Writing 101, Day One: Unlock the Mind

I’m taking part in a new Challenge during this month of June: Writing 101. Today’s assignment is ‘loosening up’ for twenty minutes writing via the ‘stream of consciousness’ technique for twenty minutes!

Well that’s an eternity for me, I write very quickly, you’d be surprised how much I can write in 20 minutes, but I’m so erratic that I’ll need to stop at ten and revise everything I’ve written and make it look presentable, because my blog and my bloggers deserve respect, which means that whatever I write should be written as coherently as possible.

I usually take ages to write my blog entries, I really do, because I take great pride in what I say and how I say it. I write carefully thought out articles about literature and life. I read and reread and write and rewrite until I’m satisfied with what I’ve done. I never am, actually. I believe Leonardo when he says ‘a work of art is never finished, only abandoned’.

I think words are the most powerful instrument on our planet. If you are feeling low and someone says, ‘don’t worry, let me help you’, even if they don’t or can’t actually do anything, it’s a comfort. If I describe an impressive ocean sunrise by the beach, you immediately imagine yourself on a beach watching that magnificent event happening. Words have the power to evoke feelings immediately. The very thought that someone in India, or Australia, or Amherst, or Rabat, or Amiens, or Bremen, or Ecuador, or Edinburgh, or Sydney, or St. Lucia, could be reading this right now and may have even imagined the sunrise I just described is just ‘mind blowing’.

Now, words combined with Internet, that’s something even more impressive. It means we can go beyond ourselves and influence (and be influenced by) people we will never actually see, or hear or feel. We can reach out and find each other, and think together, and affect each other’s lives just by using words.

Well, my time is almost up, and it was (almost) a pleasure to write in a stream of consciousness, as Virginia Woolf would have done, although I’m sure she also did a great deal of editing! It’s been wonderful not having to worry about including ‘important content’, because I can write what I like! So that’s it. Day one, done. Pleased to meet you and to be taking part.

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