20 March 2006

Exposition

I'm not sure what it is lately. The experiential fodder is there: the year I lived in a storefront, any of 4 cross country drives spanning from 1 week to 7 months plus a coastal North to South drive, work on film sets, and so forth. Most of these experiences present themselves as culled lists of highlights in my head, concise ways of explaining how I arrived somewhere else to someone.

When the inspiration is missing, it's just missing. A few of the drives bother me most in this regard, because I did feel like writing during the journey, even took notes in some cases, but once it was over, the feeling was gone, the inspiration dissipated.

What presents one memory as a clear and detailed anecdote, and reduces another to a couple of lines of exposition? It must be my relation to the experience. I have no pressing need to tell a number of stories, some tales feel overworn from their repeated tellings in person, and some things are just difficult to share. The things I do write about, I often have distance from through a lens of humor, or need distance from to dispel frustration. When an experience remains close and unresolved, perhaps that diffuses the clarity required to relinquish it.

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3 comments:

  1. After having read this entry, I fully realize why someone would deem me one of the most boring bloggers on the blogosphere.

    When does the mundane, indeed, become so mundane that it is not worth writing about it? I guess that I have now lost that sense of shame that would preclude me to mention on my blog what I had for dinner last night.

    On the other hand, there are things that I never blog about because they are either too personal, or because I really don't want to discuss touchy work-related issues on my blog.

    Keep up the good work, I like what you write, and your name rocks. That's my daughter's name, and I am the one who chose it!

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  2. Thank you for the thoughtful comment, and Claire is a cool name!

    "When does the mundane, indeed, become so mundane that it is not worth writing about it?"

    I don't think it's a matter of mundaneness so much as presentation. At least for me. Anything can become a story, but if I'm just reciting facts, I'm not letting the reader share the experience/my pov. I think it comes back around to the intial question: why do I blog?

    There are lots of different answers.

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  3. Ragtooth: d'oh. You commented while I was slowly composing my reply to Elisabeth.

    Thanks for your insights and the pep talk. I'm confident the fog will lift, it's just a matter of when. Reading books or blogs does usually help.

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