While trying to not get asleep I am writing whatever comes to my mind. Outside is hot, inside is fresh and nice. The bed is comfortable. I just need to remain focused. If I enjoy too much this position I might not get to the end. I’d like to set in my mind the lessons of the day. Waking up early gives more time to do things. I’ve accomplished a lot today. Not only at work, great day, but browsing through my 30-years old archive made me think. What was I thinking when I stored so much books, files, images, videos, photographs? I can easily throw away more than 99% of what I kept. It says a lot about who I was and how I changed. On the one hand I feel different and distant from that version of me, on the other hand I feel I’ve wasted so much energies and resources in carefully gathering, organizing and classifying such enormous amount of information. All of it for nothing. So, I am thinking, what have I learned? What shall I think today when I am doing the usual backup? Backup of what? What? What will I do with today’s archive in 30 years from now?
Tag: writing
Cheap Comfort
I am writing this document on my mobile phone using an external keyboard. It’s quite comfortable, I am on my couch, the phone is inclined on a holder and I am well seated on my sofa. This configuration is unusual. I feel I am in keyboard-typing-mode, typing fast, almost at the speed of my thoughts, but I am looking at the the small screen of my phone. It’s a different mood for me. I am among my people, the TV screams loudly and I can write down my thoughts. All of that thanks to a 100 Euro smartphone a a 25 Euros bluetooth keyboard.
Sometimes it doesn’t take a lot to create variety in your writing routines.
It’s Easy To Break A Habit
As soon as you skip your daily habitual rite of preparing for your creative time, immediately after you rush your creation when you skip a step because you’re tired or unmotivated, that is the worst moment of your challenge.
You want to build a daily creative habit and you’ve struggled to engrain your rituals for hundreds of days. When you start to feel tired or not like creating there are infinite ways to fall in a downward spiral dangerously leading you to break your habit.
This is what happened to me recently. After having a nice group of peers writing with me I got back to write alone. First, in 15 people you can feel the energy to create and you can’t wait for the moment to do it. When others have their doubts and partial failure you get energized by helping them to remain consistent. But at day 90 when you are in three, and then two, and then one, if you didn’t plan and prepare for your solo marathon, that is the moment where your willpower and your character are strongly put to a test.
Well, here I am, alone, still writing, and it’s day 233.
Time and Space Never Meet
Then I went upstairs, slowly, measuring each step. All still there, after all of those years. The line of pictures, untouched, climbing with me, looking at me. Cool air whispering in my ears. How long have I waited to live this? It was unexpected and welcome. Daring and caring. All furniture pieces where I left them. Like good old friends. Waiting, patiently. Where have you been? Did you find what you were looking for? The black tiles on the floor started to make a musical sound—the usual one. In tune with my thoughts, quickly assaulting each other. Will I find her still sitting in her chair? Those eyes looking into my soul were the greatest treasure I left behind me. They kept on visiting in my dreams, sometimes in my daydreaming. At the same time, they had the power of communicating love, a silent, warm, embracing love, and a quick reprimand, sweet but firm. Where have you been? Have you found what you were looking for? The white tiles replied to their opposite twins. My alternate steps started to establish the familiar rhythm. That one peculiar to the approaching door. It always surprises me how long it takes to go from the balcony to the door. The asymmetry between time and space follows an inverse gradient. The more you come closer, the more it takes for you to reach it. And it never ends.
Still writing, still for me
I got tired of writing and publishing every day. It has become a nuisance that I tend to escape just to be able to get it out of my way. The value of those 20-30 minutes of creative improvisation has gone down a lot. The lack of dialogue with the public demotivated me. I have no reactions. Obviously, it is up to me to understand why. I find myself at the crossroads of deciding whether to write just for me, for me in public or to write for an audience. This should make a difference. Not having a clear view of the audience I’m looking for, I prefer to stay focused on writing for myself. The main value of writing for me is to find the concentration to think. This is why I find myself with drafts that with difficulty become interesting pieces to read in public. They are articles that have done the most important work for me, make me think. There is no time for the desire to transform those neural embryos into something more in-depth and caring for someone who can find them interesting. I was too ambitious in thinking that every day I could give birth to a creative gem to be set. I like the idea of the constant creative flow but the curatorship of Curatella is still missing. We need to collect rough stones, work them and, if and when it’s worth it, then ring them.
There is also a lack of a more compelling relationship with the reader. I write to me, about me, for myself. It’s too easy for the reader to ask “yes, cute, so what? What do I do with it?”. I would therefore tend to move without hesitation and remorse on a personal level for the purpose of individual growth. I could find different forms for the different possible expressions. There may be an unstructured, daily diary that aspires to nothing but that of existing. Secondly, I can create a place of creativity and exchange that is more open to dialogue by taking care of it, keeping the goal of launching a conversation more focused.
I leave you here, these thoughts, without rereading them, precisely in the declared spirit.
Bye.
Reflections on Habitual Group Creativity
I’ve created CREAZEE to find external incentives in maintaining my daily writing habit. It’s a private group of people writing, every day, each on their own, contributing to the same community forum, sometimes following a common prompt, sometimes each one independently. I am the habit-building facilitator, a community coach, writing too, leading a group of wanna-be habitual creators. I started my habitual creativity challenge way before, and I am now on day 220.
On day 83 of group writing, I have repeat questions coming to my mind every day.
Timing
How is the sequence of shared articles influencing the group? For example, how am I influencing others if I publish my daily article first? Or last?
When shall I publish the daily prompt? Day by day, at the end of the day (how is timezone dealt with?) What would change if I posted all prompts for a month at the same time?
Participation
How to deal with who doesn’t write? If the One Rule is “You Will Write Every Day,” shall I throw out of the challenge who misses a day?
What about reminders, nudges, and gentle pushes: shall I go one by one and remind them they have to write for the day? Up until which level should I go? Shall I phone them?
What can I do to automate the reminding process, so I don’t have to spend my time chasing participants?
Pace
Diverse participants with diverse backgrounds, skills, attitudes, objectives write at different paces, varying lengths with various efforts and outcomes.
What is my role as a facilitator and a coach to help them keep the daily pace while respecting their diversity? All in all, a day is the same for everybody: either you wrote or not. How is the different distribution of efforts and outcomes distributed on that day of the challenge, and how does it affect my role and the overall group performance and mood?
What happens if we write simultaneously, setting a specific time frame during which we actually write together? What are the logistic implications?
Goals and motivation
I have never stressed the goal of why you should write daily, and I am not asking any participant to explain why they want to write daily or why they should do it. Is that affecting the group motivation? What would be the difference if each participant had to declare their goal at the beginning of the writing challenge? Would it be feasible and reasonable to allow individual plans to be pursued in a group effort?
The subject matter
Right now, I am providing a daily prompt which is optional. Participants may or may not follow it. Is that a waste? Shall everybody write following the same prompt? Or shall I drop the prompt entirely and just transform it into “write about anything you want but write?”
What if participants had to declare a milestone project giving continuity and coherence to the sum of their daily efforts? How would it affect the logistics and my responsibility as a group facilitator?
What would be the effect of having several independent trends posted daily, overlapping in the group forum?
Private or Public
I have never forced participants to share the daily articles publicly. What would change if we made it compulsory to publish on the Web the daily contributions?
Have your say
I would appreciate your thought on the above questions and reflections, either if you participated in CREAZEE or not.
Writing Every Day Without a Plan Can Be Boring
Despite all goodwill to develop topics incrementally, writing while reading, connecting notes, and revising accumulated drafts, I keep on writing free-flowing, improvised, at the last moment. There is an evident gap between intention and execution. My desires are not satisfied by my actions. It might be due to a bad habit I’ve built. Writing every day, yes, it’s generic. I use to say that the One Rule is “You will write every day.” But I never say what. This becomes to be unbearable and annoying. The only rule cannot be broken, and I committed to writing daily for 365 days. I am only slightly beyond half of the journey. I’ve never skipped a day, OK, I recognize that, but I still cannot move from “writing every day” to “writing every day, following a direction, achieving a purpose, exploring a field, pursuing a research goal.” Researching means not knowing what I should search for. Otherwise, it would not be researching. The problem is the lack of a research method, an inquiry process. I am deluding myself about the possibility of carrying on a dialogue by producing one little piece per day. It could happen if there were a design, a grand scheme, but I am wandering, swinging from the extreme of serendipity to the wall of boredom. Nonetheless, I’ve been caressing a method auspicious on this concern, accumulating a network of related notes created by paraphrasing anything I read pertaining to my direct interests or the spur of the moment. I’ve started it dozens of times. It never gets a firm grip on my habits. It keeps on sliding. I keep on falling into the collector’s syndrome. There are many shining pieces, barely and loosely connected, not leading to any emerging thread, creative ideas, or encouraging draft. I need to be patient. I cannot devote to it more than the time necessary to write this piece today. This is the progress I was able to make in my thinking. I wrote it. That should satisfy the One Rule for today. I can only look forward, farther, and plan, in advance, to develop the questions I am raising when improvising like this. It would be enough to read what I wrote so far.
For whom are you writing?
There are different audiences for your writing.
Your present self trying to understand something new.
Your future self to whom you want to transfer the knowledge you acquired today.
Your future self needing to combine your notes into a draft and revise it into the final copy.
The receiver of your piece, in a personal or professional context. They will read it and interpret it.
The public finding your article online or on any other publication. They will have to reconstruct the context you set and make sense of your written thoughts.
All of those audiences require a different attitude and intention in your communication that are reflected in your writing and publishing workflow.
Another Time
The time that doesn’t pass. Using my sphere, I can travel anyplace, and I can decide to change the time as I wish. I can either travel forward or backward. I would go back in time when I was a happy little child. Granma’s whipped egg with sugar and Marsala is waiting for me in the kitchen. I slept 10 hours on two wool mattresses. Soft and embracing. The air smell of adventures and possibilities. I ride my red bike on a long road going down without touching the brakes. I reach the old fountain spitting water so fresh it freezes your throat. I drink the cool liquid after having masticated a mint candy. My head explodes into a bolt of ice lightning. The river is rich in life: king prawns, tadpoles, frogs, and little fishes Nonna Lucia used to fry. A whole world is living my youth not more than 2 Km from home, the equivalent of 2 billion light-years for an 8-year-old boy and his friends.
Or I could travel to the future when there is no pain, no violence, no need to work to live but pure energy pervading the universe where everybody can meet, in peace, dance, and sing the beauty of life.
So far I traveled only for 15 minutes.
It’s a start.
212. It will not remain a tadpole forever. 
Another Place
I dream about being in a perfect indestructible sphere. It is fueled by an infinite, silent, clean energy. It provides limitless clean air, water, and food to its passenger. I am inside, comfortably seated. I can see through the perfectly transparent surface–when I don’t set it completely opaque. I can travel anywhere almost instantaneously. I can float at any height, in any place, weather condition, or at any depth of the sea.
I am ready to leave.