For this second blog post, I decided to go back a little bit
frothier in my day book. Actually all the way back, to the first day of class.
We were given a sheet with quotes from Breathing
In Breathing Out: Keeping a Writer’s Notebook by Ralph Fletcher. We were told to read
all the quotes and star one that seems to resonate with us the most. I chose
the second quote…
Writer’s
notebooks are filled with what Joan Didion calls,
“strings too short to be saved”
yet too important to be thrown away:
The
writerly instinct is to hang onto them. (p.22)
In my day book I wrote..
“A writers
thoughts and words are significant, they have meaning behind them. Even the
simplest thought or idea could turn into something great! You have to start
somewhere nothing is too “short” not to be saved.”
So in a way I agree and disagree
with the quote I choose. Often times we
as writers can get bored with our writings and just quit or start over with a
completely new idea. What about the old idea that we just let go? Why should we
not at least save it for later it may be too short to be saved, but it could be
too important to throw away. Who knows what that simple paragraph, sentence, or
idea could turn into. By saving these little short strings you can always go
back to them later and frothier develop the idea into something great. We as
sort of “new” writers should take this advice from Ralph Fletcher and apply it
to daybook and blogs when trying to come up with something new. If we save all
of our thoughts and ideas about writing in our day books then we will never run
out of things to write and blog about.
I really enjoyed that post. I also liked the quote you picked. My first post on my blog was from this same day of class, but a different quote, so it was really nice to be able to see what someone else picked.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your thoughtful unraveling of the string quote. I was with you in seeing this idea in multiple ways and thinking about how it applies to you and your peers. I like how you are challenging Joan Didion, too by thinking of your own experiences.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with the thought that even short strings can be very important. In fact, most of the ideas I plan on writing are based off of short strings that I may have thought up from a few seconds to even a few years ago! Keep writing and storing those strings away - they'll come in handy even in the most abnormal places you can think of!
ReplyDeleteHey Taylor,
ReplyDeleteI can fully relate to what your saying. There's been so much stuff I've written just in the past few years and I pushed them to the side and I never worked on them again. I look back in wish I that didn't do that of course. Saving all we write whether big or small is a great practice for any upcoming writer.
So I get what you're saying. When you talked about how ideas can be lost I felt like I could really relate. This happens to me all the time, especially recently when we wrote our index card things. I started out with one idea and then on like index card 3, I changed my idea and went somewhere else. So I like the idea of saving our original ideas!
ReplyDelete