Monday

Bless Me Father...

For I have sinned. It has been *insert my age* since my last confession and despite my vow of celibacy I found myself having impure thoughts. A lot of them. With a lot of different fellas... Ok, there were not a whole lot to be found at the StampEx 2005 Stamp Show which was my big exciting outing this weekend (go ahead and laugh, I am used to being mocked for my passion for philately) so most of them were just some of my new Lost celebrity boyfriends... but they were impure nonetheless.

Also, I broke two more of the seven deadly sins. After watching the bonus features on Lost, I became enraged with envy at the creative talents of JJ Abrams and crew who seemingly put together the concept of Lost, for shits and giggles, in a matter if 2.5 seconds. Bastards. You will just have to use your imagination about the 3rd sin, but knowing that I sat around on my ass and watched movies and Lost AND played a few rounds on ye olde Playstation2 should clue you in to what it was. Sloth be damned, I love lazy weekends!

Five Hail Marys later and despite my weekend of wicked sinfulness, I find myself once again, inspired to tell a good story. It's amazing what kind of inspiration one can get from hearing about successes of others. It was also refreshing to know that I am not the only one who sits down to write without a plan. Of course, now I am going back and doing a lot of fixing up of my yarn, but the essentials and the story were originally written as if coming from no where. I would sit down and write straight for about 2 hours and then have no idea what I had put on the paper until I stopped to read it. Sometimes I amazed myself, for quite often the story took a turn that I had not envisioned. I decided not to fight it when that happened and instead, let it grow organically and ran with it. Sometimes the ideas weren't so great, but more often than not I found myself extremely pleased with the ideas that came without any forethought. It was really cool.

Sadly, the downside of becoming reliant on writing this way is that when the story all of a sudden stopped writing itself, I actually had to think about it. It was not so cool. I tried. I tried too hard. I forced the story and it started down a path that I didn't like. So I stopped. After a brief hiatus, I am now back to working on it, but only on some of the smaller, albeit important character development details and things of that nature. But of the story itself which is mostly finished but with still a wee ways to go... I want things to go back to the way they were when I first started. To be able to sit down, close my eyes and let the pencil (yep, old fashioned pencil and notebook) move itself. Until then, I will continue to look for inspiration hither and yon and carry my notebook around with me at all times... I want to good and ready when it comes back!

Beatrice "what the *#@! happened to my muse" Petty

7 comments:

Beatrice Petty said...

A quick update on the "inspiration" sitch... just moments ago, I was handed a pen as a gift... and not just any pen... a MAGICAL pen... a pen that writes in all the colours of the rainbow (and by all the colours I mean black and red) and is also a mechanical pencil to boot...

Sigh... Bea is happy by the smallest of things...

TheatreChick73 said...

A friend of mine who is also a playwright once told me that the gift of a new pen meant inspiration to him. Someone once bought him a candy cane pen. Yes one of the ones that smell like peppermint. And he sat down the next day and wrote an entire first draft of a play he really didn't know he had in him.

Surprise!

Best of luck with Lady Inspiration and your new pen. Or are they one in the same? :)

highcontrast said...

my inspiration always hits in the same place. the shower. something about hot water....

Anonymous said...

You have sinned, not posting enough...we want more Bea!

Bea! Bea! Bea!

Beatrice Petty said...

Ok Ok...

But life is boring of late. Can't promise anything...

Anonymous said...

perhaps a post about cleaning the litter box then? I am only complaining out of addiction...

Beatrice Petty said...

Oddly enough, I did clean the kitty litter last night when I got home. Weird.