Wednesday, October 22, 2008

hello, method. nice to see you.

sabbatical? fabulous. but i often feel guilty for not writing every day, for not having a more appreciable mass of the book done. and this is odd because it goes against what i have come to discover about my process; it is time-greedy, which is to say that it is organic and that it involves long stretches of not writing, which is not to say that i am not still sort of writing in my mind, or working it out, or rearranging ideas -- some would call this "prewriting," but i think it's all writing. so but the other day i was laying down to take a nap (yes.), and a thing i'd written over a year ago, a term i've borrowed from André Bazin for my working title -- that term "suddenly" welled up into my conscious but sleepy mind with such clarity. like a simple answer ...

"here, bonnie. see? this is why you borrowed that term: it is the lens, the way, if you will allow me the sentimental gesture. you have been following the wrong path. oh, sure, it's a lovely path. useful. may take you places. but here. now. this way."

i KNOW. what a big goofball. but that's how it happened (absent voice of ultra-affected muse). so i have a shift in method. i was always going to go (t)here, but now i know why and how and that it is actually the origin rather than the destination. actually, it's both, which is truly fabulous.

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