Many and More Thoughts

I’m thinking…

I have to say one of my biggest procrastination excuses when I’m writing is sitting, facing the computer, and changing the font and formatting multiple times. When I can’t seem to come up with any of the words that fit what I want to say properly, I have a bad habit of opening up the little font box at the top of the screen and clicking on half a dozen different fonts. I will type a little with each font, and then finding (surprise) that the new font isn’t inspiring me any more than the previous one, I go and choose a different one altogether. It’s really quite a bad habit to fall into, because you can just sit staring at the empty word document for the longest time imaginable just going through different fonts. It doesn’t get you any farther in what you are writing, it doesn’t change any of the words that you have written already, and it doesn’t change anything- except give you an excuse to distract yourself from actually writing.

I suppose it’s really the same thing as when I start writing out the beginning sentence to a letter I’m trying to write over and over again on sheet after sheet of paper. I stare at my handwriting, looking lopsided at the head of the page, frown, and crumple up the sheet of paper. It’s really all an excuse to put off doing something that you want, and should, be doing. It’s a somewhat reasonable excuse at first, “oh I just want to change the typesetting, this one isn’t working for me,” but when you have been sitting at the computer changing the font over and over again and going nowhere with the actual writing, it becomes a problem.

I think sometimes that beginning whatever you are writing is the hardest part of it, but other times I think it’s the middle, and still other times I think it’s the end. You see what a fickle creature I am? Sometimes I find it easy to write up ten different beginnings for ten different things but when I come to the middle I have a hard time plowing through. Then again, there are times when the beginning is the hardest to come up with, that single beginning sentence that progresses easily into the rest of the paragraphs.

I suppose, really, that’s why I like to have quite a few different stories and blog posts going at the same time, so that when I get muddled or tired with one I jump to the next. The problem is it’s rather hard to jump back and forth from different styles of writing. It’s easy to let a story fall neglected in the back of the saved documents, saying “I shall get back to that one soon.”

I’m listening to…

Keep Breathing by Ingrid Michaelson. I really love this song, I think because the words “all we can do is keep breathing…” that play over and over again in the chorus are really so beautiful. It’s really a word picture that I want to capture somehow, and that I keep trying to in different things as I’m writing, that feeling of just breathing in and out and listening to that sound only. I don’t quite know how to express it, it’s like a sense of all these tumultuous emotions going on inside of someone, and all they can do is keep breathing in and out, hanging on. I think everyone has moments like that, only varying in strength and weight. Breathing in, breathing out, closing your eyes, listening to the physical sense of the air filling your lungs, and the thoughts that flood through your mind.

I’m creating…

Can one simply be creating thoughts? I feel like that at the moment, sitting here, as I try to write and formulate coherent words. Soft music plays in the background and I keep finding myself drifting away from my fingers that are trying to type, and drifting into a train of thought. Thoughts that can’t seem to be put into any words at the moment, perhaps someday they will become words that will play a large part in something I write, but for the moment they are just little inconsequential thoughts that drift in the back of my mind like little breezes. Too inconsequential, not well formed enough, still too vague, to be put into sentences that express them. I think it’s interesting how old thoughts tend to come back after a while and drift into my various stories without my even intending them to. I won’t be thinking about it, I’ll be writing about a couple random characters and suddenly they are speaking words that are a part of thoughts that I had been thinking a few weeks, perhaps months, sometimes even years ago. I’ll read over it again and wonder how those words crept into the story, how those thoughts I had almost forgotten were now part of the very fabric of the story I had just written. That’s why giving yourself time just to think is never wasted, everyone needs moments where they can sit back and stare at the ceiling and think many thoughts. Are those thoughts ever wasted, even if they are never to be put into words? I don’t think so. I don’t think thoughts are ever wasted, they shape who you are, and they become part of you. Thoughts and time to think are never wasted.

I think that’s part of the reason why I like my job at the library so very much. You see, I can think while working. I don’t have to think about if I’m shelving things in the right place any more; I can just pick up the books off the cart and get caught up in my thoughts. There’s something so very lovely about walking around, pushing my cart of books, thinking my own thoughts while my hands are busy doing something else. I suppose why this job wouldn’t be right for just anyone, I think a lot of people would get really bored after a while because even when they were working their very hardest there is still nothing to really occupy your mind with unless you enjoy getting caught up in thoughts about the cloud drifting past the window. You have to enjoy being quiet, you have to enjoy listening to the sound of a soft rustling of books in the background; you have to enjoy thinking random little thoughts.

 I have rather a bad habit of getting too caught up in my thoughts though; it can be a bad thing. I can get so caught up in thinking about some little thing, turning over an odd little thought in my head, that I can get rather oblivious to what’s going on around me. The other day I apparently looked somebody straight in the face, so obviously they thought I had seen them, but I didn’t. If I hadn’t gone up to say hi and ask why they hadn’t come to say hi when they first arrived, I probably would never have known. Yes, I get that bad. It’s rather embarrassing and I need to work on it. Emily needs to get her head out of the clouds sometimes, but it’s rather hard when thoughts are so interesting sometimes.

 Outside my window…

For a long while the blue heron that comes to our pond was standing directly across from we when I glanced out the window. I like watching him stand in the water, motionless, waiting, then suddenly diving his head into the water and coming up with a goldfish. Can you imagine having to do that? Just standing there, hour after hour, never letting yourself move, until your dinner came close. I think I would much rather be the little goldfish swimming beneath the water, finding my dinner there, even though if that were the case I’d probably get eaten by the blue heron. I’d rather like to be a little fish though, swimming down in the water, looking at the world from beneath the rippling surface. I’m watching the water move on the surface as I write this out. Watching it ripple, and go swirling from one side to the next. I’m watching the little raindrops making their imprinting upon the surface in a calm moment. The little reeds and small trees at the water’s edge rustle with the breeze and the grass looks wet and green with the drizzling rain falling on it.

One of my favorite things…

Rhymes that aren’t cheesy. I’ve been discovering that so many rhymes get so cheesy sounding, they sound like bad puns. A good rhyme sounds beautiful; it just makes a sentence blossom out into poetry. You don’t even notice that it was a rhyme; it was just part of two sentences that go perfectly together. Have you ever listened to the rhymes they insert into commercials though? Oh my goodness. Really. It’s bad. I sometimes wonder who sits writing such balderdash: do they enjoy writing things like that? Things that make somebody snort and go off into muffled choking and laughter saying “did they really just rhyme that with that? Dear me.” So yes, a rhyme that is well rhymed is one of my favorite things. It creates beautiful sentences, beautiful poetry to the ear, I can’t say I am very good at coming up with them myself, but when I hear a sentence where someone has it just makes me beam happily, now THAT was a good rhyme.

From the kitchen…

I put some chicken in the crock-pot to simmer away until I can get the rest of the ingredients together for a soup I’m going to make for dinner. I’m rather excited to try out this new recipe, it sounds delightful. I do like soups; they are such nice homey things. There is nothing homey than a nice big pot of soup bubbling merrily away in the kitchen, filling the house with warm lovely smells, especially when it’s rather a cold chilly day, with rain drizzling outside.

I’m wearing…

One of the dresses I brought along for World Youth Day and that I wore in Paris, so it always reminds me of that. When I walk around, with the long, black and white striped folds swirling around me I think of walking down the street listening to a group of musicians playing “What a wonderful world” by an old looking café. I think of lying on my back in the grass and looking up at the Eiffel tower gleaming at nighttime. It’s interesting what little things can bring back such strong memories. Things like wearing a dress that you wore somewhere else; it can bring back all those memories of that day.

A few plans for the rest of the week…

At this point all I can really think about when I reach this prompt is Thursday. Thursday, getting on an airplane and flying to Virginia. All I can think of is packing my suitcase and toting around as I tour Christendom college. All I can think about is what book to bring for the airplane ride, all I can think about is finding a proper camera, all I can think about is the little stack of things waiting for me to get them ready. All I can think about is Thursday.

Emily Writes

I'm thinking...

At the moment I'm bemoaning the fact that I am writing on a program that apparently doesn't have a feature to check my spelling for me. It is most unsettling, truthfully. For, as I write, I'm begining to wonder rather frantically 'did I just mispell that?' 'how about that?' and there is no way of knowing. So then I begin to feel that perhaps I shouldn't be writing at all, if I'm to be mispelling every second word (I know I can check it later, but I want to know as I go along. Yes, I know, I'm spoiled.) Really, I need to be more determined. I sat down to write, and I'm going to write, come mispellings and grammer errors! It is unerving me though, and I must try and stop thinking about it.
Actually, on a more interesting strain of thought, I was just thinking about free writing. It's really a good practice. I was just reading in a book how they all sugest that the best practice at becoming a good writer is to sit down and force yourself to write unstoppingly for however long, without thinking about mispelling and grammer errors and wondering if your topic of discussion is interesting. The thing is just to sit down and write whatever thought comes into your head and not correct or worry but let yourself put your thoughts onto paper and see what comes of them.
I was thinking however, that really, that's how I write normally. Okay, so I'm constantly slowing down and backspacing and looking for a good subject to talk about, but the general idea of writing to get down your thoughts is how I write normally, and Iove reading when people write like that. The very best emails and letters are the ones that you know the person writing you has done that. They've written to you exactly how they were thinking and how they would talk to you. I think that's really a sign of someone who writes well, you know. Writing is the way they pick up the stream of their thoughts and put it into words.
So many people's writing in letters and things happens to be very stiff and formal. Unlike how they would talk to you. They pick their topics carefully, put them into stiff paragraphs with stiff formal periods at the end of each stiff formal sentance. I find myself writing like that actually too, when I write to somebody I am less comfortable with. I was just picturing how it would be if we talked like that sort of letter to each other in real life. I can just picture the two people sitting straight up in their seats, their hands sitting on their laps and their feet tucked neatly under the chair as they looked at each other formally.

"Dear Fredricka, How are you?"

"I am quite well, dear Jane, and you?"

"Oh quite well, quite well."

"I planted a garden yesterday."

(insert look of interest and yet not over interest by anymeans)

"Oh really?"

"Yes."

(Insert awkward silence as we search for a new topic)

Nobody talks like that, you see. So we really shouldn't write like that. Well, you want some formality. Some proper organazation of the thoughts, but other than that we should write as we talk- only more so. Writing seems to be a way that you can get out all those words that you couldn't find the voice for in normal speech. Writing is a way that we can put down words that there didn't seem to be words that would be good enough when we were trying to speak them with our voice.
So there is nothing better that I like than an email or letter where I feel that the person writing it is talking to you, specifically you, and letting the words carry them away. Writing out their thoughts as they come to them, and not sticking stiffly to point one, two and three, in that order. You can always tell the people who love to write by their letters and emails, you can always tell they enjoyed themselves writing it because you enjoyed reading it. Right now I'm feeling rather blessed with my correspondants. I love people who write. I love people who read so much that they practically eat the words up off the page, and I love people who write like they are spilling out a box of words they had stored up just for the occasion.

I'm reading...

This morning I went and hunted up 'The 101 Dalmatations' to read aloud to my younger brothers for a little bit while they played with legos. Confession: I believe it was me that really wanted to read it. A friend was talking to me about it the other day, all about reading it again and this part and that part and fond memories flooded back to me. Memories of the funniest lines and of darling little scenes. Ever since then I've felt the urge to read it again myself. I think that's always the way, someone mentions a title and a few scenes they loved paticularly and after that you simply have to hunt up your own copy and read it again yourself.
It's suprising how much I love some of these books. I would almost say that 'The 101 Dalmations' is almost more of an adult book for all it's being a book for children. Every line is formed in this comical way that just makes me shake with laughter even when it's not a scene that is paticularly humourous in itself. I can just picture Dodie Smith writing it, she must have been chuckling to herself as she wrote each line. It's so unforced, you know. In some books the comical lines are very pointed, a character says something and you can tell it was meant for comic, but with 'The 101 Dalmations' no one character is saying anything very funny. The humour is deeper within the book than that. It's in each line, each sentance, practically vibrarinting from the very soul of the book.
Most of it is things that it would take a much older reader to comprehend though. A child listens and accepts the words without a question, giggling and clapping to hear about the doggies, but an older reader pauses over a sentance, reads it again with widened eyes, chokes, and bursts out laughing. There is so much humour hiding deep within the lines that unless you are reading carefully, you will never pick up on.

To live the liturgy...

Ash Wensday was yesterday. I'm really going to try and cut back on my computer time this Lent. In paticular I'm giving up a writing site connected with the school program I use and I am rather obsessivly attached to. I'm missing it. I'm missing reading through all of the threads, the debates, the crazies, the conversations, but the real reason I'm missing it is because I'm missing my friends there. They are all such dear people, and I miss them all, but there is a reason for this. A very good reason. I'm giving up a lot of my computer time because I want to create for myself a quieter atmeshere. Time of silence, for thinking and praying and opening up to a beauitful Lent full of growth. So I'm trying not to think of simply how much I miss talking to all my friends, since that isn't what I'm supposed to be focusing on- that would be taking away from the point. They will all be in my prayers, and I can still email some of them, so I'm trying to embrace these forty days of Lent, of quiet, of thought, of prayer.

I'm creating...

*cough* just because I'm not going to be going on my writing site doesn't mean I can't still partake in the contest does it? *giggles* There is a story contest for us poor suffers giving up our favorite thing. *grins* A contest for rather long stories. I'm rather excited. I have to think about the requirments a little more, and what I want to write with them, but I think I'm going to take part, and write a very long story.
Mom also found a contest that is going on in town for highschool artists. I'm thinking of attempting to draw something for that. I believe you are supposed to draw something of Victorian era in connection to an author of that time. I have to read up a little more on that one too.

Around the house...

I should really go do some tidying up now. Major tidying up. You would think I had been watching two tornados with the mess my little brothers have created this morning, and after that I should practice my violin, and read, and do some school work...and maybe take a nap...all before work...I should go get busy.