Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
sshh I’m considering writing this week’s Finish the Sentence Friday post. Its Stream of Consciousness week and you know how tricky that can be!
lol…what a difference an un-inspired night’s sleep can make! That, and stumbling upon the perfect photo.1
See what I mean?! I take Kristi and Kenya’s weekly invite quite seriously. (Since I’m pre-living an imaginary childolescence anyway, I do remember that friends are valuable and should be afforded one’s full attention.) Lets do our thing with the cut n paste machine and get this party started.
We’re on with FTSF this week with a 5-minute stream of consciousness and the prompt, “When it comes to this body…”
The linkup will be open tonight (Feb. 15, 2016) at 10pm eastern and remain open through late Sunday night.
Write your 5-minute post, slap in a photo (or not) and join us at either:
https://www.kenyagjohnson.com/
or
So hope to see you there! xoxo
So the only thing I have to ask myself is, do we go with 5-minutes at 10:19 pm or 5-minutes at 7:18 am2
“When it comes to this body…”
” …Gotta go with the morning SOC.”
You know how when there was an exam in school or a presentation at work or a parent-teacher conference that evening sometimes you’d stay up right to the last-minute pre-worrying? That’s kinda what my night writing tends to be… there’s something about writing, (for me), that does not co-exist well with the ‘real’ world. Sure, I can write in the evening, after a day in my real person disguise. But my mind is…not just tired, it’s burdened from a day spent standing up straight, maintaining eye contact, proving my worth and value to those around me. Ain’t no place for the clark what likes to write about Doctrines and perspectives and a world-that-should-be. (Of course, I assume that the writer I am, when away from the world of mature adults, is the preferred ‘voice’. Fortunately for me, the Wakefield Doctrine has helped me learn to accept that my decision is mine to make and whatever I decide is valid.)
Hey! five minutes are way up…. incoherency trumps rules and standards in writing prompts as much as it does in the rest of life.
Thanks for coming by!
1) and, and! as many of us here, in the ‘sphere, know all too well, the ‘perfect picture’ is not so much the one we succeeded in taking as part of an effort to provide photographic documentation in support of a thesis, theme, idea or mood. It’s the photo that jumps out of the pile and yells in your face, “Hey! You wanna express the coexistence of strong and decrepit? Did ya hope to for a portrayal of the multiple layers and levels of being a human? Hows about that business of reflection versus conscious self-appreciation?? Huh? Do ya? Don’t go no further! This photo has it all!!” So you pick a photo that you haven’t looked at since you took it, too many years ago to remember and it whispers to you, “Sure, they’ll get it. How could they not? Give your readers some credit. …I’ll just sit on this page and not say a thing. good luck. …err seeing how it’s on a post… maybe a hint about the car rear view mirror? and the decaying concrete? no, you’re fine the way it is…just sayin…Mr. Artsy. What? no, I didn’t say anything! Go on, hit ‘Publish’.
2) We went with the five minutes at 7:18 am. Despite what Footnote 1 seemed to insinuate, I do have a respect for the reader. So, surely there is a reader out there peering over the half-moon horizon of their morning coffee, thinking, “Wait a minute. You made a choice. How could you have made a choice if your didnt’ write at night. If you wrote at night doesn’t that count towards your five minutes?”
you go me on that. and I did write last night… and I let it sleep that magical sleep of the ‘written-but-un-published-post’…. what the hell with the childhood fairy tales that we were secretly indoctrinated with, i.e. did the post somehow get better while I slept? What the hell kind of thinking is that?!! And speaking of ‘what the hell?!?!’ I thought what I’d written was excellent when I stopped last night. who snuck into my house/computer and turned my sincerely insightful post into this, …this whatever it is!?!? Thanks, Brothers Grimm, Thanks a bunch, Mr Walt the Intolerant, (and no, I don’t almost believe thats Abe Lincoln! I can see the fricken cables running out of his foot)…thanks a lot for messing with my mind.
Here’s an excerpt of last night’s post. Submitted to validate my choice of a 7:18 am Post:
“it’s tricky. How is it I can say, ‘this body of mine, it’s old and breaking down all the time’ all impersonal pronoun and such. If I said, “My body, he’s really got some miles on it. I better go easy on him.” it sounds weird. So maybe I can talk about how the body is the ‘us’ that most of us never quite accept. It’s a form of me that is more than necessary and less than ideal but is the source of all that’s good and bad, pleasurable and painful. Surely that’s the same among bloggers and bloggerinae?
About clarkscottroger
Clark, I’ll raise you and actually had a guest post running today about a mother/daughter duo who discuss staying active and keeping their bodies and more healthy all while making family memories. So, I may have also taken the easy way out on this one, too :)
thanks Janine! lol the fun is often in the un-expected surprises*
*which in the wonderland I spend my time, is not as redundant and expression as it sounds
I’m glad you shared what you wrote last night too. I think it was more stream of conscious-cy. ;-) Isn’t it weird what our minds give us at different times?
I must be getting old, I mentioned to Phyllis, ‘hey this is an odd one, I think I’ll surpass on hitting ‘Publish’ until the morning…. when I was a young blogger…..lol
Bear with me here, because it is relevant, but I used to write passionately at night, only, and then always think it was weird and terrible the next morning. These days I still publish it. So either it never was weird/terrible, it IS and I don’t care, or something about my perspective/openness has changed.
I don’t have a clue.
I do have trouble shifting from regular person to writer person, though.
I think I responded to Pat B with the suggestion that ‘I must be getting old’ as my tolerance for risk seems to have decreased. (But, as I look back over the time I’ve been in this place, I see a definite pattern: I try something new while being uncomfortable, it succeeds and I continue doing it. I become comfortable yet, at some point restless and or dissatisfied, and find something that makes me uncomfortable. The movable comfort zone, I suppose.)
Funny the night and morning writers among us. I do much better at night (or so I think and who’s to know as I rarely write in the morning). I sleep until the last minute, and then get Tucker breakfast and off to school and then either go to work or get ready to work from home. I need the quiet of the night without the pressure of “real life” ahead of me for the day to say anything. And totally got the rearview artist within you photo reference thing.
I suppose, on one level, nothing so surprising, as most of us have cycles that favor early/late parts of day. I liked that you stole of the quiet of the night without the pressure of ‘real’ life ahead, whereas, for whatever reason the day ahead doesn’t impinge on my mind the way that the remnants of the day past does. I can, not feel the shift, but, like a mood, know the difference how my head feels when I’m in writing mode as opposed to the world out there…. lol
Your comment, “It’s a form of me that is more than necessary and less than ideal but is the source of all that’s good and bad, pleasurable and painful,” is interesting to consider.
Will we get to read the rest of your evening post at some later date, or just have to imagine it? LOL
I think imagining (it) surely holds much greater promise of an enjoyable post, don’t you?
;p
Sincerely insightful. Yay for that and for writing at whatever time of day works best.Still, it can be good to sleep on it, as it is known. Either way, you are a good one at this stream of consciousness stuff.
I like the idea (of stream of consciousness) because, almost by definition, it requires a suspending of the attitude to do a ‘good job’. I’ve probably said this before, but for me, ‘writers block’ is not the lack of ideas, it is the overly active inner critic, so much a part of me that, when it is in full effect, I don’t get a chance to write a sentence, simply because ‘it would have been stupid, anyway.’
I’m with you on writing before real life. I’m not a “morning person “ but my creativity mixing with brain power rarely works well after work. My nearly always only writing time comes first thing in the weekend. Even if it’s only 5 minutes.
yeah… the amount of time I spend, trying to sneak up on myself and get into the writing frame of mind… ayiiee
The circumstances I need for really solid writing are a moving target! I like mid-morning coffeeshop writing, with bustle around me. I also like writing in my silent office in the back of my house, which is a teenyweenytiny room with no insulation but with a huge picture window and a space heater. I do know that to get into the really heavy stuff, I need music without lyrics playing — I’m partial to a Pandora station called Classical Guitar Radio. One thing I do know, though, is that writing at night is NEVER a good idea for me. If it’s anything heavy, my mind chews on it all night long, and I can’t sleep!
I enjoy hearing about what conditions are necessary (or at least, conducive to) writing with others. Funny about the music… I don’t have a specific style that ‘helps’. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I’ll stumble onto an old album or music (on youtube) and it will trigger emotional echoes and ripples… very helpful.
I’m getting older, falling apart lol. I’m 41 but feel like I’m at least 71……. Must start taking care of myself and stop trying to be others versions of perfect.
lol (there was a line in a Peter Gent book (‘The Franchise’), where a character’s great grandfather says, “I feel like a twenty three year old, with something real bad, wrong.”)