Automatic Writing
So whenever I'm trying to write and I'm not really feeling it or I don't know how to start I'll use a technique - favored by a lot of surrealists in the 20th century - called "automatic writing." It's where you start writing literally whatever comes into your head and don't think about what's coming out in an effort to pull something from your subconscious. It's a process that involves uninterrupted stream-of-consciousness and free association. I believe a few hip hop artists use the technique for their lyrics; the two I'm most aware of though are Heems and Kool A.D. of the former Brooklyn duo Das Racist. The things you write aren't entirely unplanned, there may be a word you'll latch onto that you throw in, but you're also not really pausing to think about what you're writing or what you're going to write next. It's the same thing Nathan, Oscar Isaac's character in Ex Machina (2015), talks about in his description of how Jackson Pollock painted. It has direction but it's very abstract.
I'll share an example I did last night when I was doing some writing before bed. I've been watching True Detective the last few days because I bought it on Blu-ray more than a year ago and completely forgot I had it until I was rifling through my TV Show DVD case the other day looking for some sweet, sweet Planet Earth. I had just finished the last episode of True Detective season 1 (which I will maybe write up a review of) before I started writing, so it was still very much in the back of my mind, and you can see that my mind was sort of playing with themes from the show before I actually latched onto the subject and just started rolling with it. This one rhymes because sometimes that's just how it comes out, more poetic or song-like, sometimes a bit in the "spoken word" realm, but there's also a few examples already on the blog where I was just writing. It's also just a fun thing to do when I've been drinking as in these two examples: "Oy" and "Public Service Announcement." And yes, it does often look like schizophrenic ramblings in that form. Anyways, what I wrote last night:
Feet are frozen on the cold, cold tile
Each one a tooth in an alligator smile
Grinning back at me from a nonexistant space
Interlaced and traced back to the scene of the crime
Where two men in bull masks robbed a five and dime
"The signs were in the stars all along,"
I told her
She nodded and folded twelve times
A cone of light filled the room
Dancing on the walls, the ceiling
Floor reeling
I turned to the sound behind me
Clowns lined up side-by-side
Colors forming and re-forming
An army of clones with distinct clothes
Each extinguishing a burning star, a burning sun
The tall man with the scars marched us towards the dark where the Yellow King stood outstretched
Arms outreached
Greeting me to what was to be eternity
Repeated
Time on a flat plane
A circle, a snake eating its own tail
The failsafe failed
Escaped out the green ears that ate years
A lifetime
All nine lives
We can climb a ladder of vines that leads to nowhere
Slide down the old King's crown of antlers
Where the dirt rises up to meet us
One with the Earth
Cosmic curse for those seeking questions
But finding answers
Stands full of standers
Shook the ether with their constant shouting
"I can't hear!"
I scream
Flowers sprouting from my iPhone screen
A sheen on the face of the ticking clock
Rushing apocalypse billowing like smoke from the bayou
What have you found?
The mysteries flee from Pandora's box
Answers to questions no one wanted
Fear eats the soul
How can such things be possible?
The horror of the impossible...
No longer...
I've always been interested in the "cosmic horror," or coming face-to-face with the "impossible," that H.P. Lovecraft was so famous for writing about, and that's sort of where the passage ends. True Detective played with the feeling of cosmic horror a bit and I really enjoyed it. It'd made it hard to tell if there was something maybe a bit supernatural going on or if everyone was just batshit crazy. Maybe both. So yeah, that's that. I don't really remember why I was writing about this topic. I guess just to share a bit of myself, because I rarely share the things I write. This is what I end up doing if I'm bored or having writer's block. It's a fun exercise with at time interesting results. Sometimes I'll turn a sentence or passage into dialogue or the beginning of a story. It's just a good way to get words and ideas out of my head I guess if my brain is feeling clogged.
I'll share an example I did last night when I was doing some writing before bed. I've been watching True Detective the last few days because I bought it on Blu-ray more than a year ago and completely forgot I had it until I was rifling through my TV Show DVD case the other day looking for some sweet, sweet Planet Earth. I had just finished the last episode of True Detective season 1 (which I will maybe write up a review of) before I started writing, so it was still very much in the back of my mind, and you can see that my mind was sort of playing with themes from the show before I actually latched onto the subject and just started rolling with it. This one rhymes because sometimes that's just how it comes out, more poetic or song-like, sometimes a bit in the "spoken word" realm, but there's also a few examples already on the blog where I was just writing. It's also just a fun thing to do when I've been drinking as in these two examples: "Oy" and "Public Service Announcement." And yes, it does often look like schizophrenic ramblings in that form. Anyways, what I wrote last night:
Feet are frozen on the cold, cold tile
Each one a tooth in an alligator smile
Grinning back at me from a nonexistant space
Interlaced and traced back to the scene of the crime
Where two men in bull masks robbed a five and dime
"The signs were in the stars all along,"
I told her
She nodded and folded twelve times
A cone of light filled the room
Dancing on the walls, the ceiling
Floor reeling
I turned to the sound behind me
Clowns lined up side-by-side
Colors forming and re-forming
An army of clones with distinct clothes
Each extinguishing a burning star, a burning sun
The tall man with the scars marched us towards the dark where the Yellow King stood outstretched
Arms outreached
Greeting me to what was to be eternity
Repeated
Time on a flat plane
A circle, a snake eating its own tail
The failsafe failed
Escaped out the green ears that ate years
A lifetime
All nine lives
We can climb a ladder of vines that leads to nowhere
Slide down the old King's crown of antlers
Where the dirt rises up to meet us
One with the Earth
Cosmic curse for those seeking questions
But finding answers
Stands full of standers
Shook the ether with their constant shouting
"I can't hear!"
I scream
Flowers sprouting from my iPhone screen
A sheen on the face of the ticking clock
Rushing apocalypse billowing like smoke from the bayou
What have you found?
The mysteries flee from Pandora's box
Answers to questions no one wanted
Fear eats the soul
How can such things be possible?
The horror of the impossible...
No longer...
I've always been interested in the "cosmic horror," or coming face-to-face with the "impossible," that H.P. Lovecraft was so famous for writing about, and that's sort of where the passage ends. True Detective played with the feeling of cosmic horror a bit and I really enjoyed it. It'd made it hard to tell if there was something maybe a bit supernatural going on or if everyone was just batshit crazy. Maybe both. So yeah, that's that. I don't really remember why I was writing about this topic. I guess just to share a bit of myself, because I rarely share the things I write. This is what I end up doing if I'm bored or having writer's block. It's a fun exercise with at time interesting results. Sometimes I'll turn a sentence or passage into dialogue or the beginning of a story. It's just a good way to get words and ideas out of my head I guess if my brain is feeling clogged.
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