I started to read back through my own notebooks. I have about twelve or so, plus a few others dedicated to recording specific things: poems that move me; writing project ideas; a do-it-yourself-MFA-in-progress where I synthesise ideas and craft elements gleaned from listening to podcasts and reading essays and books on writing.
I’ve been practicing writing, solidly, for eight years. But I haven’t read back through my notebooks beyond a superficial flip of a few pages every now and then. I’ve been afraid to. Until now.
I’ve learned the creation of art exists in a sort of dream space time…it’s malleable and stretches and contracts in unpredictable ways. I’ve learned too that time is only one element of many that shape a work of art.
I’ve trained myself to allow notebook writing to be completely free…no cross outs, no fixing…and over the years I have been able to (almost) silence the inner editor. And so, the writing in my notebooks captures my thoughts as they come.
I’ve trained myself to be patient. Images and thoughts arrive in fragments…often when I’m not at my writing desk…like a dandelion seed floating on a breeze. First, I notice and recognise the inspiration and then I make a herculean effort to remember and write it down as soon as I can. And over the years I’m getting better at not judging the fragments…better at not forcing them to fit writing I already have in place. This is hard work for me. Waiting. Noticing. Not judging. Recording.
I haven’t read back through my notebooks. I’ve been afraid. Afraid of pages and pages of, “I can’t write” or “I suck at this”, or some variation on that theme. And yes, there’s a lot of that in there. A lot.
But reading back I discovered something else: the fragments have been arriving for years…little tiny bits and pieces that serve different writing projects (I have many projects on the go)…arriving like dust motes drift, to land between my pages. They arrive not in a line, or in sequential order, or one project at a time…they bubble up and splash and explode, bump up against each other, circle, loop back…they are wild, they are of their own energy.
So, I’m reading backwards to write ahead. And practicing: waiting, noticing, not judging, recording.
Process Peace 