Shitty First Drafts – #1
I had a dream last night.
About her.
I haven’t seen her in 10 years? 12?
We haven’t spoken in 5… and that was just an out of the blue phone call.
Someone had died.
I haven’t seen her in 10 years (or 12) but last night I had a dream.
And it all came back.
The subtle selfishness.
The other priorities.
The twisting truths.
The blame.
The shame.
The voice, my own, telling me why I was the one in the wrong.
At first the voice was hers, but it became mine.
An adopted tongue, all rough edges.
Like a river over stone.
Like sandpaper on skin.
Wearing away, away, away,
Until all there is left is bone.
Until I don’t recognize myself anymore.
Until there is not enough left of me to remember who I was.
Until I surrender to the beating waves.
I am wrong.
I am wrong.
I am wrong.
2 Comments
villemezbrown
If this is about what I think it might be about then I want to hunt her down and beat the shit out of her, so lets assume *I* am wrong and this is pure fiction based solely on your imagination, shall we?
This first draft is not shitty at all. It is intriguing and moving. Poetic in its sparseness. Different from your usual style maybe. I like the repetition of the “or 12” in parentheses.
Adele
Shadow
Thanks Adele. I sometimes write in a really sparse style, almost a poetry style, I guess. Sometimes I can access that when I can’t get anything else out of my brain. I am trying this “shitty first drafts” idea. It’s from a writer, Anne Lamott, in her book Bird by Bird. It’s about… not getting hung up on perfectionism, about forcing through a first draft, without thinking and polishing, just raw getting the words out.
I was first introduced to it in college and I failed. I was literally paralyzed and couldn’t even turn anything in because the assignment was to write a “shitty first draft.” I was caught in a paradox. I couldn’t let myself do something raw and unprepared. I also couldn’t not turn in an assignment. It was the most bizarre… emotional… paralysis…
I don’t think I’ve gotten any better.
And I had a panic attack posting this.
Which makes me sad for my writing in general. I’ve been getting this drawing/tangling shittily down, but my writing is still a serious problem… 🙁
But thank you for commenting. 🙂 I’ve realized for some reason that writing every day, I think, is making me lonely. I have no idea why. I’m going to explore it in tonight’s post. But… I appreciate hearing from you. (Weirdly, your comment didn’t show up in my email… time to check settings again…)