As a writer and a facilitator, I come across many stumbling blocks to writing. Today, I shall talk about one of such hesitations to write.
Just the other day, a student of mine who happens to be an exceptional writer and an intelligent voracious reader, said to me that the whole day thoughts, phrases, ideas, and verses kept coming to him. But he found them 'not good enough' to pen down and compose a poem. 'Please help!'he said.
I immediately corrected him. I asked him to write down these random phrases in his notebook. All my students are advised to carry a notebook at all times. I have a lovely learned soul as a student who has a notebook fetish; more on her in another blog. Life is teaching us, demonstrating profound truths for our knowledge at all times, and the least we can do is take notes.
Also, words have a life of their own and a mind of their own. They should be respected. So, when they come to us, we must write them down or else they escape from our grasp, buried somewhere in our subconscious only to be retrieved much later than the opportune time. So write people! Write as soon as a thought comes to you, etch it in our psyche, and then play with it; whole day long or for a lifetime.
Another important practice is not to judge our composition or work, and for that matter anybody's work. And to assign it the quality of being 'good', ''good enough, or 'not good enough', even before the whole composition has taken shape and form, is jumping to uncalled for conclusions. Simple words are powerful too. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication", said Leonardo da Vinci. So do not hesitate to write your random thoughts.
Furthermore, writing is a skill that needs practice. The more regular our practice, the better our skill. So writing at least 500 words everyday, even of gibberish is essential for writers. Who knows, this is the chaff that needs to be peeled away before the golden grain can shine through. Thus, it is all the more important for you to write everyday, even that which you think is 'not good enough'.
Additionally, one can return to these ramblings at a later stage, with heightened inspiration, to tackle the gibberish and compose a piece of scintillating prose or verse. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so is a composition which is the release of energy.
It is for this reason that writing, creative writing, and writing gibberish are important tools of therapy through creative writing.
At our centre 'Philyra Training and Consultancy' where we hold workshops for creative writing and personality management through creative writing, we have a host of exercises for evoking gibberish from writers, both aspiring and established, at the beginning of each session. We have been surprised many times to find that our gibberish has made sense at a later time, that our gibberish has shown up in our writing after many days or weeks.
So write on! Even if it seems gibberish.
