This blog is one writer’s attempt to stoke the fires of creativity—certainly mine, and hopefully yours too.
I’ve had a lot of different jobs in life—student, file clerk, line cook, delivery driver, editor—but ever since I was nine years old, I’ve also been writing fiction, poetry, and essays. Writing seems to be how I make sense of the world, or at least how I get through the day. The world does not always make sense. My writing sometimes makes too much sense. So I’m trying to put more world in my writing and more of my writing in the world.
When I first started this blog, I wanted it to be of use to both myself and my readers. I hoped the readers would somehow hold me accountable for my writing, so that I would work harder at it. I also hoped readers would learn from my failures, be encouraged by my successes (assuming I had any), and failing that, at least be entertained or amused by it all.
I no longer feel the need to blog as a way of holding my own feet to the fire of writing. Some kind of switch has flipped (perhaps it’s called “turning forty-five”), and I now get plenty done without having to write a post about it. But I still hope that my writer’s journey might be able to help someone else, if only by negative example: “Well, I definitely don’t want to be like that guy.” And there’s still the hope that someone might get a laugh out of my sillier Keystone Kops escapades.
I’m interested in the unconscious as a source of creativity, so sometimes I post the contents of my dreams, and I investigate ways in which the unconscious invades the conscious, colonizing the waking world with the stuff of myth and legend. These interests help explain my attraction to fantasy, science fiction, and horror, although I am probably not a genuine fan of those genres; it’s more of a love/hate relationship. I can’t decide if that’s better or worse than my relationship with the genres of mainstream literary fiction and nonfiction, which can best be characterized as love/boredom.
In the preface to Notes from a Native Son, James Baldwin wrote: “I want to be an honest man and a good writer.” Same here. I hope this blog helps me achieve those goals, and I hope it helps you too.
Amen, brother, amen.
I often wonder if my nights’ dreams hold my creative forces hostage. I know that if I can remember them, which I do most nights, then I can draw on that well of incredible imagery and surreal magic. But alas, in the morning, my mind gives way to the rational, what does it all means, and I tend to lose the pure flow of my unconscious. I long to tap into the purity of those dreams. And so, I wish you luck, dear friend!
Kathleen: Good to see you here!
Jasmine: I think I feel the same way. I’ve decided that the closest I can get to accessing that material is just to write down the dream as completely as I can, including as much detail as I can remember. I think my goal is akin to what I understand Jungian analysis to be, which is to forge a better working relationship between the conscious and the unconscious. Hopefully writing down my dreams will help with that.
yay! so good to see you on here, really looking forward to reading your writing…