As a relatively new writer - less than a year, I was sort of semi expecting to eventually fall foul of the infamous writers block syndrome. (If indeed it is called this if you are a poet...
alternative suggestions anyone) I guess this has many different forms and expressions that people have experienced over the years. In my case, I seem to have more of a regression of ability rather than a lack of creative sparks - I feel that I'm loosing the ability to write anything beyond embarrassing drivel and in particular have lost any ear or sense of meter. (Beyond knowing it is wrong!). As to why, all I can say is that it would appear that when my life is crap, this is sadly reflected in my ability to write.
I decided the best way to deal with it (for me) was to ignore it and to just keep writing ...hence my initial idea to go off and join one of the NPM events...which I now don't have to stray beyond the delights of this forum for, as Milo then obliged with the current thread that is running. I now have a place where i can be as crap as I like, as the point of the exercise is to just write something everyday...or at least the way i'm using it, it is.
I was just interested to hear from others about their struggles with this problem and in particular wondered what some of you poets with more poetry years and miles under your belts than the rest of us, might have to offer by way of past experiances, encouragement or advice.
The stuff that I set out to write, the stuff that gets planned out and worked on for months and years; I have problems a lot of the time, picking that stuff back up, based on situations in my life. But the stuff that I fall into writing, and finish within a few days or hours, poems mostly: that's the stuff that most people say they like the most. Unless they're just damning me with the faint praise.
One of the problems with getting better at something is that you start to realise how bad you actually are
. It is not that your writing has gone backwards -- it's exactly the opposite. Now you're at the stage where you know instinctively that you haven't got something quite right and, as a bit of a perfectionist, this bothers you. You question your own creativity, your own innovation -- but that's because it's yours and you're familiar with it. What we often tend to do as we improve as writers is devalue our own work because to us it doesn't seem all that clever -- we see other people's writing and say to ourselves "why didn't I think of that?" -- and the answer is you didn't because you've got your own voice now, your own ideas that you should have confidence in. Rest assured there are people reading your poems and saying exactly the same thing, wondering if they'll ever be able to express themselves so well. And they will, if they persist, but it will be different again. I started out writing easily a poem a day, many many years ago, and after a while that slowly dwindled until now I'm lucky to write a poem every six months or so, except for little bits of silliness and spontaneous verse. More times than I can count, I've decided that I'm done with it -- it's too painful, too difficult, the expectations are too high, I'll never manage to be any good, why should anybody read what I write, they're all just doing me a favour so they don't hurt my feelings.
Sound familiar?
Hi Leanne, thanks for the reply. And Yep! ...all sounds well reasoned and is probably about right. Confidence is a big ugly word in my world that is an on going daily exercise of being self disciplined enough not to run away and hide. But that is just too pathetic for words and i need to stop it!
I wasn't on a fishing trip for sympathy or compliments (nice as they are) I am genuinly interested in finding out what others use as different coping strategies to bounce themselves along or to get out of a rut.
The "Stop trying to be any good and just keep writing" method seems to be working for me this time, but i wondered if anyone else had other things that worked for them.
AJ, you should know by now that I don't do compliments. "Just keep writing" is as good a tip as any, although I know I've found there are times when I just can't bear it. I will sit for hours, pen in hand, just glaring at the page.
Always observe. The world will provide inspiration eventually.
AJ, you need to embrace the process. Don't worry if its flawed. The most important thing is getting the idea on paper. It isn't even important that you know how to fix something immediately.
For me, I go through cycles. I write non-stop for a few months at a time, and then I hibernate for awhile. I also don't enjoy the hibernation. I have the same anxieties: I can't write anymore, nothing seems interesting, everything's flawed. I mostly start reading more poetry, critique a bit more, recharge. After awhile, it comes back. I've found those chess games and NaPM stuff milo is running really helpful. When I give myself permission to write first drafts I tend to write more. I'm not looking for great poems. I'm looking for ideas that I can develop later.
When I used to want to be perfect all the time I froze. When I think, lets get there through editing and a few months or years between edits it got easier.
You write, you recharge. You see flaws you didn't previously see. It's a natural cycle when you're not staying complacent.
Hmm... the observation point is well said. I love reading the poems of other writers for the surprise and inspiration they provide with some of the ways in which they observe the world. (I think a great recent example for me would be TOMH's poem about the puddle - I love those mini adventures of the microscopic that kieth does). I've also noticed that often when a peom is posted that is offering a new view, this will then often trigger a rash of poems on a similar subject. (And picking up on another discussion thread), this in my mind is definatly not plagerism at work, but rather just creative sparks being triggered by the enviroment of the forum. These related poems are always inspirational to read i feel, as again it shows the many varied ways in which we can observe the world.
Yes! That is why a workshop is such a wonderful place to be. Inspiration feeds inspiration. Poetry is the ultimate in human experience. Or something like that.
Hi Todd, thanks for sharing those thoughts, they very much echo where I've recently had the feeling of where I need to get to. (Less wound up and tense if it is right or good enough and more relaxed and looking at the longer view of where I want to be). I think I had got so concerned with trying to write what I thought was expected or would appeal to others that I lost sight of writing for my own pleasure and just the pleasure of writing something creative or beautiful.
It was very much from watching the creative flow and reading the freedom of what you had in the chess games that triggered the thought to find my own freedom experience. (I was jealous and wanted in!). So my thanks to yourself and Brendon for the inspiration boost and my thanks to Milo for posting the ideas...it's a great space to be and to just write in.
AJ
hello... welll, this thread couldn't be better timed
for I am on my own little block at the moment. A bit of a tip though, I haven't had writer's block too often, I can think of one instance before this, but I have had... em... writer's boredom a lot. But what I usually do is paint, or make music, or write something completely different. I also found reading non-poetic stuff to help. I have recently been reading a book called 'the properties of matter', an old physics book, and i have started to feel a spark. and also a maths book by Penguin. and with 'A topological space M is called an n-manifold if it 'looks locally like' n-dimensional Euclidean space Rn...' and extremely wonderfully adaptable ideas as that, I am sure we'll be ok.
[side note: deleuzean calculus is a great motivator: "...and an abstract line, a line of flight no less deadly and no less alive than the others. On the first line, there are many words and conversations, questions and answers, interminable explanations, precisions; the second is made of silence, allusions, and hasty innuendos inviting interpretation. But if the third line flashes, if the line of flight is like a train in motion, it is because one jumps linearly on it, one can finally speak "literally" of anything at all, a blade of grass, a catastrophe or sensation, calmly accepting that which occurs when it is no longer possible for anything to stand for anything else. The three lines, however, continually intermingle."]
string theory, a delusional calculus
i kinda like string theory... it appeals to me religious side.
...although, it is funny when someone mentions it at a party and you ask them to elaborate
hey AJ, I know how you feel. I've also been trying to use NaPM as a "just WRITE" sort of kick-in-the-ass, but generally as soon as I post something there I get incredibly embarrassed. just don't feel up to par. Leanne I'm hoping your very measured response applies in my situation too, because everything I've produced lately just feels terrible beyond belief. I used to only write when it just vomited itself out, but this whole practicing thing is frustrating. does it get better in time? reading more poetry helps and hurts at once, hurts mostly just because I feel I'll never be able to create something like that. sigh.
btw AJ I've really been enjoying your NaPM poetry. and that isn't flattery, when I saw in your post you've only been writing for a year I turned green with envy that what you just churn out already reads like that.
(04-19-2013, 08:49 AM)justcloudy Wrote: [ -> ]Leanne I'm hoping your very measured response applies in my situation too
Yes it does
It's the most natural thing in the world for a conscientious writer to be filled with self doubt. It's not comforting, I'm afraid. Someone once said to me: "feeling like you're not a poet is the one sure sign that you are." We often start out quite full of ourselves, convinced that everything straight from the heart is the most perfect and uniquely beautiful sentiment ever... and then we find out the truth. For some, the journey ends there; whether they stop writing or not, they stop growing as writers. Poetry is a bit of a metaphor for life that way.
I'm lucky in that so far as poetry goes, I've been reasonably successful. Every year there are fewer and fewer people telling me I'm crap, but the ones who do -- and give me a reason -- are the ones I'm eternally grateful to, even if at first I might want to smack them in the face with a really large dictionary. Or a VW. But I still have days -- sometimes weeks -- where I will curl up in a ball and cry my eyes out because the one thing that I think I'm really good at isn't really all that good at all and when will I stop torturing myself and others like this, it's not fair that nobody wants to read my stuff and I can't write anymore and it hurts so much... and then I see or hear something that I absolutely have to get down on paper, and the whole miserable cycle starts again
(04-19-2013, 08:49 AM)justcloudy Wrote: [ -> ]hey AJ, I know how you feel. I've also been trying to use NaPM as a "just WRITE" sort of kick-in-the-ass, but generally as soon as I post something there I get incredibly embarrassed. just don't feel up to par. Leanne I'm hoping your very measured response applies in my situation too, because everything I've produced lately just feels terrible beyond belief. I used to only write when it just vomited itself out, but this whole practicing thing is frustrating. does it get better in time? reading more poetry helps and hurts at once, hurts mostly just because I feel I'll never be able to create something like that. sigh.
btw AJ I've really been enjoying your NaPM poetry. and that isn't flattery, when I saw in your post you've only been writing for a year I turned green with envy that what you just churn out already reads like that.
i've been using it (NaPM) because i can't get time to do anything else poetry wise.
i often post a poem thinking it's pretty good then see what i've written with a more critical eye and think wtf is that. by then it's too late. i've already edited 3 or 6 times and posted the damn thing. i think that's why giving feedback helps us so much. we learn to see our own poetry through the eyes of the critic (some of the time). it's good that you/me/poets are edgy about what they write less we become too blasé as to the quality of it all. i have morer admiration for a poet who tries to improve than a great poet who thinks they have no need to improve.
(04-19-2013, 08:49 AM)justcloudy Wrote: [ -> ]but generally as soon as I post something there I get incredibly embarrassed. just don't feel up to par.
At some point, that's all of us. You look around and think...yeah I could have done something good like that.
That's human.
First, let me say I am glad to see so many writers finding use for the NaPM threads, the last time I participated in one was 10 years ago, we did it without topics and it was terrifying.
Second, let me say, the writing I have seen in those threads is every bit as good as the writing I have seen in the serious critique forum. Does it need editing and polishing? Yes! These are first drafts, written under pressure without feedback yet, but everyday, I find some gems in those threads that just provide an enjoyable read.
Finally, keep at it, we are almost done!
yes, i'm almost done
When I first tried putting poems online last year, I used some other sites for a few hours. People kept saying the same things to people. Things like how family and friends might have told you that your writing's good but it's not true, and other run of the mill tips and factoids that I saw repeated over and over. But I knew that my family and friends hated my writing, and I knew that, while the way I wrote might not appeal to any of the people on those sites, none of their writing appealed to me; and the rules and advice they were all following didn't appeal to me either. I knew then, like I knew back in the late '90s when I used to try sending poems to random magazines just to see what would happen, that I'd rather write poems that nobody liked than write poems that people that don't appeal to me like.
There are actually people on this site that I like, and poems that I like. Though I still find it hard to listen to their advice. And I can't have Writer's Block, I have to have something to work on, or things get dark really fast. I write for similar reasons as I drink and, unsuccessfully try to hold on to women: to keep from losing my mind completely. Well, there are other reasons; but many have told me that they come from the fact that I've already lost my mind. But then, they would say that.