The soundtrack for today’s creativity was Saul Williams’ List of Demands (Reparations).
I woke up this morning and felt removed from creating 4 mediocre
pages. I spent a lot of time last night
thinking about how to STOP thinking about why those pages didn’t work. I finally ended up reading an e-book to help
distract me before I fell asleep at 2am.
After the normal morning routine passed, I finally hooked my
phone to the big stereo and played List
of Demands (Reparations). The lyrics that echoed through my brain were
found in the chorus. Saul writes:
I got a
list of demands written on the palm of my hands
I ball my fist and you gon’ know
where I stand
We living hand to mouth, you want
to be somebody?
See somebody? Try and free somebody?
The rocking tempo and chaotic pulsing of the song creates a rebellious
mood that is also critical of my yesterday. Toward the end of the song there is a baby crying that reminds me that I better not be joining her in the form of a duet. I started reading everything I had written up
to the point where my four pages ended up being lower quality. I had my own list of demands for today.
While sitting in the in the brown chair that allows for some
rocking, but isn’t a rocking chair, I wanted to demand my brain work to figure
out how to do something with those 4 pages.
They needed to be filtered to find any gold I may have created. I wanted to demand that my hands did what
they needed to do on the keyboard. I
wanted to write so future readers would know where I stand instead of me questioning
if the writing was good enough. With the
recent loss of my job, living hand to mouth can be a reality of the
future. Clearly, any writing I did today needed to have
a sense of urgency. I don’t have time to waste on writing. Plus, my right thumb is bothering me from
using the side of it to constantly push on the space bar.…
Then I wrote a little while answering Saul's question about if I want to be somebody?
Yes! I am somebody, but I have goals of expanding
that somebody. The character is working
on figuring out what/who he wants to be.
It seems we are both enduring demanding times in our lives.
Saul's chorus asked if I wanted to see somebody?
Yes! I even wrote of relaxing on the O lady’s
couch in Chicago.
He questioned, Try and free somebody?
Yes!
That list is too long to write…
With my own understanding and twisting of those lyrics, I set
out to continue to build. At that point, I'm talking to myself (Yeah, I talk to myself when I write!) and listenting to the voices of Wrinkes and Grandma Wilbur while I type their conversation on the page. Meanwhile, I don’t hear any of Saul’s lyrics
anymore. He's still talking, but Wrinkles, Grandma Wilbur and I are drowning him out. The driving beat is accelerating
the dialogue that I am thinking, reading, and changing to make it fit with what
was previously written. Words are
finding their way on the page and the 4 pages has been trimmed down to two
pages.
The conflict from yesterday that
would not fit in with my plans for the book was now eliminated and I could
start rewording some of the previous nine pages that I had written a few years
ago. Though I am not married to those
nine pages, I think they could work well with a few small changes. I look at them as clues to help me to the
finish line.
So, in three hours I had managed to combine the 10 pages I
wrote on Monday and Tuesday (which was really 8 after I rewrote that mess from yesterday), with 8 pages from the past. I sprinkled in today’s demands for progress and
I am resting at 26 pages of total written progress. I am at the point where Wrinkles has broken through
some of his barriers and the main characters are getting back together to begin
working on how to tackle this problem.
I also created a bit of a dilemma for myself. I gave Wrinkles until the end of the month to solve his problem. To be fair, I also am giving myself until the end of the month to finish this book. The challenge is on.
In other book related news:
Stay Tuned…
Steady!
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