, and have been missing all this time. I am creating a world right now and having so much fun. And if I decide that this part of the world needs this, and doesn’t really need that anymore, it’s simply a matter of getting rid of one thing and writing another. I can let my imagination soar, change things on a whim, come up with new ideas every day and write them in and do all sorts of things all by myself.

I’m going to write about that (in non-scribbling form) and also about some of the things a wonderful commenter, Ivan, has been saying in the comments to this post. So much to think about, and I am so encouraged now.

I’ve long been inspired by an idea I first learned about in The Artist’s Way called morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of writing done every day, typically encouraged to be in “long hand”, typically done in the morning, that can be about anything and everything that comes into your head. It’s about getting it all out of your head, and is not supposed to be edited or censored in any way. The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day. Unlike many of the other exercises in that book, I found that this one actually worked and was really really useful.

It’s a good idea and a fun site. I started doing it again and was on a 13 day streak of writing over 750 per day – then something happened and I couldn’t (or simply did not want to, maybe) write for three or four days. And, I think like the last time I started and stopped, it was because it really wasn’t working for me.

Apparently I have very little brain to dump in the mornings, so most of what I was doing was getting anything in there at all so that I could meet the word count. I tried writing at different times of the day to see if would be more effective, say, at night when it would be supposed that my brain would be a little more crowded. No go! That word count was still in the back of my mind and I would keep looking to see how far I had gotten.

Worst thing about it is, it really hasn’t freed up anything in my mind so that I can write elsewhere. Like here. It just takes up the little time I have for personal writing before I get into the weeds of drudgery writing. So, while I like the idea of the site, and even like participating, I think it’s just not for me at this point in time. I have decided, in fact, (again, I think) that I will just inflict my morning scribbles, disconnected thoughts and story ideas on everyone, instead writing them down on a private, disconnected site. It’s not as if I write anything really private–I have for years been of the belief that nothing you put online is really private. And in recent years that’s pretty much been borne out, I believe, with all the privacy violations of Facebook, Google, so on. I rarely write anything online, no matter how private the space, that I would not mind shouted from the rooftops.

Anyway, just to let you know that anything tagged “scribbles” can safely be ignored by both of my readers, because they will be just disconnected, unedited (as if I edit anything else, either, lol) thoughts and scribbles.

So, this morning I kept scribbling and in the process came up with something to write about in a non-scribbling fashion. It came about because up above somewhere I’d written “at this point in time”, and I remembered that I always get dinged for that by grammar software. So I got to thinking about lazy language, and habits and all that, and that led to thinking about people I know who use language well. And I scribbled up some thoughts about all that.

It’s in drafts now (otherwise known as “The Black Hole”) but it is halfway done so I may finish it. It is on, as I wrote, language–one of the banes of my writerly existence–and how I view the language and very different writing styles of four literary friends of mine. I never, ever compare my writing to theirs because if I do I will just get discouraged. But I love to read their stuff and think about what makes it so compelling, so that’s what I have scribbled about.

Now to do the adult thing and write it out, set it aside, edit it, look it over, edit it again–and only then put it online. Heh.

At first I sat down and, over a few days, dashed off about 50,000 words all together, and then got stuck. I simply had no idea what the story was about (beyond the beginning), no idea where to go next, and along with all that, when I went back to do editing I instead started writing the entire thing over again. I found that annoying.

So, I figured out that I am not a “seat of the pants” writer, even though I don’t like structure much as a rule. Mind, lack of structure has me wasting time and redoing things in other parts of my life as well, but I think I am too old to change that. At least, in things other than writing my book, that is.

What I have been working on now is an outline, of sorts. Still sort of scattered, but I figure that’s okay as long as I have the main points and events in there. I know where the story needs to go, I know what’s in the middle, and I know what happens at the end. Well, what the goal is that needs to be reached, anyway. And by adding scene ideas or little notes along the way, I can also see what needs to happen in each chapter. Theoretically.

I really don’t think having an outline will constrain my imagination, though. In fact, I think it will allow it to soar in between the lines. I know in general what needs to happen, so that leaves me free to apply myself to making it happen in a cohesive, interesting way. Or changing it completely, but still keeping it within the big picture.

Another advantage is that I don’t have that much problem with imagination and thinking up things; my main problem is in the language. Working within the basic structure of the outline will save me from having to think up every part of the story as I go along, thus allowing me to focus my attention on word choice and placement and all that. This is the plan, anyway, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t work out.

If it doesn’t, though, well this is my practice book, so I’ll just try something else next.

Work. The drive to make money to take care of the bills and secure my living space is a big part of it. Because I choose to work out of my home (though, really, at my age and having been out of the physical workplace for the past 10 or so years while I was caring for my mom, I am not sure I have many other options) I have been feel as if any moment not spent on pounding the keyboard for pay is a stolen moment. After all, am I not behind on everything and should not everything I do be geared toward catching up? Even the mornings?

Only I don’t. Catch up, that is. In fact, I am falling further and further behind–not because the work is not there (though that is indeed the case, sometimes) but because … well, I find other things to do, lots of time wasting, yes, but I think there is a bit more to it. This has been quite a year.

Living space. I am not in my own living space. When the apartment complex I lived in went under foreclosure, I decided to rent a room instead of getting another apartment right away. The room is in the home of ex family (my former sisters and brother-in-law) and, barring a few incidents, they are very nice and all that. But I don’t feel settled, or home I suppose you could say. More like a long-term guest. And so, I no longer putter around in the early mornings, peeking out the windows at the sunrise, sitting quietly and thinking or jotting down mental or physical notes. I just stay in my room.

I need to get into my own place after the new year, but until then…

Depression. Or something. This has been a year changes and of not very good things happening and I think I failed to effectively deal with some of it. In fact, I know I did… only, I only know this looking back and considering some stuff. I imagine that there is enough distance now from events that I can see more clearly their effect on me and the oddness of my internal reactions. As an introvert I am fairly proficient at self-interrogation but, like most everyone, I’m also pretty good at lying to myself. Anyway, now that I am better at recognizing the problem, I will get better at finding the solutions.

I suppose it is perfect timing that all this is coming to a head at the end of the old year and in time for the beginning of the new. I am not a “New Year’s Resolutions” type person generally, but since I need to make changes and the new year is here, I might as well count my plans as being just that. Resolutions for the new year.

Writing more is, of course, one of my daily resolutions (and we can see how well I keep that one) but there are others. I have many ideas and plans but I think the first thing I will do is somehow find a way to take back my mornings. This is a start.

Actually, before the blogger came a picture. I saw a pen and ink drawing of a somewhat serious looking young black man with a goatee, and I thought… oh, that’s him. I don’t know *why* I thought that, because the look doesn’t fit the original of the character at all, I mean his personality and all that for the brief time he was supposed to be on the scene. But then I realized… the first time meet see him he is acting a part, of sorts. As we meet him more, we realize that. I tossed this around for a bit, and it felt right, and fit with the story. But I needed more, still, he was too flat and conventional.

So, now, enter the blogger. I don’t know him. I have heard his name around the black blogs, but if I visited his site I didn’t stay or go back. Not that anything he wrote was bad — quite the opposite, in fact. I just never put it on my rotation. This time, though, I went to his site through a link, read the recommended material, and realized that I had my character. Well, partially, anyway.

I still don’t know the blogger, but now not only am I following the blog, I’ve been clicking through the back links, trying to get a handle on not so much who he is, but how he thinks. And why he thinks the things he does, in the way he does. Why is his world, and his view of it, the way it is? So far I’ve gathered a few things, but not nearly enough. He’s very intelligent, a little intense, and not at all perfect, but of course I need more, and I need to combine it with what I already know of the character. Should be fun.

I don’t know if my character himself will be a blogger — it’s an interesting idea and if I can fit it in smoothly, I might. But I do know that he will be this guy, or at least the impression of this guy that I glean.

Blogs are good for so many fun things, no?

I don’t want every little thing I write on here also posted on Facebook — I ain’t that profound! So, I have removed it and now I am free to natter, chatter, and navel-gaze to my heart’s content and the only people who will have to endure all that are the few that visit this site. And if I happen to write something that I think others will benefit from reading, I’ll just post that. Whew. Glad all that is over.

I’ve been trying to figure out what the difference was, in my mind, between writing here and putting it on Facebook or whatever, and I think it’s because the “automatic social network sharing” feels like I am, or should be, writing for someone else. Yet I started this site so that I could write for myself. So that I could experiment with this and that, try my hand at memoir writing, see if I can get my “create your life” type series going, work out my thoughts on social justice issues, and more. But — call it stage fright, maybe — if I know I have an audience of people who are not self-selected, I have trouble doing all that. It’s not that there is a huge audience, mind — I only have like 40 friends on Facebook. But every little thing posting just felt intrusive (on them) to me, so I wound up writing rarely.

So, I should be posting more, and half of it will be ungrammatical blather, so yay! Everything is back to normal.