philosophical rambling Archives

Resetting My Writing Brain via London

Constance May 18, 2024 May 18, 2024 Essay

We took a fun excursion to London recently, and I didn’t think about writing once. I wanted a reset. No poems, no notebook, no scribbled ideas on my latest novel. Just the day-to-day joy of being in the moment. I didn’t even take as many pictures as I normally do, wanting to experience everything without a filter between my eye and the subjects.

We mostly toured museums, our passion for the past driving us. The British Museum in particular, where I could see all the mummies, statues, pottery, tools, chessmen, and hieroglyphs my heart desired. Things I’d studied in history and art history classes. Of course, to complete the art history trifecta, we hit the National Gallery and Tate Modern museums. Admiring paintings in person made my brain happy. There’s nothing like seeing the swirls of paint in a Van Gogh for yourself.

Horse head from Parthenon, British Museum

Lewis Chessmen, King, Bishop, Berserker — Lewis Chessmen – King, Bishop, Berserker
British Museum

Four Philosophers — The bane of studying for my Philosophy degree.
Ancient Philosophers.

Now that the trip is a couple of weeks in the past, my mind turns to exploring the sights and sounds of having been in London, looking for patterns and turning phrases around and around. Poems lurk on the periphery, waiting to be coaxed into life. I use the feelings of being a stranger in another country in my novel, guiding the character through missteps. We didn’t make that many—I think—because we read and videoed up on the place before we went.

Prime meridian — Prime Meridian, Greenwich Observatory

Clock Tower — Big Ben from one of our walk abouts

It was the small things. Standing to the right on escalators to let the impatient people go by. Waiting for others to get off the train before we got on. Saying good morning to our barista. (Who got to know us well.) Remembering politeness, something that seems to be dropping by the wayside as the century goes on. We found Londoners to be generally polite people. I was always offered a seat on the subway by random males. Perhaps due to the silver streaks in my hair? But it was appreciated. Especially after six hours walking in museums and the time spent walking from the Underground (and its numerous stairs) to the latest location.

This is not the Army’s hiking

That was another thing I enjoyed (mostly) The walking to get places. My current hometown is very car-centric, so being able to use public transportation and pop out close to my destination was a relief. I’m sure you folks in big cities know the feeling. Of course, being on vacation, there was no real rush to get places. We arrived when we arrived. We could enjoy the streets and scenery. Twice we took random walks, once in the Paddington neighborhood we stayed in, where we found a fabulous Italian restaurant, and the second time when we blew off another museum and just walked around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. It was beautiful, we enjoyed watching the dogs frolic on the expanses of green grass, got rained on, saw Guards on horses practicing for a parade, and generally just reveled in the pretty (long) walk.

Our home base for excursions was Paddington Station, and it’s funny how having a ‘center’ at the beginning and end of the day really helped. Not to mention the coffee shops in the station. Got to get our fix coming and going. The hustle and bustle in the station was a nice contrast to the slow pace of my rural hometown. My brain embraced the contrast, and now that I’ve had time to digest it all, I feel words stirring. The urge to jump back into writing and explore relationships between people and places. I’m ready.

What do you do to reset your writing brain?

Some of the Places We Went

British Museum

The National Gallery

Tate Modern

Royal Observatory Greenwich

Hyde Park

The Cleveland Arms Pub

Briciole

Harry Potter Studio Tour

More Essays

Five Poems That Pulled Me Into Poetry

Backwards This Language Is

Sketching Out a New Year

How Cats Help You Write

More Lessons From Printmaking

A Meditation on Walking and Writing

For more essays, search the Non-Fiction Links

Backwards This Language Is

Constance May 6, 2023 May 6, 2023 Essay

I think I’m too literal to learn a new language. I’ve been studying German for the past few years now and can’t come to grips with some of the Yoda-like sentence structure. My mind wants it neat and orderly like English. I hate having to chase verbs all over the sentence. But every once in a while, my mind will parse a sentence without effort, Yoda-like or not. That fans the flame of hope.

I’ve been using a mix of Duolingo, Babel, videos, and various books to try and learn, hoping what grammar tidbits not said in one thing will be addressed in another. The linear mindset at work again. I want logic, damnit, and explanations that make sense. A video on YouTube promised a foolproof way to figure out Der, Die, Das as they relate to masculine, feminine and neuter nouns. A concept I struggle with. Moon is masculine, Sun is feminine, and Sea is neuter. Linear brain balked. The promised way was not foolproof, and all my other sources finally said, “Eh, just memorize them.” Short of swallowing a dictionary, I don’t see how.

Flash me

Flashcards to the rescue. Through sheer repetition, I’ve got a lot of the articles nailed down. Maybe that’s how to deal with a somewhat linear brain. Hammer things home. Okay, bludgeon. I slowly started picking up the forms for different cases. It’s like elementary school Daily Oral Language lessons all over again. Without the chalkboard dust. Just papercuts.

In a fit of optimism, I started learning yet another language. Norwegian. I found that the German study was helping me pick up Norwegian a little quicker. A lot of words are similar to German, just spelled differently. I admit to substituting a German word when I couldn’t remember the Norwegian one. I’m sure Norwegians would understand. I like the Norwegian language. Sometimes there is a Yoda sentence, but articles don’t change willy-nilly, and I got used to the umlauts, just like in German. Linear brain seems content with Norwegian.

You know what else you need?

Then I thought hey, I took Spanish for four years in High School, how hard could it be to relearn? (Rational brain, linear’s smarter brother, said, “Don’t add another language. Don’t. Please.”.) Happily, I did remember a lot of the language. And it’s not close enough to German or Norwegian to trip me up. Linear brain is still struggling with question formatting, however.

I’ve grown to like the hardness of spoken German, and its barked commands. The lilt of Norwegian is nice, and so is the flow of Spanish. I peeked into Danish just to see how close to Norwegian it was. Close enough, but am I going to Denmark any time soon? No. Norway? Probably not. Closest I’ve come is watching Ice Road Rescue (set in Norway) on Disney Plus. Bonus, I even picked up a swear word or two. We’re thinking about a trip to Germany. At least I can converse on the level of a five-year-old. Spanish just seems handy to know.

Derectius Cerebri

Where does this leave linear brain? Learning to relax. Not every word has to be in rigid order, which actually makes it easier to write my poems and novels. Not sure why but chilling out over language makes it easier to approach my work with an open mind. If linear brain needs some structure that day, I can always recite the alphabet in 4 different languages. So of course Amazon offered up a copy of a Wheelock’s Latin textbook really cheap. Who could pass that by? I’ve always wanted to learn Latin…

Sketching Out a New Year’s Goal

Constance January 16, 2023 January 16, 2023 Essay

In the frenzy of beginning a new year, and reading other people’s tons of resolutions, I only have one goal.

Do all the things.

Probably not the best goal, considering my penchant for perfectionism. And procrastination. But a goal is a goal, and there are things I want to do and new things I want to try. What better time than the new year to shake out the cobwebs and try something different?

Well, Not a Whole Lot Different

It doesn’t have to be complicated. I baked a new type of cookie. Experimented with whole grain breads. Started colorwork knitting projects. Working my way up to more complex things. Art and writing are foremost in my mind. I hauled out my copious quantity of sketchbooks and set them by my computer where I’d have to look at them every day. Also, I reminded myself perfect drawings weren’t the goal, just quick sketches.

I drew with pen liners so there is no going back to erase lines. And then I opened the terrifyingly blank 9 x 12 sketchbook and outlined a few Victorian houses in ink to add watercolor washes to later. My finger slipped and I bought more watercolor supplies because this is the year I’m going to relearn watercolors. I bought small copper plates because I’m going to try etching on something besides plastic plates. Ditto smaller pieces of lino block. Less intimidating.

Besides the sheer joy of buying new art supplies, I bought a calendar and mapped out which days I would do art, and which days I would do writing. I know myself. Without a hint of a plan, I flail.

Same with writing. The new fantasy novel needs about 7 chapters outlined so I can write them and put finished to the first draft. Poems need revising. My collaboration project with Kathleen Cassen Mickelson needs revisiting. Into the calendar. If I want to do all the things, I need a plan to do most of the things. Who knows what other projects will need to be tackled? Like renovating the house. Ugh. (Tables to later.)

Whether this method is going to be my salvation has yet to be seen. I dabbled in it last year. But last year was working full time. This year is not. I have the time. It’s up to me to make the most of it. How do you plan out the Want To Dos in your life? Is there a better method than what I hit on? Is organization for an ADHD person the way to go?

Other Essays

Reading, Writing, and Resolutions

How Cats Help You Write

Figuring it Out as You Go

More Lessons From Printmaking

Using Weaving for Bursts of Writing Creativity

What I Learned from Editing

For more essays, search the Non-Fiction Links

Favorite YouTube Links for Beginning

Watercolor Basics

How to Organize Your Watercolor Painting

Beginning Linocut Block Prints

Make a Drypoint Etching Print from Recycled Plastic

Urban Sketching

Japanese Woodblock Printmaking Workshop

Drawing Exercise

Is Writing Time Absolute?

Constance November 14, 2022 November 14, 2022 Essay / Writing

Let's Rock Mittens Front — “Let’s Rock” Mittens Front

Just before the first snow arrived I got the urge to pick up my knitting again. I tend to slack off during the warm summer months as I like knitting with wool and it can get warm. I don’t do much weaving in the summer either. I think fiber arts go by the wayside in general during the hot weather. Too much to do outside. Jumping back into doing a colorwork hat, I forgot how much I enjoyed the meditative quality of knitting. Around and around, flicks of contrasting colors here and there, plenty of time to contemplate other things besides the Yankees totally blowing the playoffs. (I’m not bitter. Much) What do I contemplate? My latest writing problems mainly.

I’m down to plugging the holes in my Next Fantasy Novel. I’ve outlined cards in Scrivener, most marked “Final Draft” but there are still half a dozen chapters marked “To do”. I jotted down the idea for each To Do chapter on the cards. Somewhere in novel one, I discovered I could break away from my rigid linear thinking, scribble down a one-paragraph outline for a chapter, and roll merrily onward. Some writers may scoff, having done this all along. I had to shake loose from my rigid expectation that the only way I could make progress on the novel was to slog through it in order. What comes next? Write that. Next? Next? It was keeping me from seeing the possibilities jumping around provided. (Not gonna lie, the thought of working out of order still makes me cringe.)

Fiber Arts as Teacher

Maybe it came from knitting patterns, where you have to do things in order or you end up with a Frankensweater, or off-kilter colorwork. Every pattern has its progression. A-Z with no stops in between. Then I got wild and crazy with the knitting and weaving. I warped my loom the normal way, started weaving, and wondered, what if I changed the weft yarn to this multicolored thick yarn? So I did. It was shocking. Intriguing. And pretty cool looking. I played around with different yarns in the same project. It circled me back to my roots as an artist in grad school, where experimenting was the norm. Where did I lose that?

I think when I ran out of big blocks of time to work. If you’re going to squish a project into the little bits of time after work, you don’t want to make any mistakes. You want perfectionism. But mistakes are where the fun’s hiding. Instead of forcing my writing to march forward in line, I scribbled ideas down in Scrivener, grabbed a Chapter card, and started writing. When I finished, I tackled another one. My pantsy outlining was the key, enough info in a paragraph to point me in the right direction, but not enough to lose the fun of exploring where the idea was going. Too much outlining always made me feel as if I already knew the story. So why write it?

Writing Roots

Knitting was the same, sorta. I grabbed a pattern and used it to learn the technique, going in with the mindset I may have to rip it all out and start again. Instead of bemoaning all the time wasted, I became more careful with how I progressed, setting stitch markers to keep track of repeats, and marking charts to note progress. Technical ability increased my confidence. So it went with the writing. I found my outlining sweet spot, not afraid to go back and rewrite shaky parts, and revise the outline. None of it was a waste of time when I had a goal to shoot for, and didn’t let my anal retentive need for complete control take over. My first Norwegian Star hat has a wonky tip on one star. Nobody noticed it but me. The Rock and Roll mittens have a few miscues. The recipient didn’t care.

Let's Rock Mittens Back — “Let’s Rock” Mittens Back
& Skulls Hat

My new mantra? Let it go. What’s the worst that could happen? (Besides getting the Frozen theme song stuck in your head.) I’m my own worst critic. But I don’t have to be. I’ve even learned to knit a sock toe-up instead of top-down. Flipping my expectations. If it doesn’t work out, rip it apart and start again. Einstein showed in his thought experiments that people traveling at different speeds, while agreeing on cause and effect, measure different time separations between events. (Wikipedia). I’m going to quit measuring the time I don’t have and work with what I do have. My time is not your time. I’ll travel at my own speed, and if it’s not perfectly linear, well, that’s okay.

Let’s Rock Mitten Pattern

Skull Hat Pattern