Friday, December 2, 2011

Dragons

 How's my mental health today?

 My gut is in turmoil. Not sure if that's from too much coffee, or wrestling with the task of writing. Probably a little of both.

A few weeks ago a friend loaned me a book to work through entitled The Artist's Way; A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. I've only glanced at a few pages in the book so far. Will I find answers and direction by working through this book? I've got so many books on the go already, do I set them aside for the time being? If I do that, will I have to start from the beginning again when I return to them?  How did I manage to stay  abreast of so many subjects and books when I was in school? I look at the number of books that university students continuously juggle and wonder how they do that without getting lost. Then I glance at the rapidly growing piles of books beside my chair at in our livingroom and in our spare room. The books are apparently reproducing faster than rabbits.

Finding the time to read and write as much as I would like to is becoming a bit of a dragon. I need to take care that I don't become consumed.

At the moment I am in what Heidi calls my office again. It's actually the Neighbourhood Bookstore and Cafe. The walls in front of me have floor to ceiling shelves filled with books. So many stories! So many story tellers!

Where did the writers get their inspiration and ideas from?

Some writers are incredibly prolific and imaginative. Among these, Stephen King intrigues me. The man spews out one story after another. They are spellbinding; often bizarre; occasionally twisted; full of surprises; brilliant! What I've found interesting is how King includes subtle little connections to previous stories in many of his books. I wonder, does he mesmerize his own children with story telling or have they become so used to his tales that they roll their eyes and dismiss them as just more of the usual crazy byproducts of his imagination?

Right now I'm more interested in reading than in writing. My sister brought me a new Stephen King book a couple of days ago. I need to finish a few of the books I've already started reading so that I can begin King's spin on the JFK assassination. Good thing the weekend is almost here; I can take more time to read - beginning now!

I'll be back Monday.


“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they 
tell us that dragons exist, but because 
they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
- G. K. Chesterton



1 comment:

  1. Hey Horst,
    That pile of books beside the chair (DVDs too in my case) and articles to write, threads to follow, etc is part of the condition and probably our biggest challenge - not to defeat ourselves by "riding off in all directions".

    That's where my gardening career helps to keep me grounded. But I know there's not a lot of gardening to do out there in Winnipeg these days.

    Good luck with it. No sage words of advice, but know there are lots of us struggling with the same issue. How can we stay focussed enough to get ANYTHING properly accomplished?

    Cheers, B

    Did you get to see my film Chomavision? It was what I focussed on last winter. I'm working on it again this winter again (got some funding) to tune it up, but I think you'd enjoy seeing it. Stan Rossowski has a copy. I trust you know him and his film program, Cinesanity.

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