So, I nearly signed on to the Internet first thing this morning, before doing a 20-minute writing practice I have assigned my students. Call them morning pages, ala Cameron, or writing practice, ala Goldberg, it doesn’t matter. Ray Bradbury urges us to get to the writing before we let the world in. The practice is simply to show up at the page and allow the writing to speak before there are a dozen other influences, to let the dream brain, the subconscious, the spirit, to have a say before the walls of propriety go up.
This morning, it was a rush to escape, to avoid my thoughts, and I had even settled in the chair before the Internet computer when I realized that I would betray my work if I did it. A small betrayal, to be sure–I would not be ignoring it altogether; I will write more of my own work later this afternoon–but little betrayals add up, over time. I must be present to receive whatever glimmerings might arrive. I have to be open to the stirrings roused by dream time.
I carried my coffee into my own office and opened my journal and let the meanderings arrive. And that’s what they are–meanderings. It isn’t meant to be polished or clever or anything else. It’s like having dinner with a lover, every day. Some days it’s nothing much, just an exchange of pleasantries and touching the moments of the other’s life–I ran five miles, he says, I walked to the store–and some days, there is some news you’ve been saving all afternoon to share. This morning, I thought I was only showing up to touch bases, see what my writing lover had done overnight, and discovered there are quite a lot of things brewing with a new project, which I started with some trepidation, yesterday. Many questions, many tangles to unravel.
And some of them can be unraveled on that miraculous invention of the Internet!