Contests

I never seem to win any writing contest... ever.
This stopped me from writing for a while, but just now I figured: who cares!
My entry text was my earlier blog post: Ki
You can read the winner Acrostics here
Usually I am one of the persons they also thank for submitting their work, somewhere on the bottom of the page. But this time not even that.That is not an obstacle any more, though. I have changed and the way I see my writing is slowly changing also.
I have a text in mind about dermatography. I might start writing it today.

Ki

                                       Putting my words in this order

Restricts the natural flow of thoughts

Ornaments the page with it’s slain and disgraced twigs

Chopped and turned into a bonsai.

Unless you believe that tray planting your spirit makes it grow more harmoniously

Such crime should never be done

To those latent marvels

Reading while Writing

When I was a teenager, I wrote a lot of crap. I just went on and on and wrote.
Then I had a period when I got unsure about it, and had to find motivation.
I read somewhere, I think it was an idea Proust's that there are two things that can motivate him to write: either a really good novel that makes a great impression on him or a really bad one that he feels he can top.
For a long time, I thought just the same was applicable to me, too.
I was writing because I read a lot, and my texts were a filtration (or is it better to say a collage?) of what I read.
It was like the image my high school sweetheart told me he continuously dram about: he saw himself writing at a table but in fact reading while writing.

For a long time I have just written short prose. A lot of recycled techniques were used there that I picked up here and there.
I also had a Latin American summer, when I was a small Borges wannabe.

After a while, when I thought writing was too fatiguing, I just stopped.
I felt it brought me nothing good, nothing but the sense of frustration.


Then I found the third way that can motivate me. Reading about how others experience the writing process.
When reading Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running I was faced with the obvious fact I knew in the back of my mind, but was too stupid to admit:

Fortunately, these two disciplines—focus and endurance—are
different from talent, since they can be acquired and sharpened
through training. You’ll naturally learn both concentration and
endurance when you sit down every day at your desk and train
yourself to focus on one point. This is a lot like the training of
muscles I wrote of a moment ago. You have to continually
transmit the object of your focus to your entire body, and make
sure it thoroughly assimilates the information necessary for you
to write every single day and concentrate on the work at hand.
And gradually you’ll expand the limits of what you’re able to do.
Almost imperceptibly you’ll make the bar rise. This involves the
same process as jogging every day to strengthen your muscles
and develop a runner’s physique. Add a stimulus and keep it up.
And repeat. Patience is a must in this process, but I guarantee the
results will come.

The idea of getting back again and again to the same text gave me nausea. Many times I ended up hating my texts, being nervous and lacking enthusiasm. There is no need to undergo this torture and continually block your writing and questioning if you have talent. I might as well write a number of bad texts, to train. I cannot run the ultra marathon without training.

And maybe one day I will be meditatively running at peace with myself, thorough the Natural Flower Garden on the long, long peninsula of a novel that I have finally accomplished.