PONDEROUS PONTIFICATOR PAUSES
What Kind of Writer Are You?
Meticulously chaotic or chaotically meticulous
Writing. That mystical creation that emerges from our fingertips that makes us believe we have something to say. But we don’t all access our stories the same way, do we?
We are all embued with individual methods for scraping the roadkill of ideas off of our gritty brains onto the pristine luminosity of the computer.
Some of us are meticulous in organizing our thoughts. Others of us guffaw at premeditated literary design, spewing disorder onto the page like a crime scene at a circus.
Some of us plan our words before they hit the page. We line them up like a math proof. Others of us regurgitate our trauma-laden-unicorn-chasing souls onto the page as if someone has just opened a rift in the universe and beckoned us.
That’s what I do. The unicorn thing. That’s why I’m making it sound so opulently grandiose. You know how it is. You’re the narrator. You create the world. You’re the heroine.
Did you ever meet anyone like that? Who tells you this is my world? These are my rules. I’m picking out the roles because I created the narrative. In writing, that’s a cool trick. In real life, people who force you into their narrative suck the big duck.
Meanwhile, in the land of writing —
What is your method that unearths your madness? Do you let your internal fuel, fuel your fuel, trusting the words will get you to your destination? Or do you make an outline, a scaffolding, a diagram that gets your story from A to B?
Who are you, writer?
I’m a pantser, writing the thoughts as they come to me, tossing them unauditioned onto the world stage on opening night. What they’ll do up there is between them, God, and the audience. Brave little critters.
Sometimes, I feel as if someone broke into my head-office, held a computer up to my fingertips, and yelled, “Write! Or else, you motherfucker!”
The or else terrified me until recently. I needed to know what the or else was — so, I finally asked the universe, “Or else what?” She said, “Or else you have to make an outline.”
I almost passed out from hypertension or from being hyper and then getting tense. I don’t know the difference. Do you? The soundtrack from Psycho’s shower scene swirled through my auditory cortex.
Planning ahead is as terrifying as being naked-murdered in a shower by a guy who would have benefitted beautifully from family therapy. Even with his dead mother there sitting in her splintered chair, he would have made some progress given the right therapist. Just get that guy in a room.
Like most writers, I have many notebooks with the beginnings of ideas. I don’t know if the kids still do that — scribble pens onto parchment. Back in the day ideas lived in those books like lighter fluid. When I need a jumpstart, sometimes I go to those.
I still scribble loose thoughts in a notebook — but, I also yell, “Siri! Text Amy Sea — write article about mom’s groups! Send!”
My auto-dictate doesn’t always translate the words right, but unless Siri was day drinking, I can usually translate her wonky message later.
Why am I even writing about this? You ask. This ponderance on ponderings by a pompous pontificator.
Pause.
Because I took two weeks off from writing and I am stuck on an island without a pen or a complete thought. This is how I return to the page. I ask myself how did I get to this page in the first place?
Wouldn’t you rather be contemplating your navel or the world? Follow Amy Sea and Contemplate
