Clarity

It's strange, when writing skill, or writing style, coalesce to the point where the writer loses interest. I think that's what happnened to me. On some level, I was stagnating in madness; my surface forms were rippling, scattershot, eclectic (or ecumenical, if you prefer), but underneath it was the same old formula, as if I had written the 39th novel my Chuck Pahlaniuk--another one whose form's deep structure is manifestly there for the perceiving reader. Or not even the perceiving reader.

So, here are some resolutions I'm making to myself. I'll pick three to stick to. Or maybe two.

(1) Write a short story every week. At least three pages. Bash it out if you have to, sentence by agonizing sentence.

(2) Make note of moments of "inspiration", "grace", "inner storminess", "illumination", "irruption"... maybe you'll be better able to recall them.

(3) What happened to writing down your dreams?

(4) And why are you so lazy?

(5) Stop lamenting stories you loved in the past that were lost when your computer crashed.

(6) Don't self-indulgently fall in love. Make your prose like a sparse Californian living room, not a cluttered tenement hallway.

(7) Fuck (6). Your life, no life, has the features of a sparse living room. No life but the most superficial. Deal with clutter. Arrange it, rearrange it. Never be ashamed of it.

(8) Living life like an open book is conducive to producing a book.

(9) Savour other people's anecdotes. Savour humor. Savour harrowing. Savour tales of transformation. Savour difficult conversations. Savour stubbornness. Savour the tree-like flow of conversation, with it hundreds of unclosed branches. savour argument. These water the soil of "inspiration", "irruption", etc....

Consider: "It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous. / Resign yourself to be the fool you are."