Pens and Lines

My necessary tools for writing have always been a blank notebook and a pencil. This has always been the way. In the past I have been given notebooks for birthday or Christmas - beautiful notebooks, but I have put them away on a shelf because the pages are lined.

A couple of days ago I found myself writing fervently... with a Bic biro in a lined, spiral-bound notebook taken from work.

Why is this so odd?

I have always shut out the possibility of using anything but blank paper and an HP pencil because I thought anything else would quell my creativity. I built up this wall hoping to protect what I thought was my creative mind. Breaking through seems to have released something. Apparently not poetry, but certainly prose.

It seems my friend was right. I am now looking at the world from a different creative direction. Having this blog in mind I try to make everything interesting so I can write about it. Okay, sometimes I fail on the 'interesting' scale, but for me this feels creative. And this makes me feel good.

I even attempted opening a blank MS Word document to see if this encouraged anything more than a blog entry. Not yet, but perhaps I will keep trying. I can't limit myself and still expect great things to happen. I need to be open to anything, as long as it allows me to express myself.

Perhaps I shouldn't limit myself to the label of 'poet'? After all, poets write poetry... what I am is a creative mind. I just need to find my direction.

Fridge Door

One thing that creates a crack in the locked door of my creative mind is magnetic poetry. It has provided much-needed inspiration, even if it leads to nothing more than a few lines of... anything.

My fridge stands next to my kitchen window. I can spend hours standing or sitting in front of it. It must seem very strange to onlookers, a girl (usually in her pajamas) staring intently at a kitchen appliance.

Hundreds of little magnets to move around to make 'poetry'. It is a great creative exercise. I make space on the door, stand back and look. I don't look for anything, I just look. Soon random words will start to stand out and I will attempt to use these as a basis for something.

My Dad came around once and read a poem I had assembled, about war. He always complains that my writing is too dark - why can't I write about happy things? I tried to explain to him that I don't have a choice. If inspiration strikes, no matter what the subject, I have to grasp it before it disappears.

I keep all my pieces on another blog: www.thefifthline.blogspot.com and I will sometimes revisit them to see if anything will evolve...

I can hope.

Labels

Pencil to paper. Surely that's all you need to be a writer? But even the act of making that connection now feels alien to me. I had no idea as a child just innocently putting ideas down on paper would come to anything - writing so hard I couldn't get it all down.

I wasn't a writer then. Children can't be labelled as 'writers' - they just have a delightfully active imagination. Just like a child who can play the piano is not a pianist, just a child who can play an instrument. At what point do we attach labels to talents? When do hobbies become something more? When do they become a part of who we are, not just what we (think we can) do?