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Sunday, March 27, 2011

Writing In Circles

Does anyone else ever feel like they are writing in circles?  I begin to type and after a few sentences think, "But haven't I said this before?"  I try to push myself into deeper earth, and I think that I am discovering new feelings or perspectives.  But then I stop and read what is on the screen and realize I have ended up in a place I have been too many times before. Very familiar territory.

And then I question -- Maybe this is the place I need to be.  Maybe resolution has eluded me and I am here again to find some kind of satisfaction. Maybe life gets so busy with the details and the daily demands that writing is the only way I remind myself of what I really need or what I really feel or what I cannot continue to ignore.

Sometimes writing can be a journey across a crowded map, a navigation of new lands.  But sometimes, writing is like a bird building a nest.  A return, over and over, flight after flight, day after day, to the same spot. A gathering of twigs, leaves, moss, trash -- layer upon layer -- all tucked and intertwined. Writing is like anticipation on a tree limb, first home to something that will eventually take flight.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

this is very nice Stephanie. Your descriptions in the last paragraph really help me see the method to my madness - I'm just creating my writer's nest. Thank you!

Tammy said...

I really like this too, and I can relate. I do feel like I am circling back to where I first began. And you're right maybe that is where I should have been all along.

Royalteas said...

Mrs.Elliott
I definitely know what you mean. As I was writing our in-class essay, 'What will you seek and sacrifice',before spring break, everything I wrote seemed to hit a drastic road bump. Every word that came out on paper sounded exactly the same as the last, every idea was parallel to the one before, every road to the end looked like opposing journey. I was stuck and stumped. I tried 'to push myself into deeper earth', but there was no way I could finish my Journey to The Center of The Earth(nor could I finish that book or its movie, but that a different story). Eventually it hit me the stupid circle was a beautiful gargantuan swirl and twirl that glided through the roads and drew a glistening trail to my journeys end. Although this spectacular realization was the ring of the 3rd period school bell, it was an end to a great journey; to bad it was when I finally figured out what I truly sought and sacrificed. Writing is sometimes that, just writing in circles until you have a magnificent discovery in yourself, after all writing is a form of art. :)
-Vaness C.

Anonymous said...

Mrs. Elliott,

I definitely understand how you feel. Even writing for newspaper, I find that I follow this same pattern. I have one article that turns out to be outstanding and fresh, penned with a different and unique style. I find a way to integrate quotes nicely, which is my main struggle. However, as I progress from this article (which was last year), I find myself copying the pattern rather than discovering new ways to present my ideas. Though frustrating, it's actually turned me more towards reading. I have picked up books of articles and by modeling their writing, as we did with Kingsolver, I have managed to blend multiple and distinct styles into my own personal style. Though I retain parts of my "old" style, I've found a way to bring fresh ideas to my writing.

-Emily T