College and Writing

At times when it comes down to writing, I find myself struggling, both creatively and academically. When I struggle with creative writing, it takes a toll on my academic writing, and the same goes for my academic writing taking a toll on my creative writing. As the semester draws to the close, I'm finding myself cramming in last minute papers and doing them in a poorly manner of writing. It isn't that I mean to do this, but it is mainly because I often get too caught up in an idea that I want to work on, rather than focusing on coursework.

Within my college years, I have worked on improving my procrastination, but I still prefer typing something creative, rather than study or write a 8 page essay on a chapter in Milton's Paradise Lost. It isn't that I don't mind the course work, I just often feel that being an English major can get quite hectic with all of the outside coursework- and can sometimes take away my creativity with essays, poetry, and research papers. I often want to give up; although,  that is never the case. What I do in these  situations is write.

Writing can help relieve stress from coursework, but that doesn't help me get back on track of the coursework; except it does take a load of stress off of my shoulders. Writing frees my mind and also can inspire me at times to write 8 page papers on Milton's Paradise Lost and/or any other assignment given to me.  Writing can sometimes allow me to do better with coursework, but at other times it can be distracting as well. I am trying to allow writing inspire/motivate me more, but I think it'll take time and practice at doing so.

I Write...

I write from the pity that I feel for the weak. I write for the lost. I write to save lives. I write to understand death. I write to understand love. I write to find myself within the pages. I write to escape. I write to dream. I write to achieve something. I write to throw something on paper. I write to gain knowledge. I write to inspire. I write to have something to do. I write for a living. I write because that's the only thing I can do. I write to make a woman smile. I write to break her heart. I write to make her fall in love.

This has been a great exercise in my writing. With this style of free writing, I often gain the best ideas and find myself understanding my ideas and thoughts more. I write for a reason, but it isn't to change the world, exactly. It isn't to be famous, but just to inspire a few people. It's a way of letting my mind fill the pages, and allowing my readers to reflect on their own lives. Maybe it is to change the world, whether it's good or bad.

We All Desire A Story

In the past few weeks I have been working diligently on my poetry, or at least I've been trying to do what I can. With classes, work, and coursework, a writer can get writer's block pretty easily. I find myself sitting at the computer screen at times, looking at the flashing line, awaiting for words to flow, but there I sit instead, with a blank face and  looking at updated statuses on Facebook. I'm not motivated to write, and yet I am. I await the words of the true poet to come out naturally, and sometimes immediately, but sixty-percent of the time that is not the case. So, as a writer, I put my headphones on and listen to either classical music, folk, indie, or alternative rock; hoping to find the words through the music. Usually nothing happens.

I'm the type of writer that is inspired when the time is unnecessary. I'm usually sitting in a class room, watching the power point, or reading at the last minute, or writing a research paper; and that's when an idea hits. I take my pen and scribble down the words that come to mind, taking my mind off of the teacher or studies, and I write something that I might find eloquent, that is until I come to it later as I gaze through my notes and that's when it hits me, "Write more as a writer and not as a student."  How was that poetry? It isn't. It was just good advice to myself, that was all. The true inspiration comes when I'm brushing my teeth, or when I forgot to bring a pen with me, or when I'm in the shower, etc. My true symphony comes when I'm unprepared; when my pants are down (metaphorically speaking). A true poet/writer must always have a pen, a small notebook, and an idea. One little idea can explode into something big, soaring to the minds of your readers, grasping onto their sentimental gland; pouring out unto them, having them beckon for more. Write us poetry, they will say.

We are all poets and writers,
Although  we must first glance back,
Look forward, and write.

Poetry

I know that I usually discuss on what or how I write, but I feel that I will just publish a couple of pieces onto my blog. Enjoy!

  Our Lampposts, By Stephen Sanders


The movie scene was closed from the public.
There was death on screen, they say.
Not a real death by a phantom or some other mysterious matter or person,
but a death that was forbidding.
A child hugged his mother, closing his hands on her coat, holding back tears.
We cry when we are sad, they say.
Sadness is a weak kiss.
The death was of a man whom stared at the stars at night, holding his dead wife within his heart.
Touching the glass to his lips, drinking.
This story is false, of course.
It's the chill that reaches the human heart, elaborating the psyche.
I know of a wife who loved her husband,
but when he died she cooed herself to sleep.
The life he lived was something more than we've seen.
It was majestic.
Our death was the very purpose to our reasoning:
our lampposts turn on in the darkness. 


 The Scene of What We Never Saw, By Stephen Sanders

I don't enjoy this company of lonely people, looking out at the sunset.
We gather in groups, drinking club soda.
Where did our time go? Fifty years has passed, alone.
We set our clocks back to mid-summer, laughter is sweet and red.
I cannot remember the last time I held a woman,
Her lips pacing, her eyes revealing mine.
I slept alone for the last fifty years on a couch,
Watching the same television shows: Eating the same food: Working.
Music plays in the background, softly like a pillow filling our void; our emptiness.
I wish you could hear the music play,
Filling my throat and arousing the mood to dance: Breathe in the poet.
Your hands are like leather, brushing against my leg,
Passing through my hair. Weakened by the stench of fragrance:
I want your mouth, pressing, tonguing mine.  I want your hands moving, pulling my hair.
I want your hunger: your lustful heart. I want to lay my head against your belly.
I want the softness of a woman-- you're the woman.
We sit and watch the sunset: never moving, never changing, never living, never dying.

The Muse

When it comes down to writing poetry, you must meditate first. You must look into your soul and breathe in the ideas that reach out to you. A true poet will write what's on their mind--they will seek the words. There really is no specific way of writing real poetry; rather, it's what your mind, soul, and heart tell you to write. While writing poetry, you must allow the muse to enter into your being and speak the words. You are the poet, you are the creator of thoughts (given to you by God or whatever being you worship). Anyone can be a poet if we allow these things to react, if we welcome the Holy Spirit and our inner-self. Breathe in, exhale, think, and welcome the muse, and write.

The Emotional Form of Writing

In the past few days/weeks, I haven't been inspired to write or to do much at all. When I get to my lowest point, I feel that writing cannot help clear my thoughts. So, the discussion topic for this blog is to allow you, my audience, to understand when I feel that it is best to write.

I feel that it is best to write when you are extremely happy or motivated. When an idea comes to mind that you are sure that it's a great one,  use it, write, and develop it. Take that idea and make the absolute best of it--in order to inspire the world. Create a masterpiece, that people will/would read and feel a great sense of inspiration--allowing them to escape! Use detail in your work, but make the language easy, for all ages. Create beauty, hope, love, etc. And remember to edit.

I will admit, I'm not the best of writers. In all reasoning, I'm a decent poet; although, I want to improve with my writing skills, and possibly go farther than I've ever imagined. Do not think that I want fame, I don't. I just want to inspire a small group of people with a poem or short story. I want to make people happy--that is my main objective with writing. Thus is why I feel that I must write when I'm in a good mood. If you write when you're sad or depressed or confused, do not tend to write for others, but for yourself; sadness or depression brings out the darker thoughts/feelings. So, before I close, I want to say: if you lack hope of becoming a writer, don't; anyone can be a great writer with an idea and a lot of editing.

Inspired By The Soundtrack

The music track hums smoothly in my mind, allowing me to wander deep in thought. There is an idea forming--silent, but then it crescendos....I grasp onto the idea, holding it firmly within my fist which has been pulled from the unconsciousness mind (I'm not quite awake, nor am I asleep). Music has inspired this idea...it has allowed me to create--to build another realm locked beneath the depths of my mind (alas, I have an idea!).

Usually when I begin my writing process, I turn on music. It really doesn't matter what genre of music it is; rather, depending on the genre, my ideas are different. I feel that with music, I can find the inner thoughts that are locked within the "vaults" of my mind. I meditate to seek out the idea(s)--until they become clear. I write. I write every idea that has been brought out during my session of meditation. I write until the tips of my fingers go numb or until my notebook is full or until my wrist gets tight. I write from the memories that I still remember, and from those memories, elaborate.

Music frees my mind and allows me to find the writer from deep within.
\
-Stephen

The Question of Life

In the back of my mind an idea is itching. It's one of those itches that you might feel moreso in the back of your throat (the one where it tickles, and yet itches). You'd keep swallowing to realize that that sensation will not go away--even after drinking a glass of water; but this idea in the back of my mind...it haunts me.

It all started with a dream. A dream in which I thought to be buried deeply within my unconsciousness. I thought that it was going to be just a dream, rather it made me think...I thought it might've  held the key to the number one answer in which mankind asks daily....the question in which we ask ourselves over and over and over again. The question in which there may be no answer to: What is the purpose to life?

I want to write this idea out: not for the sake of answering the question, but for the soul purpose of trying to figure out my life, as a writer and a person.

I feel that most of my ideas form from a dream, or a thought, or an unknown reason...And those thoughts tend to itch at the back of my mind, waiting to be written, waiting to breath life. As a writer, I must question a lot of things and do my best at making them clear to myself and my audience.

And it all starts with: What is the purpose to life?

The outcome is different to each person.

Freewriting for Everyone!

With tired eyes and an absent mind, I write thoughtlessly unaware of ideas--absent from creativity. I write these thoughts down simply because this is what I do when all inspiration has left my thoughts and left me with a blank sheet of paper, or in this case open space, to draw ideas gradually, or possibly never. I feel as if I were a computer loading unknown data while my "Processing...Processing....Processing" screen keeps popping up--driving the hacker or writer or gamer crazy.


This is what I like to call my "freewriting stage." It's the stage where I have nothing to write about, but I write whatever comes to mind at the time. I feel that it is easier to get ideas onto the page by freewriting and then pulling an idea from what I have thus far. Usually my writing can be scatter minded, but within that scatter mind there lies an idea so great, that it'll seem as if I were stricken by an ingenious idea--one in which will blow my reader's mind; which is hardly the case.

An Idea: The Flaws, Editing, and Reediting.

Lately I've been stuck on an idea—an idea that keeps coming to mind, but when it comes to writing it out, I feel that writing it is the most difficult task. Throughout my last couple of years of being a writer I feel that I have to be ‘forced’ to write, or else I’ll have no other inspiration to write. I do enjoy writing, but it’s usually poetry (it’s fast and easy).

I can write better on a sheet of paper, moreso than writing my thoughts out on a computer. I feel that with writing my thoughts out on paper, I can be less formal and improper—rather than having to be the perfectionist that writers usually are: correct grammar, spelling, and complete sentences. On paper my writing is unofficial and imperfect. I feel that with my ideas, they must hold flaws at first, in order for me to tear the idea down (editing) and building it back up (reediting). I do this about 5-6 times with everything I write.

The Attempting Writer

I'm not a proficient writer, but I do my best to entertain my readers. I write out of sheer pity for myself—creating lives that are less fortunate than my own; not that my life is terrible. I write to inspire, to clear the world with torment and pain. I write to save lives—with my uttermost attempt at inspiring to fulfill one’s needs of satisfaction. I write to make you, my reader(s) cry, laugh, dream, believe, hope, or long to change for the better good—or help those in need of a greater change than yourselves.

            I’m not always the brightest writer in the batch of writers. I am not the most poetic poet, either; nor am I Shakesphere, Whitman, Frost, or any other great writer. I simply write to fulfill my own needs, or even yours—my audiences’. I write to create a world far less fortunate than this one, or even more fortunate. I’m a writer out of sheer waste and time, but to me that wasted time was for my own personal benefit—my own personal gain. I’m not the type of author that is hoping for success; rather I write to find the better meaning of life, from the experiences that I’ve experienced in my own life. -Steve