Physical and mental writing blocks
I have a life pretty much filled with clutter. This is as much mental as it is physical. I have recently come to the realization that this clutter has become a hurtle to overcome when it comes to my writing. I’m sure some of this will sound familiar to others. Here’s a fun little list of things that stand in my way.
Physical clutter
- Notebooks upon notebooks half full of writing, ideas and half done poems that I would love to be able to go through to get some inspiration.
- Scraps of paper poem lines, short story ideas, scenes, and random dialog.
- Folders full of school papers that should be edited to use for publication.
- Then there are the piles of random other junk. At the moment my bedroom looks like a tornado just passed through.
Mental Clutter
- First thing in the morning my mind get filled with the redundant task of everyday like, check email, shower, myspace, howework, work, etc.
- In the back of my mind I’m always questioning how I’m going to get my bills paid.
- Right after that I begin the worry of needing to find a decent paying job. Keeping in mind that I would like it to be a job that I actually like.
While all that runs through my mind I still have all the other worries that I’m pretty sure every other person in their 20′s has. I do have periods of time where I am able to push everything aside and get some writing done. But it seems to be getting harder and harder lately.
It would be great to hear if anybody else has these same issues. It would also be great to get some advice on how to deal with it.
Death and Mourning in Ethnic Literature
I am halfway through my last semester at BMCC and am taking this great literature class. We are reading four different novels by ethic writers. In addition, we have to read several articles dealing with the process of mourning, loss, and trauma. I think it is very interesting to apply some psychological theory to the way that these writers interpret how people deal with loss. The books that we are reading are Bone, by Fa Myenne Ng, Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, by Carlos Hijuelos, Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko, and Praise Song for the Widow, by Paule Marshall.
In the class, we are not only focusing on the indiviual loss the characters go through, but also about the larger issue of loss for ethnic people in America. Besides the literal physical death of family members these books deal with the larger issue of loss of identity and culture. These authors use a death to represent these larger issues of loss. This applies a lot to the immigrant stories but as well to all nationalties that are not thought of as mainstream, majority, white America. For example, the novel Ceremony is about Native Americans, who suffer the loss of their land to outsiders, who in turn made them feel like outsiders in their home.
The class is very compelling, but very difficult. The themes and some of the material that we are dealing with takes a lot of effort to grasp. For the class we have to write three papers. I just finished the second paper for the class. For the first time in years I really struggled with getting the paper done. I just had so many things that I could have covered and had a hard time organizing them into a coherent paper. It took a lot of work to cut things out and still have it be understandable, clear and to a point. In the end, I’m not even sure that I was able to accomplish that. I’m just glad that I will be able to revise the paper and hand it in for a new grade. I just hope that I will be able to get the last paper done well. I have a little over a month left and I am really starting to feel the pressure.
