Thursday, April 01, 2010

Writing Manifesto

  •  Keep going through self-doubt, criticism, a sore back, rejection, ridicule and terror.
  • Honour that tiny light that sparks sometimes when I touch keyboard or grip a pen.
  • Let go of pride, decency, even ambition.
  • Make that stab in the dark.
  • Dwell in uncertainty and make friends with insecurity. Be hungry.
  • Leap for that goal. Turn into a rainbow shoal of fish as I do it. Or a dead man in a stinking overcoat.
  • Kiss the scabs on my fingers.
  • Wander down some cold back alley in an unknown country, at three in the morning (without my cardigan, and in heels).
  • Stare without blinking.
  • Love loneliness, or at least offer it a whisky when it comes knocking on my door in the rain.
  • Stay with struggle.
  • Have the grace to fall.
  • Have bruised knees and no one to phone at two in the morning.
  • Watch. Listen.
  • Stop loving the sound of my own voice.
  • Let go of being clever or the desire to be clever, or to be seen as clever.
  • Sever myself from ideas of success.
  • Feed beauty. Track wonder. Breath out fire. Dream.
  • Die not with a thorny blue rose in my palm but with a ridiculous happy look on my face, and odd socks.
  • Love.
  • Take delight.
  • Run rings around inadequacy. Remember the blood in my veins even as I wake up with a hangover.
  • Embrace boredom.
  • Run out of teabags three lines before the end of the paragraph and laugh whilst cursing.
  • Freefall.
  • Chill the fuck out
  • (it will never be what I want it to be.)
  • Accept/ever accept.
  • It is solace, so give solace.
  • It is generous - so give the shirt off my back.
  • Take those risks, the ones that matter.
  • Eschew judgment, especially my own viperous tongue.
  • Kiss fear on the mouth or at least one cheek.
  • Never give up.
  • Carry on swimming out until the yellow buoy is under my hand.

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