Sept 30th to Oct 6th, Daily Practice

The following entries are copied from my notebook where they were first written. The first sentence of each entry was added afterward to contextualize it. The rest is copied directly.

Wednesday, Sept 30th
After class I came home and sat oustide with with my roommate Ryan while he smoked a cigarette. We cought up and talked about our lives for a while. I thought it would be easy to write about. But I realize that its harder to write about the thoughts of someone you know really well. You find yourself writing only the things you know they've already said. Or you write things you that you think of them already, previous to this conversation. It's also harder if you're still sitting next to the person. I think its better to write about what they're thinking when they're not around you and when they're not thinking about you.

Thursday, Sept 9th
Today I gave blood and afterwards i sat with a girl at the 15-minutes-of-rest table and got to know her, and, of course, i wrote about it. I wrote it in first person, her perspective, thoughts from the moment she left. I think i need to make it third person though. Or at least I need to focus more on actions than just thoughts. It seems artificial to simulate stream of consciousness of another person without involving actions since so much of what we think is manifested in action. When one his writing his own stream of consciousness, action is not necessary since the act of writing is manifested in itself. But when writing the thoughts of one who is not writing, its necessary to include other actions. Third person may also be a little easier. Doin this kind of writing is strange because you put yourself in another person's shoes, restraining your own thought and liberating theirs. This one was hard, I don't think I'm letting go enough.

Sunday, Oct. 4th
Before I went to bed Sunday night I tried another stream of consciousness to compare to the one's i try to write for other people. Afterwards, I realized that this whole time I've been focusing too much on the purpose of the writing that on the writing itself. Everytime I write i feel the need to achieve something, this is what causes me to edit, to rethink, and to hesitate. Without a goal in mind i might actually write what i feel but unitl then I'm writing what i think I'm supposed to feel. I have to work on that.

Monday, oct. 5th
Monday I helped Lauren set up her piece in the crit room in ComART. This time I tried to put into practice all the things I said before. I put it into third person. I included actions, not just thoughts. And I tried to really let go, writing exactly what i wanted, without so much regard for what I thought my character wanted me to write about her. I found this to be incredibly liberating. It was probably the easiest, and the most satisfying of all my attempts thus far. I think this is because if we know someone, we intuitively have a sense for how they will act in a given situation. By writing spontaneously and freely, we come close to achieving that same thought process that they themselves possess, free from the restraint of my own upper mind. I will never be able to write about someone acting on impulse if I myself am acting on restraint. Today was a step in the right direction.