November 3, 2013

Here is the moment in which we begin to write relishing the idea that it is something exclusive. We imagine, however, that in one dimension the next someone to read the whole thing and alive. The initial moment to write a verse or a line of a likely novel, compelling, reappeared countless times.

Attempts and fantasies that they summon the immediate birth of the poem, multiply preparatory rites in making this first act that we have seen as safe, immediate and spontaneous. Some write preparing sheets, pens, dictionaries, or sitting at the computer, others in the most unthinkable during the daily chores.

Massimo Troisi and Philippe Noiret, in the film “Il Postino”

The beginning: we imagine stories and verses of poetry. We are looking for places and get closer to the great classical writers, to be immediately petrified. The imagination runs in formulating plots and stories that quickly intersect with slices of our lives, most of the time lying and continually varying scenarios, believing it to have occurred. Or more simply with stubborn will, we want to create a new world. Then comes the block after two lines, or write us with hypnotic casting a line after the other as if we were talking to an imaginary audience.

We tell ourselves a story, with a beginning, a point of conflict, doubt, and we imagine an end to any recovery, or we try to follow the words by queuing a period after another, listening to the sound correlative. If we lose the magic of writing, our body again becomes heavy and it is void of words, as if the texture we were creating was evaporated; so we try to chase wrecks of thought that disappear like steam from a window in the winter that we have just breathed. It all comes back in the silence …. but we do not give up and even if we do not succeed in intent, we still dream with open eyes to start over.

What are you doing for the beginning? What are the rituals that you use in telling the tale of your experience (false or likely)? Which time and place you are looking to start?