Poet! stop writing everything down! Stop stopping in the middle of everything to record it in your journal. Experience and evolution are shy, like people who prefer to get undressed in the dark. If you study them too closely they'll fade on you.
I have wondered about this lately - this balance. For a while there, I thought I would stop to write down a thought even if it meant causing an automobile accident. But lately, just like you've suggested here, I'm thinking I should just live it and write it later - hoping I've salvaged enough mental snap shots for a good accounting of it. If it's salient enough, it will stick out until later, right?
Yes, right! and perhaps if you over-analyse something at an important early phase in its development--an idea, a relationship--it will abort its natural development. An odd idea for a writer, this, but I'm afraid that whatever forces may be working their influence on my life will be offended by the vulgarity of my telling on them, and withdraw their support.
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I have wondered about this lately - this balance. For a while there, I thought I would stop to write down a thought even if it meant causing an automobile accident. But lately, just like you've suggested here, I'm thinking I should just live it and write it later - hoping I've salvaged enough mental snap shots for a good accounting of it. If it's salient enough, it will stick out until later, right?
Yes, right! and perhaps if you over-analyse something at an important early phase in its development--an idea, a relationship--it will abort its natural development. An odd idea for a writer, this, but I'm afraid that whatever forces may be working their influence on my life will be offended by the vulgarity of my telling on them, and withdraw their support.
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