I love summer and fall but I long for winter for its stillness. I'm best able to vision in stillness--and by that, I mean clearly see what I want from my writing and my life.
A good friend once shared that she sees vision as a counterpart to will. Will being the energy to push forward, to move, to make decisions, to set oneself in the chair and do the writing that's on schedule for that day.
Without vision, though, it's just typing on a page.
And that, truly, can be fine. Sometimes vision doesn't come in early drafts. Two of my favorite writers, George Saunders and Ron Carlson, write eloquently and knowledgably about the non-visioning phase of putting words on the page, how essential it is, how often it gets very messed up when visioning is involved. We stop to consider what we are saying, and we're lost. The editor mind steps in, the sheer flow of words gets stuck in analyzing.
But, equally, I find there's a place after the words are downloaded when the writer must step back and look at the vision. Really, that's what "re-visioning" is, right? The necessary act of seeing again. Of looking deeper.
Friday, November 18, 2022
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