Does a word ever seem to just hit you over the head? You know, one words just keeps rearing its head over and over for a few days or weeks, and it becomes something that you somehow work into normal conversation, something you say too many times in one day.
My word is "arbitrary" today or yesterday or whatever. It's a good word. I've had better ones stick to my tongue in the past, but right now that's it. I've decided to somehow try to work these sticky words into my creative writing efforts. For whatever reason poetry seems to be at the surface of most of these efforts, granted it isn't the greatest poetry ever, but it is there. I have a couple of short stories I am trying to work on, but things aren't coming along in that area.
Maybe they're too personal or too fresh, too opinionated maybe. Maybe I should try to actually write fiction that isn't based on personal experience, but that's never been something easy for me to do, and I don't know why I'd think it'd suddenly become easy for me to do so. I get too hung up on petty things like the heroine's name or which verb best describes her mocking/snarling/pious/coveted features. When it is real, then the words seem to come more easily. And I have tricks for beginning poetry that just don't work for short stories.
I was honestly hoping that this creative writing class would help me with those efforts, yet it is quite the disappointment. There is no direction, only a quota.
I'd call that a tangent, and it happens to be arbitrary, which brings us full circle.
Arbitrary. That is something that I don't want to be.
It feels like I've done some things recently in a very pointed and driven way, and then I've done other things with no clear motive at all. What I've found is that following my intuition works best, and when I forget myself and let that energy or intuition slip into the back of my mind, those are the moments when I become careless, when I turn a page too quickly or forget to bookmark an especially useful website.
Point being - I'm trying to pay attention to my feelings, to my intuition, and while it is one of the most enlightening and wonderful things I've ever done, it is quite a challenge and one to which I wish I could devote all of my time. Of course, I wonder who can devote all of their time to any one thing.
It's a new path, and I feel that it leads in the correct direction, whether or not that is an arbitrary feeling has yet to be decided, but I'm fairly certain that things are becoming less and less arbitrary.
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