Unfortunately I cannot recall where I found this passage, would anyone else be able to locate it? Since discovering it, I have used it as a mantra or loose framework for my writing practice. I wish my writing was not so solipsistic, but the problem is that experience is often so overwhelming to me.
"I have nothing but myself to write about, and this self that I have, I hardly know of what it consists. I will go in search of it in your presence. I will set down on the page a tale of experience just as I think it occurred, and together we will see what it exemplifies. Both of us discovering as I write this self I am in search of."
Reminiscent to "I think, therefore I am," the idea that 'from out of what I experience we can both learn something' is the base fact that you and I are both experiencing life at once in complexly dissimilar ways, yet we are still able to patch it into a story that we share. I fear we're losing this ability as our realities drift from each other. Do you? Something to think about. . . What restores my hope is information becoming free.
this territory is moderated
I fear we're losing this ability as our realities drift from each other
Hasn't this always been the case? That our experiences and perceptions are not totally aligned but, as you put it so well, "we are still able to patch it into a story"?
I would make the case that we are more aware than ever of each other's thoughts and emotions, maybe even to the point of info overload. I'm not sure we're evolved enough to handle so many shared experiences simultaneously all the time in a healthy way.
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60 sats \ 3 replies \ @mmall 1 Jan
This is nice, I want to start writing but currently find myself at the first line. Any useful prompts?
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in the journal I keep, I write down the things that would surprise me to discover when I reread the journal in the future. And usually, that is the very dull, automatic, situational occurrences that I forget ever clouded my mind. The good thing about that is, once is down on paper, my mind makes better use of its processes without this clutter.
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Flash fiction is the best. Pick out an object in the room and write a 5 minute story around it. That's my favorite writing.
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Going back to the basics may help. Use the 5W1H (who when where what why how) to get yourself off the starting block.
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90 sats \ 1 reply \ @doozie 1 Jan
Looks like it's from The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative, by Vivian Gornick. Thanks for sharing
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awesome appreciate that doozie !
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @legxxi 1 Jan
In which platform do you write and publish?
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just here at the moment
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