Saturday, December 1, 2007

Maine-inspired Poetry

Hey All! I'm stuck in the Portland, ME airport--my flight from Chicago to GR was canceled due to freezing rain, so the airline got me on a competitor's flight into Cleveland, then home. No biggie. Better safe than too dead to be sorry, as I say. However, I had to PAY to use the airport's wireless and there's only ONE electrical outlet for every hundred or so seats. I'm not complaining, just surprised that even this small airport hasn't moved to become more business-traveler friendly. The Starbucks tastes the same, though.

Yesterday, as I said my goodbyes to my Cottage By The Sea, I managed to write a few lines about the moornise the night before. The beginnings of a poem, methinks. Me also thinks that more will come as I process everything I saw and did. I think now that my non-writing while in Maine was more because of my desire to be on the road seeing and doing, instead of writing. Perhaps the next time, or the time after, I'll be more inclined to sit by the water and put thoughts on paper. For this first trip, I needed to experience everything.

The other thing is/was sensory overload. Sometimes I get so numb, or maybe paralyzed is a better word, because I have absorbed too much--too much color, texture, mental videos, information, too many smells, too many new ideas, etc. I tend to become unable to do anything but veg out. I play solitaire or online Euchre, stare at TV, or read, just to focus my senses on only one thing so my brain can process all the other stuff. Jigsaw puzzles are good for this purpose, too.

Does anyone else have this problem? Does it negatively affect your writing? How do you deal with it?

I also discovered on this trip that because I write so much on assignment, when I don't have an assignment to write about I can't come up with anything on my own. I go blank, and because writing then becomes a chore, I don't PBIC (Plunk Butt In Chair). If I did PBIC, chances are I'd come up with something to write about. Hmmmm. OK, guess I just solved that conundrum by writing about it!

Well, I'll be home tonight. I've decided that three days a week (Thursday, Friday, Saturday) I'm going to set aside 30 minutes first thing in the morning to write my own stuff. That will get me back in the habit of coming up with my own "assignments."

Blessings!
Deborah

4 comments:

outdoorwriter said...

Oh, can I relate to too much of a good thing!! I get lost in landscapes out west--one of my hunting partners told me head wasn't in the game. He failed to understand my head was in a different game, trying to take in all the new plants and experiences. I go, hoping to bring home a few pheasants or quail, but it's the memories I treasure most: a bittersweet-entwined fence post, an ice-coated barbed-wire fence, all the times the birds outsmarted me--not much of a challenge for them--sunrises and sunsets, the solitude, great food and friendly people. Come to think of it, it's the same kind of things I bring back from Glen Lake--sans the birds.

DJW said...

So how do you deal with it? Do you end up producing any written material? Do you have to give everything time to "steep?"

I'm just now starting to feel like I can even think about writing about what I experienced out east. Maybe it's just going to take time.

It's just not the way I expected things to go. I expected to be prolific, even if what I wrote wasn't very good.

D

outdoorwriter said...

I don't know if I have to let it steep, but I usually do. I think it does takes a while to put the thoughts to the feelings or vice versa. I replay the scenery in my mind, maybe read a bit about the area or something along that line, or just store it away for future reference.

Maybe Maine was for you, a break from writing, like Glen Lake often is for me. I don't write much, but I do feed off the feedback and others' writing. It's kind of like dog training; more is learned sitting at the kitchen table than running dogs in the field during the day. Discussion is a marvelous teacher.

smcelrath said...

I agree that often when you experience something, it takes awhile before you can write about it. As writer's we are like crock pots (I've heard the compost pile metaphor as well. IMO Crock pots smell better). We put ingredients in and they have to simmer together for a period of time before anything flavorful comes out. (or even anything edible for that matter.)

Maybe your visit to Maine was just one of the ingredients. Maybe it is how those experiences, mental pictures, and emotions combine with the other ingredients in your life that will produce a tasty mix.

Either that or I'm just hungry.