Getting Ready...can you help but wonder what she's thinking? (July 2006: Happy Anniversary Alison & Joe!)
This week's Write On Wednesday asks: What do you do when your creative battery dies?
This alone was enough to cause panic (it's NOT your fault Becca, it's me). I went completely blank so I did the most logical thing that I could imagine...I took a nap. Mind you, this is NEVER a strategy I employ for creative boosts or boosts of any sort. I went into the nap knowing that for me they are self-defeating... I always wake up more fatigued than when I began. But I did it anyway which should have given me the first clue to my process of self-discipline: Ignore It and It will go away. (Incidentally, this is a bad bad strategy.)
The next progression is Procrastination (only because total avoidance never works). This lasted until this morning when forced myself to sit at the keyboard and write something. That did not work either. Then something miraculous happened...the Natural took over my overthinking and I opened Photoshop to peruse my photos for the post.
When I began searching through old photographs, I realized that this is what I often rely on when words fail me...my visual perception of the world. I love photography because words often fail me...but I return to my snapshots of experiences to jump-start my words. There are stories behind both graphic images and written words that are never fully revealed and for me that is the wonder of both medias.
In reading instruction, we are told that each story is unique to a reading because the reader cannot help but bring their own schema, or conceptual framework, to what is read. This makes reading not only an interactive process, but makes each story (or even photo) a bit unique for every reader. As writers, we strive to accurately describe our thoughts and experiences. Yet, each person who reads our words cannot help but interpret them through the eyes of their own matchless perspective. (Okay, enough didactic monologue...zzzzzzz) Lucky for you readers that I have a haircut to get to! (Never end a sentence a preposition with!)
