Where’s the Inspiration?
A man walks onto the scene, he strolls with forced assuredness, yet you can read in his body language he's not as confident as he'd like to be, he eyes the megaphone in his hand cautiously, before coming to a step. He lifts the megaphone up, taps the small end, then raises it to his mouth, before clearing his throat, "Ahem!", then he queries, "Is this thing on?", his words boom out of the megaphone's big end. He laughs nervously in response to the annoyed stairs he receives.
The man stands there a few moments before finally seeming to get the confidence to raise the microphone to his mouth again, as he megaphone reaches position this time his cheeks take on a bit of velour, and his eyes seem ablaze, he takes a deep meaningful breath, and speaks into the megaphone,
"Right, listen up," now all eyes are on him, only they're attentive rather than annoyed, "I demand to know where my inspiration is! I think it's wholly unfair that you've abandoned me right now. I need you, I can't write without you. Without you these pages are blank, and what words come are empty.
"Inspiration I've never needed you so bad, I've got all these things to do, and you've abandoned me, given up the fight, and now I stand alone against the tide of battle.
"I beg you return to me your charm, your talent. Words are meaningless without you!"
The audience looks rapt, his words have moved them, they feel his desperation, and they ponder borrowing the megaphone.
The man looks down upon his audience, upon their swept up faces, he watches the emotions play across their faces. Then a thought dawns in his mind, a realisation, maybe even epiphany.
What the man realised was this - inspiration is hard to achieve, but it can hit at the strangest moments, and all you can do is find the nearest waiting apparatus and take advantage.
Everyone has different things that inspires them to write, and inspires what to write. For myself these are most often two different events, for others they might be most often the same.
There is also another possibility one without the other, which can either be liberating or frustrating, for example:
- I may have a brilliant idea what to write, but no inspiration (will) to write it - so it all plays out in my head because try as I might I can't convert it into words. Obviously a form of writers block.
- Something may give me inspiration (the will) to write, but without any inspiration. Here my mind, and the paper is ab empty canvas, and I can just let my thoughts flow freely. Probably doesn't make for great reading, but it's fun and liberating for me.
Everybody is different when it comes to inspiration, I know all too well what holds true for me, is complete gibberish to another. In broad strokes, I have probably captured the general forms of inspiration.
In terms of what inspires me to write (gives me the will), it falls down to three categories: the outdoors (nature, weather, scenery, architecture, etc...), other people's creativity (a book, a film, a piece of music, also biographical information about a creative person, or someone who's faced adversity in their life), and challenges (nothing gets my creative juices better than a bit of competition).
Sadly these things aren't guaranteed to get me writing, but most often once I start writing it's because I was inspired to by one of the above.
In terms of my inspiration what to write, it's usually something close to hand, something I've imagined happening, my emotional state (yes, I can be a bit emo in my poetry), or a need to impress others so I can belong, and validate myself.
I've written about many things, from religion to coke cans, from fantasyic tales to mundane moments of life, and from historical events to nature.
Sometimes my indpirations puts me on the path to something specific, sometimes it's just the starting point, or catalyst for a cascade of ideas.
I will say this, whatever the idea, I do love it when it happens, it's a veritable joy to let poetry over take me, a joy and love that only falls short of sex.
As I'm getting older, inspiration is getting harder - dry spells last longer, but when the floodgates open, I feel sure the joy is deeper, as I come to appreciate it more.
Still I would live in those moments more if I were able to, giving myself over to the wild abandon of inspiration.
So I feel abandoned when inspiration doesn't come, and call to it from my megaphone, hoping to attract it back. For me my megaphone is going to beautiful places, reading and listening to music, and entering challenges - hoping beyond hope, inspiration heads my call and answers.
That's what inspiration is to me.
Evolution of a Writer
Charmander - beause everyone should be a Pokémon - or something like that
So Charmander gets in a fight, it's against a more powerful Pokémon, though his trainer is sure his Pokémon can handle it.
The battle rages, and indeed in a last ditch effort, Charmander gets the win. The crowds go wild, it's the little pocket monster that could.
Wait, but what's happening now? Why Charmander is glowing, what's going on? Suddenly the glowing shape of a small odd looking lizard is replaced with a larger odd looking glowing lizard, and as the glow fades, Charizard is stood there looking thoroughly chuffed with himself. He's evolved, become a better Pokémon, bigger, stronger, and smarter. Everyone is shocked into a stunned silence. His trainer starts clapping, and soon the auditorium goes nuts.
What's this got to with anything? Well after a fashion I think writers evolution is similar. Certainly my own is, I get stronger very gradually, but every so often I tackle something big - and win. The gradual improvement, the many small lessons learnt, and the sudden influx of effort and challenges pushes me to a new level.
I'll admit, it may be a confidence thing - I'm not a biased judge of my own ability, in the absence of Mr Horobin and Mr Barrand (my English teachers in high school), I can only presume to rate myself.
Every piece I write I get a little better, every review and edit nets me a few more lessons to avoid problems in the future, but every major trial tests everything I've learned, and gives me so many new lessons.
In terms of talent and experience, I evolve into a whole new monster, with new lessons to learn and embrace. I find the end of a piece of work, or project, the most exciting time, and I need to focus on that when the challenge seems too daunting, or I lose the inspiration (will), I have reasons to carry on.
It's true of most things in my life, I'm a far better analyst now than I was four years ago, there are periods of gradual improvement, and those moments where I've jumped to a whole new level.
Now I've turned myself into a fictional firey Japanese lizard, I think the job is done for this post.
P.S. I don't know Pokémon that well, if I've got the evolution wrong, aplogies to the diehard Pokemon fans out there.
Charmander - beause everyone should be a Pokémon - or something like that
Poetry Practice (four days catch up)
I had intended on posting these daily, however sometimes life takes over the best meant plan.
I have written a poem each day, as I committed to - none of them are really great, one I've really struggled with, partly because I was busy, and partly because the ideas just wouldn't organise themselves into a decent poem. I've covered three topics: politics, society, and family (well I can honestly say my interest in sociological topics does in no way affect my writing - okay I can't say that).
Like I said, none of them are really great, but I don't think any of them are really terrible. Got to keep it up though, I would love to think that come June 1st, I'll be confident of my own abilities again, also it's good to know, even though I can't write a story (in the traditional sense), it doesn't affect my ability to write poetry.
What I'm going to do, under the 'Read more' link is display each poem, and after each one give a a few lines of explanation. If you care to read some of my practice poetry, feel free, comments are always good, if you want to be critical, that's great - this is practice after all.
Poetry Practice
So given that I want to launch back into the world of poetry competitions I need to get some practice on.
Truth be told, I've had writers block for the better part of six months, which has been phenomenly frustrating, I guess lots of it comes down to having a lot in my life to deal with, it detracts from my will, but not inspiration I have some great ideas. Life isn't getting any easier.
Thing is, on that note, I'm going to aim to publish a new poem here every day from now till the end of the month. If I can power through this blockage I can unleash my creativity, and I'll feel better.
So I'm a bit rusty, I'm not going to try for quality or originality, perfectionism is it's own creative block, I'm just going to write skill be damned!
Pen and paper at the ready!
Poetry Competitions
I must admit I've not entered a writing competition since college, it was pretty much the only one I've entered. An odd stastic for someone that loves challenges. I managed to come second out of fifty-seven entrants, a laudible achievement I feel.
I don't know why I don't enter more, I should do really, but it's finding the right poetry competitions to enter, then being brave enough.
I did once enter poems on poetry.com, (not sure if it's the same poetry.com from back then now, I do hope not), and yes I did feel giddy when they started writing to me saying they wanted to publish my poems in an anthology. Even my family were impressed, and wanted copies of the anthology. Being the pessimist it didn't take me long to check out the company and decide it was a con, that you'd be throwing good money after bad on your route to gaining the mythical anthology, and attending it's "award ceremonies" in the US. The most telling statistic it was a limited liability company based off shore. Also none of it's celebrity "sponsors" had even heard of it seemed.
Though I had protected myself and not fallen for it - I did feel sad that it wasn't real.
It was after that I decided I wanted to help others, I decided to setup a forum at writers-ramblings.com, something I was very proud of, for me it was a success, at it's peak it had about one hundred registered members, many of whom were active and taking part. It died off after I moved away and didn't have net effort. It limped on, but eventually I let it go, however I still remember how good that made me feel. When I tried to resurrect it, the domain was no longer available, so I came up with aspiring.org. I never could get a forum setup that made me quite so happy as the first, and eventually I went with a blog, (which of you're reading.) I hope maybe in some small (even if it's infintisimal) way this helps the writing world, and a writer or poet or too along the way.
Anyway, running our own forum (with a lot of help from a couple of friends that I have drifted apart from sadly), we ran competitions, there were no prizes, just the warm feeling of having achieved something.
I think the time has come to do something else though and enter a competition or two, and see if I can achieve some luadible again. I'll never make Poet Laureate if I don't take risks and let others see what I write.
If I do well, it might give me the confidence to both finish a piece of writing (as in finish writing, revise, rewrite, etic...), and attempt to get it published.
It isn't fear of being conned that stops me, it is the fear of having my hopes dashed, that is what poetry.com did, yet the college competition put me on cloud nine. Two heads of the same coin we call risk. However if I want to advance myself as a poet, to make my poetry mean something beyond myself, I think it's a step I need to make.
So having said all that, and concluded I need to do it, now I just have to act. I need to find some poetry competitions, and start writing.
It would probably be helpful to specialise, but I'm a bit of a Jack of All Trades when it comes to poetry. That said my personal favourite (but probably what I'm worse at) are sonnets - so just up the ante on myself, that should get me going.
I can do this, I think.
My Poetry Writing Process
The fabled writing process, everyone has one, or one they prefer at least.
My own process keeps me sane, keeps me trying, and ultimately makes my work better. That's what I'm going to explore in this entry.
I've found, that in the past spending a few moments considering what my process is has made for better poetry. It prevents me trying to force myself to fit molds that aren't mine, which so far when I've tried has led me down paths of frustration. Having the desire to write a poem, and then destroying the will to write is a terrible thing.
Preface: Before I start exploring, it isn't fair to say I have one writing process, I have several - the aim of this post is explore my writing process for poetry, I will do another blog entry in regards to writing literature.
So what is my poetry writing process?
A poem very close to my heart…
This morning, I couldn't sleep and went for a walk. Up the slanting street I went, and found myself by the field behind Osmondthorpe Lane, facing the bridge I'd climbed up after I came back from hospital, the night my Granddad died.
I wrote a poem for him after that, I'd intended on reading it at the funeral - I messed up though, it was the first funeral I'd ever been to, and I left it at home, and even though I'd practiced it, I didn't dare stand up and read it, in case I spoiled it.
By no means is technically a great poem, but it's a poem that means more to me than any other. Since I ended up at the bridge, and the memories and chain of thoughts led me to rekindle my blog, I thought it was fitting I put it out there once more.
One of the last great heroes has gone
One of the last great heroes has gone,
A warrior of sea and life,
Lost to us, but for memory,
And love in our hearts,
He will be there for us in the strife,
And always too when life is merry.
But on that sorrowed night I prayed,
Just for two minutes,
Two minutes, to say my love,
To share my heart,
He had given his all to life's fight,
And from his body he flew, released like a dove.
I wish I could have said more in the time we had,
How much we all cared for the tailor,
I know, I hope,
With all my heart,
That we loved with out failure,
Only with that faith could I cope.
By Jonathan Lawrence, 5th April 2003
My Poetry Archive
Here we have my poetry archive, here I will undertake to type up and post as many of my historic poems as I possibly can. There are of course many that won't make it, some were sadly not kept together, others given away as gifts, others that are unreadable (I have shocking handwriting, made worse by writing on buses and trains), and others no matter how low I set the bar, I just couldn't bear to post.
The bar is low though, these are poems from across the past twelve or so years, and though I don't consider myself a great or talented poet, I'd like to think my use of rhyme, structure, and English has improved over those years. Certainly looking back at some of my poems, I feel I definitely have improved. Who knows where I'll be in another twelve years time, here's hoping to way out there.
In the meantime feel free to peruse this category, sadly I don't have dates, even just years, for some of these poems. I've kept most of them together, but my version of filing is fairly chaotic. For instance, the picture below is about two thirds of my collection laid out:
I shall do my best to catalogue these writings accurately, and with as little prejudice as possible (what's a little embarrassment between friends?), and hopefully it will all work out. Suffice to say, this blog will be the premier place for the complete collection of the works of one Jonathan L. Lawrence, should anyone ever need one.
It will take some time to achieve, in the meantime, here are some already typed up, saved from the now closing GeoCities site I've had for many a year.
Poetry Practice: Day five
As part of my aim to enter some poetry competitions, I have been practicing writing (I'm a touch rusty). Today (Monday 18th May) is day 5, so here's today's poem:
Sleep Protector
Lie down in velvet shadows,
Find warmth in the heavy presence,
Wrap yourself in the love we share,
Feel our protection from the darkness,
I will be there for now by your side,
You need not fear this deep night,
As we rest in peaceful slumber,
Enjoy.
Rise in caramel illumination,
Flood awareness flood to your senses,
Find your way out of your downy care,
Avoid realising your profound cureless,
In your dreams to yourself you lied,
Found comfort away in the fright,
I'm a figment in the dream of forever,
Sorry.
©, Jonathan Lawrence 2009
This is a really sad poem, it starts off sounding romantic, but it's almost unreal. A couple go to bed, nice and romantic, but only one talks, sooths, the other offers no reaction, but to fall asleep. My intention was to invoke the feeling of a night guardian, he stands watch over our fateful sleeper.
I don't know about you, but I long for that - it's almost a magical romantic ideal. Which the second verse reveals is the truth. I would feel a prodound sense of loss at realising this dream wasn't real, but can you be sure can you? The figment apologised - which to me, says that maybe this phantom protector is real, but gone when you awake.