Posted by Mark H. on May 24, 2000, at 3:13:06
In reply to Question to writers, posted by brian on May 24, 2000, at 0:47:42
Map your cycles. Keep a diet diary -- write down 100% of everything you eat, when, how you feel. Note your exposures to pollens, detergents, diesel fumes, whatever. Arguments with the SO. Stuffed anger over topics you can't change.
Write ahead when you're well. Fall back to the rules: show, don't tell. Outline half a dozen pieces on a good day; lay in the working body; play with the color and texture while you still feel the associations.
Crib your unfinished work. Look for a good vein and mine it.
Blow it all off and take a walk. Always carry a notebook. Look for something to read that is so good it makes you want to give up writing forever. Get mad: pick up the Readers Digest and see what others are getting paid to put out. Get laid.
My depression comes. I'm dull but accurate. I borrow spark then. (I edit -- destroyed what little writing ability I ever had -- never edit.) Get a second p-t job as a bookkeeper. See if you can do bank recons when you think you can't write. It might pay the rent.
Read every post boBB writes, even the ones (perhaps especially the ones) when you know you are listening to the exposed nerve in his jaw. Then read his rhapsodic entries, his gentle love for an overwrought mother, his friendship and concern for those in the line of fire, his fury with the arrogant. Notice that he breaks the rules of writing with the authority of confidence in his own voice.
Don't take the advice of an editor. ;-)
Mark H.
poster:Mark H.
thread:34476
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000517/msgs/34481.html