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dawn_felagund"A book is a sneeze."
-E.B. White
When asked why he wrote Charlotte's Web, author E.B. White replied with the metaphor above. I love this metaphor and think it will make sense to more than a few others participating in this year's Season of Writing Dangerously. A sneeze is spontaneous, it feels really good, it clears your head, and it can get messy, just like the stories we write and the art we create. It is involuntary too--it's not like you can make yourself sneeze, and I suspect quite a few of us would say the same of our writing and art. It's not like you can force yourself into the right mode to do your best creative work.
But a lot of us try to do just that and eventually learn to trudge through stories that no longer inspire us or ideas long gone stale in order to get them done. As we head into the second half of Season of Writing Dangerously, I know quite a few of us are doing less sneezing than we are trudging.
But this week, I want to encourage our participants to try to recapture a little of that involuntary spontaneity that often marks the beginning of a new project. Stop. Drop what you're doing. And sneeze--or, put more plainly, work on your SoWD projects.
Now many of you will raise the point that it is a really bad time right this second ... fair enough. A sneeze is a quick action. Work for five minutes, write 20 words, edit a paragraph, post that story you've been putting off ... or if it's not so bad a time, pledge to stop surfing the Internet *stern look at self* and dedicate yourself to your project for the next hour. Or more. Perhaps without planning, dreading, and working up to making progress on our projects--by just sneezing--we will recapture some of the spontaneity that makes the first steps on a new piece so enjoyable.
As always, these motivational posts are for free use by SoWD participants. Feel free to share your progress, bemoan your struggles, or ask for help from your fellow participants. Now I have an hour-and-a-half and feel a sneeze coming on :)
-E.B. White
When asked why he wrote Charlotte's Web, author E.B. White replied with the metaphor above. I love this metaphor and think it will make sense to more than a few others participating in this year's Season of Writing Dangerously. A sneeze is spontaneous, it feels really good, it clears your head, and it can get messy, just like the stories we write and the art we create. It is involuntary too--it's not like you can make yourself sneeze, and I suspect quite a few of us would say the same of our writing and art. It's not like you can force yourself into the right mode to do your best creative work.
But a lot of us try to do just that and eventually learn to trudge through stories that no longer inspire us or ideas long gone stale in order to get them done. As we head into the second half of Season of Writing Dangerously, I know quite a few of us are doing less sneezing than we are trudging.
But this week, I want to encourage our participants to try to recapture a little of that involuntary spontaneity that often marks the beginning of a new project. Stop. Drop what you're doing. And sneeze--or, put more plainly, work on your SoWD projects.
Now many of you will raise the point that it is a really bad time right this second ... fair enough. A sneeze is a quick action. Work for five minutes, write 20 words, edit a paragraph, post that story you've been putting off ... or if it's not so bad a time, pledge to stop surfing the Internet *stern look at self* and dedicate yourself to your project for the next hour. Or more. Perhaps without planning, dreading, and working up to making progress on our projects--by just sneezing--we will recapture some of the spontaneity that makes the first steps on a new piece so enjoyable.
As always, these motivational posts are for free use by SoWD participants. Feel free to share your progress, bemoan your struggles, or ask for help from your fellow participants. Now I have an hour-and-a-half and feel a sneeze coming on :)
