The Proverbial Truth?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 00:05:51 EST

[yipes--another week slipping into the pages of the diaries and journals, weathering grey newsprint molding in the catbox, and just these few letters and punctuation marks to build a bridge across the tides and spew of time...]

1. Pick a number! From one to six, roll a dice, throw a mental dart into the bullseye of your brain, or whatever you like, but pick your number.

2. May we see your number, please? Ah, that would be:

1. Ingratitude is worse than witchcraft. 1846-59: Denham Tracts, ii. 83 (F.L.S.)
2. The higher the plum-tree, the sweeter the plumme. 1639: Clarke, 88
3. Euery one for him selfe and the diuel for al (Every man for himself and the devil for all) 1578: Florio, First Fruites, fo. 33
4. How easy a thing it is to find a staff if a man be minded to beat a dog. 1563: Becon, Early Works, Pref., 28 (P.S.)
5. The couetous man is good to no man, and worst to himselfe. (The covetous man is good to none, but worst to himself) 1614: Lodge, tr. Seneca, 443
6. And a proverb haunts my mind As a spell is cast; "The mill cannot grind With the water that is passed." c. 1890: S. Doudney, Lesson of the Watermill

[quotes from The Wordsworth Dictionary of Proverbs by G.L. Apperson, ISBN 1-85326-321-4, Wordsworth 1993. It may be worth noting that many of these proverbs have been stated several times with slightly variant wordings--you should see the history of "A penny saved is a penny earned"!]

3. So, you have your proverb. Ponder on it. Turn it inside out, check out the stitching, see how it fits...

4. And write a scene showing us the silver lining of your proverb. You might do a poem, you might do a short story, you might even just do a meditation phrased in grandiloquent phrases ringing deep in the hearts and minds of our peoples...

[incidentally, if these are proverbs, are there also amateur verbs? what are they like? or how about converbs, the tortured criminals of the linguistic community, rattling their tinny cups against the stone walls and iron bars that do not a prison make? adverbs, just to fill the commercial space?]

Take Stock of Your Self

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 11:25:41 EST

This is a bit of contemplation, advice, rededication--not so likely to make you write today, but may help you write yourself (there's a pun in there somewhere)

Our very own wench in the webworks asked about being tired, frustrated, lacking in time.

The answer, at least from me, is YES!

I spent three days this week in a training class. I've got the hour to two hours every day that goes to keeping this list running smoothly. Life outside work muddles along, life at work strangles, and somehow around the edges I dearly want to write and critique and think and...

The exercise de jour is:

1. Stop. Take a deep breath. Think about how you got to this point. Five minutes more each day doing this, a little extra effort there, and suddenly you are stumbling and bleary under a load that would kill a mule. Or maybe you deliberately decided to accept one major change--and there went all the other pieces, suddenly crashing down around you?

In any case, embrace where you are and understand it.

2. Decide what you want to change, if anything. Sometimes we really like what we're doing, but have a mistaken perception about it.

3. Think through your goals. One of the liberating experiences for me was realizing that I could work towards my goals in various ways--quotas, process, etc. It may make sense to set yourself a goal of so many words per day, pages per week, or even pages per month--or maybe you work better with one hour per day? Use the kind that helps you, not the kind that crunches you.

I find myself that I tend to put off things I enjoy until I've done the drudge work--and then I'm so wiped out that I have trouble making myself do what I wanted to. Sometimes it is better to do the things you enjoy first, then use the energy that you build up in doing those things to help with cleaning the stables.

I also get confused between what other people want and what I want. People are quite willing to tell you what they think you should be doing. Unfortunately, I find very few of them are willing to help you do all the things that they think you should somehow manage to fit into your life.

I have to make a conscious effort from time to time to strip away those "little extra efforts" that have crept into my life and focus on the things that I really think are important to me.

4. Consider some different forms. We've done 100 word stories (both single syllable and other). That's a kind of writing that almost anyone can fit into their days, somewhere. Haiku, tonka (?), and the various formal poetic styles (sonnet, etc.) provide another kind of writing where the time spent putting pen to paper is small, although the time spent thinking may be large.

For some time, in Japan, I was studying many hours a day to learn the language, putting in too many hours at the office (opening a new sales office takes effort!), and otherwise driving myself into the ground. I took to carrying crossword puzzles, clipped from the newspaper, and filling them out slowly whenever I could find a moment or two to think about the clues. Those "short breaks" sometimes took place in bathrooms, waiting for the waitress to bring lunch, etc.--and somehow the effort of focusing on a clue and thinking of the word was refreshing for me. I know it isn't the kind of writing that we often think of on this list, but it is a kind of exercise...

I know it is an old form, but the epigram--one sentence, beautifully worded and tersely informative--is still something that you can work on anywhere and anytime.

5. Give yourself a break. Lawrence Block talks about his realization that the novel wasn't working, and deciding to take a one-year vacation from writing novels, as one of the major productive decisions in his life. When your life is too full, it may be time to live your life to the fullest, storing up experience and thoughts for the future.

So, in summary, let me just say--

Stop, think, and then go on with your life, doing what you feel is best.

Write when you have time.