A Writing Process

creative writing, inspiration, writing, , , 12 Comments

Sleep beckons, but the mire of anxiety and issues that surround me right now threaten.  I push them aside and think of the positive – visualizing our new home, and imagining how I will furnish each room.  The power of the mind to shift focus amazes me and I jot down these words:

We keep moving forward,
what option do we have
waste away mired in muck
or focus on a horizon where
sunrises and sunsets offer
glimpses of glory, and no
matter which our tendency –
optimistic or not, we are
drawn by curiosity and hope.

Remembering my midnight scribblings, I revisit the words, and think I can do better.  I  eliminate words to make the message more efficient:

We push forward –
a preferable option –

beats wasting away,
mired in muck

focus on the horizon
where sunrise and sunset
offer glimpses of glory 

no matter which way we lean –
optimism or not – we are
curious, drawn by hope.

Still unsatisfied – the poem sounds too cliché – I wonder what would happen if I switch up the order:

Curious by nature,
and drawn by hope
we push forward

spring ourselves
from the mud-mired
traps of psychological
undoings

focus on a horizon
where sunrises
and sunsets
offer glimpses of glory

optimist and pessimist
alike, daring to believe
that the beckoning future
bears equal promise.

Turning the poem upside down helps me break out of the pre-written lines and expand the images to create (hopefully) a less clichéd, but equally inspiring message.

What writing techniques do you find helpful?

 

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Permission to write, paint, and imagine are the gifts I gave myself when chronic illness hit - a fair exchange: being for doing. Relevance is an attitude. Humour essential.

12 thoughts on “A Writing Process”

  1. Thanks for sharing your process. I found it helpful and thought provoking. I used to write longhand (still do sometimes) but I really appreciate being able to move things around. I have started a folder of writing techniques and ideas (how to play with poems) especially as most of my poems seem to arrive in one piece. Then I tweak – usually to avoid overuse of a word or to sustain a rhythm. I do go a lot by the way something sounds.

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    1. Even writing about my process helps me be more conscious. I really crave a writing circle – hope that my new community will offer that. It’s helpful to get outside ourselves to keep fresh.

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  3. Pingback: Hopeful – One Woman's Quest

  5. I like what you did there. I don’t know that I use any specific technique. I don’t have a lot of experience at writing, but I do read my writing out loud many times and try moving things around until I get the flow that I want. I find I can revisit a poem I wrote weeks later, that I thought I was satisfied with and think; why did I put something where I did, it would be a stronger message if I moved it somewhere else.

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