Writing 101: Unlock Your Mind
To get started, let's loosen up. Let's unlock the mind. Today, take twenty minutes to free write. And don't think about what you'll write. Just write.
And for your first twist? Publish this stream-of-consciousness post on your blog.
Before I could free write this entry, I had to make the bed. Next I dusted the main floor. Then I vacuumed. As I did this, I thought about what I would write to strangers who know nothing about me. Except that I need to make the bed before I write. Actually, I spent an hour this morning reading and mulling and blogging before I made the bed. but when it came to writing a blog like this one straight out of my head the editor came out like a housekeeper with her feather duster. and she would not let me put anything to paper until I did something about that unmade bed. why do I feel the need to make the bed? by the end of the day I will be as it will be...unmade. will I feel loved with its sheets wrapped around me? or will it be like I feel when I see a blank piece of paper? Unfulfilled until it is filled? when all of me is asleep again and wafting in the dreams I wake from wondering about the hazy real, will I remain a dust mote drifting in a ray of sun cast through the window i promise to clean tomorrow or the next day or the day after that? or will I be the glass vase I shine today buff until it glows? will I untangle the mass of yarn balls that seem to conjoin when I am not looking when they are just sitting together in my knitting basket un-needled yet somehow felting together. how does that happen? why do I vacuum the carpet when the dog with scratch fur onto it five minutes later? why do I wash the entry floor when it rained last night and mud is sure to enter? why bother unless there is something to fulfill in the cleaning? in the action of the mundane there seems to be a calm. in a made bed I see smoothness. in a wiped clean counter I smell a fresh breath. in a vacuum line a path to promise bids me to walk across it. I think there must be something to it just like the blank page. the blank page I did not want to write this free writing on because I knew I wouldn't finish. I knew it would not be edited. the editor in me would see the misplaced commas the clutter of words the want for some word i could not remember the action of a verb inactive. and very soon my timer will go off and this post will end before I am ready. then what? is it again all for nothing? like a dust mote? like dog hair floating back onto the carpet? like a twisted hodge-podge of remnant yarn I'm tempted to cut a part or simply throw away? But, then it might be like when I thought I lost my great-grandmother's needle last night. I searched--and sorted along the way-- until I found it under the footrest of the couch. a double-point set of needles is pretty useless without five needles. a double-point set of needles belonging to my great-grandmother seems extremely valuable at 11:00 at night. It seems a relief in the morning to have found it before turning on the vacuum. It seems a relief to not lose sleep or admit the loss to my mother. it seems a relief to know those remnant bits of yarn are stowed under my spare needles for a time when I can unwind them carefully. they might be of use again someday. this post might be of use someday, too. if anything it will show I care about commas, spelling, and grammar. because I don't plan to change what I have written here. no this will be a hodge-podge for another day when I can untangle it. well, I might change the spelling. I might add in a comma here or there. I might stop writing like e.e. cummings. after all, a day requires a made bed to make it fulfilled doesn't it. there is something about peeling back the sheets at the end of the day and climbing in to the coolness, the softness. it is like stepping...