No Title, no Subject, no Thoughts — Lawrence

I find myself, the day before my TWG Blog is due to be posted, with absolutely no thought of a topic on which to write.

Some writers, I know, find this stimulating—to come up to the hour of deadline and write their piece on the edge.

Some say they do their best work this way—under pressure—this is definitely not me! I like to be organized, know what I want to write about ahead of time, think about the topic as I go about my days, do a free-fall writing session about the topic in my journal, transpose it to my word processor, edit it and let it sit a few days several times over, until I finally feel satisfied that I’ve gone as far as I can with the topic.

No chance of doing that long drawn out process this month—for, here I am, the day before it’s due and I have no topic about which to write. There is nothing in my mind, in my heart, or under my pen about which I feel inspired to write. Absolutely nothing jumps out to grab me. So, what then will I do?

At the writers’ group I attend during the summer, we have an eight minute free-fall writing period. We take turns each week to choose the subject and it is given to us just before we begin this process. Because of the way my writing brain works (as described above), I find it quite difficult to get started. But, with only eight minutes to come up with something, one can’t waste too much time thinking about it.

I have devised a way of getting started under this pressure-filled moment at the writers’ group, by writing the word on my piece of paper and just write without thinking too much about it and, eventually, something is there on the page to read out to the group at the end of the eight minutes.

Basically, then, that is what you have today in my blog. Nothing! No title, no subject, no thoughts. It is my contention that a writer should be able to write something about any subject he is given. If, however, he has not been given any subject, what then? It is up to you, the reader, to decide whether or not I have been able to fulfil my own assertion that a writer should be able to write something about anything, even if that topic is nothing.

© Judith Lawrence 

www.judithlawrence.ca 

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