Tuesday, June 9, 2009

OK, super quick because I have to catch a bus in 10 minutes. Wrote something new today! Yay! First time in over a week and it's called 'On allowing myself to fail' so no prizes for guessing my method for putting pen to paper. So all good. Haven't read anything, but I'll be at the IIML for part of the afternoon and I'm hoping to track down some Frederick Seidel stuff and get into it.

Also, pretty close to finishing The Rehearsal. It is a fantastic book. I read a review by (I think?) the NY Times that said it was good and when Ellie learns to pack an emotional punch she will be great. Interesting comment (in relation to poetry too). Does writing need an emotional punch? Can it operate successfully on an intellectual level? Or is it just great to have both? But yeah, I think it is a great book, although I can't help wondering if it hammers home the whole 'performance as life' theme just a little too often. Dunno about that though. Maybe we wouldn't get it then? Or would we. Is just having the two different worlds enough to show this. The high school and the drama school. Do we get it, just from that?

Amazing insights though. Like the person who when thinking about death comes to the conclusion that they feel nothing and their life returns to normal pretty quickly. They don't have any amazing epiphanies or view life in a different way and they have to force themselves to feel sad. I have always wondered about the performances people put on around death. The few encounters I have had with it have always left me thinking more about myself than anything else. The kind of selfishness that no one ever seems to admit to. We have to be strong at those times. Why? It seems to be only truly incomprehensible thing humans have to deal with. Why can't we just be confused and ambivalent and selfish? Sorry, ranting. This isn't about literature any more.

2 comments:

  1. Good on your for starting writing again. I wrote 20 lines last night after only editing, reviewing and marking for the last two months. They were rubbish but necessary to start!

    I suggest you watch this as food for thought about the writing process, it helped me a great deal:

    http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

    Sarah

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  2. Thanks. That was good once I got past the whole ear-piece-mic'd-up-motivational-fist-pumping thing. :)

    And I'm definitely allowing myself to fail this week and doing so spectacularly.

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