At Poets United: I Wish I'd Written This I had an epiphany after reading a Charles Bukowski poem. I realized sometimes I force my writing, rarely with good results but mostly I would write an uninspired jumble of words that sometimes made sense and sometimes rhymed. Many were pieces I had thrown together for the guidelines and not something I felt from the heart. People left kind comments and encouraged me to continue to write by complimenting my deep messages there merely by accident.
I may simply be an example of an Insecure Writer but I don't think so. Unless my writing is like Bukowski said "...when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you." I have had those moments but not every time I write.
So I continue from here and see what happens.
12 comments:
a beautiful sky.
i cannot imagine any writer who doesn't force their work, sometimes!
LOL about the "deep messages". When I struggled through poetry in HS I felt certain that the messages our English teacher found in the poems were a lot of BS, and not purposefully put there by the author.
I like the prompts too. I always enjoyed Jenny Matlock's Saturday Centus, and miss it.
Keep on writing!
I don't know, my friend. I really don't. I just know we all have to start somewhere..and if you don't use it, you lose it. Truer words..etc. etc.
Hang in there and enjoy. That's the secret I think. If you love it...then do it.
I can't play the piano either but I keep doing it. Every single day. I don't have to make myself..it's something I can't help. I cannot walk by it without feeling the urge to sit down and play something. Badly or not..I play for me. Same with the pen..pick it up and WRITE! :)
You are so right! "Continue and see what happens." It's truly the name of the game, I think.
Love,
Mona
I do believe what this poem says, it is that way for writers, that is why some books we pick up and can't put down until the last page and some we can put down and some we can't read at all... yours does come in bursts and i can tell a forced one from a burst easily... when i write a post and people like it, they comment you should do this every day. the thing is some just burst into being and on other days, i use jokes because my head has nothing. poets are the same way i think... i agree with Mona, write when you want and what you want and forget what others think of it...
Creativity is not turned on like a faucet...sometimes it is dripping, sometimes opened fully. Your well is far from dry...:)JP
Deep messages by accident? That's my style of writing. I stumble through often.
If you enjoy it, keep writing, because you are better than you think.
The setting sun of an August night
Fills my heart with such delight -
Trees, power lines, pinks and blues'
Blesses me with thoughts of you.
The words come to us in various ways
Sometimes spurts, or many days -
As long as we create when the feeling comes -
Another is waiting in your mind to be done.
So, pick up your pen, and your paint brush too
or other ways that you create and do
Glue, Paint, Write or even haul rocks
Cause we never rest when creativity knocks.
......Spur of the moment - see, you inspired me - ain't that good but it was fun. lol, hugz to M n all xo
Well I have to say just keep doing what you are doing it works very well you do have the gift of words and I love that. Hug B
I like your writing Gail . . . keep on, keep on . . .
If you feel like Bukowski says . . .
". . . it comes out of your soul like a rocket, . . ."
Then you are meant to
Keep on, Keep on . . .
All I know is, it is all good practice. The more you do it the better you will get. I admire you for putting what you do into your writing. There is a passion there.
Lovely picture, Gail.
If you write, you write. If not, well, perhaps another day.
I know a few writers. If they force it, sometimes they don't like it.
And sometimes inspiration hits them in the middle of it.
You never know.
*hugs* and have a great week. ♥
Sometimes I write freely; sometimes I force it. And true, the ones that come as gifts from God are better. But the ones I push my way through are more uniquely my own.
I see them as victories, because no matter how they started, my determination can usually bring them to the right ending. Or close enough, anyway.
=)
PS. I enjoyed the essay that accompanies that Bukowski poem. She makes some excellent points. And methinks writing is not such a black and white proposition as Charles painted it in the moment he wrote that poem. I suspect he might even have agreed with me, on a different day. I hope so, because talent needs to respect its own.
Talent is talent, no matter the size or the dimensions. One thing's for sure, writing begets more writing...and better writing. And if we wait too long, we take ourselves out of the game.
Thanks for a great post. As you can see, you got me thinking and feeling. (Isn't that what writers do...get people to think and feel?) Enough said. ;)
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