The Morning Pages on February 15

I have been reading The Artist's Way for the last few days. One of the suggestions she gives is to do The Morning Pages to unblock your creativity, just writing 3 pages of whatever every morning, no exceptions. I figured I would try this, as usually the first thing I do in the morning is to get the stupid computer out and check facebook, which is not terribly creative or helpful for the creative process. I don't think I'll get to 3 pages of BLOG, but nonetheless, I am here, trying.

This will probably be more like a completely ridiculous 25 random things about me sort of thing, but I guess since it's my head and my blog, I am all right with randomness.

I really, really would like to write more. Last spring, when the kids sort of had a regular routine going on (that involved all 3 of them napping at the same time for at least 2 hours) I would write on the kitchen counter top. I got maybe 80 or 100 pages down for a story that I started out with in the fall of 2003 for a screenplay for one of my classes at the U. This was the screenplay class that the wonderfully (foul) presumptuous PETER GREG also attended, but we won't get into that right now. There are entries on my media blog about him and his pompous ass and how he thought Sex and the City was better that The Sopranos (MORTAL SIN for a film scholar) and the inadequacy of TEMPLE OF DOOM (MORTAL SIN in my mind) so I've covered THOSE bases plenty. My screenplay was quite fun to work on and I was very proud of it; it was about my horrible time at NWA and was titled DML day. It got really good reactions, Peter Greg even kept his condescending comments to minimum, which was surprising.

Anyway. This screenplay got hashed out into the beginnings of a mini novel last spring, and some of what I wrote, I actually thought was good. There are parts that stump me and parts I know are NOT good, but I mostly enjoyed doing it. I got to a point where I would try to go on with it but couldn't; I guess you could say I was blocked. With all the kids and baby-having going on around here, this now is on a major back burner, so I'm not stressed out about it, but it's something I think about a lot.
My favorite place to go and try to UN-block was Betsy's Back Porch Coffee shop right off Diamond lake road, which I'm told has now shut down due to, well, the stupid economy. How very sad indeed.

Maybe after I finish reading the rest of Artist's Way I will have some new ideas on how to get around whatever was slowing me down before. I suppose there is an inner paranoia of ever even finishing the stupid thing as it would eventually force me to share it with someone. . . then setting myself up for what I remember was the most mortifying moment EVER in getting back something I wrote that I thought was good. . .

War films class in fall of 2002. I wrote what I thought was a kick ass paper on The Grand Illusion and Paths of Glory (2 of the best war films EVER, if you ask me) for Dr. Silberman. I had registered for the class late, and the only seat left was for graduate credit. The computer let me take it event though I was NOT a grad student, so I figured it should be fine. Turns out, all the undergrads had the TA correct their papers and tests and web CT postings, the Grad students had the actual professor do it. I didn't think the professor was that intimidating until I started reading some of his comments to the Web CT postings and I started to get a little nervous. Silberman was and is the most articulate, OBSESSIVELY knowledgeable film guy I've ever met, but his background is in ENGLISH and ART HISTORY. So it's like the smartest film scholar ever, but someone who has edited books, written books, knows literature, and inner workings of technical crap along with every film ever made. I turned the final paper in that I really worked hard on, did my damndest to be witty and clever on, and hoped for the best. When I got the thing back, of course the grade wasn't on the front it was on the final page, so what I saw at first glance was the entire front page COVERED in red marker.
And this was really only half a pages' work since I didn't have a title page. He commented on the title said it was nice, but I should have included a statement of what my argument would be. He commented on mention of both literature and prose as it was redundant. He commented on a single WORD, I think it was "that" in a sentence, and said it was, "a little awkward." Seriously, there were like 7 things marked up on that front page. This continued throughout the paper. THE WHOLE FRICKING THING. I had never had a professor so seriously do up a paper like that. Most of them even overlooked grammatical errors and just focused on the position of the paper. Not so on this one. I about peed my pants just reading his comments, figuring I was going to fail, or worse yet, have to write it all over again and I don't know, apologize for awkward words. Happily, when I got to the end, he had given me a B+, which was the total surprise of my life.

I guess I am just taken back to that moment anytime I write something and then look at it and wonder how many comments old Silberman would have on it. . . which granted, is no way to live my creative life, but we all have our issues. I suppose the main idea of this rant would be that when I do write something, eventually, I would like it to be something Rob Silberman would not wear his pen out critiquing, even though this would be fiction and something he probably wouldn't even read. Maybe he's my secret inner "censor."

Wow. How illuminating.