READING WHAT YOU WRITE

You write a paragraph, mm ... it feels right ... interesting ... you write more and know as the words come out that you're expressing a thought, a feeling, an observation, a secret, an idea that surprises you because you weren't aware of it being there.

Where? In you, in your collection of what ... old ideas, new impressions, random vagaries, happenstances? A smile you got, a twinge of regret, a remembrance of moment you wanted to forget? You draw upon yourself, go further, signal your fingers to tap a key, keys, spell out a sentence.

Mm ... you go on because you like the feeling, enjoy discovering, digging, digging deeper and picking up what you've found, encapsulating it. You are concentrated, even if you are interrupted you return to the mine shaft and dig in again. Dig further.

The page isn't full, but it's getting fuller, and you don't want to stop, not yet, maybe in minute, I'll re-read, no, I'll have a cup of coffee, come back and read what I've written.

Read to whom? You don't really feel like re-reading what has just been born -- you know what's there. It's still too familiar.

I'll type it out, I say the words, hear the words, I'll be reading it out loud to myself when I read it to JC. Yes! I'll read it to him!

S T o P.
I'll put it in an e-mail, to Fran? To JD? Maybe Sue? N o...
s t O P!!
T h i n k, JUST think about what's on the page.

You can't, not when it's just emerged. Experience tells you that it doesn't mean what you think it means, until the words sit, and the feeling cools, calms, fades, flattens out.

I have learned to use my dancer's will power: don't show what you've written; don't read aloud what you've written; don't send it in an e-mail, and get someone else's reaction, approval, disapproval, minor comments, major suggestions.

Shut up. Keep quiet, do what you're feeling to do with what you have written from you own fire ... Use it, fix it, rewrite it, throw it out, build it up, do whatever ... from your own fire.