Link to Grieving for Someone Who’s Still Alive on Medium.com
You’ve heard it before: writing is starting with a blank canvas.
I remember a scene from the movie Heat where Robert De Niro was talking with this guy who was selling him the plans to rob a bank.
I’m totally paraphrasing here because I don’t remember the exact words, but it’s the gest.
Robert DeNiro looked at the guy and asked “Where did you get these blueprints [to the bank]?”
The guy smiles and said, “The ideas are just floating in the air and all you have to do is snatch them.”
Sometimes getting ideas to write, either for Medium or on my personal blog, is just like that. It’s like starting with a blank canvas. There’s endless things to write about that and because of its vastness, vagueness, I really don’t know where to begin. And then I remember a question that Stephen Colbert asked Jerry Seinfeld during an interview:
Stephen Colbert: What is bothering you these days?
Jerry Seinfeld: What is bothering me these days? Give me an area.
Stephen Colbert: How about phone calls, Jerry?
When Jerry said that, “Give me an area”, it clicked for me. Absolutely made perfect sense.
Areas
In my head, because I’m very visual, I need to picture the colors of the scene of what it is that I want to say. Going one step further, for me to understand what you’re saying to me, I need you to literally draw me a picture.
Literally.
But that’s all swell and nice, but it still doesn’t help me land on an idea.
You hear it everywhere, all the time. Follow your passions! Do whatever makes you feel good! Listen to your intuition and go with it! Love what you do and never work another day in your life!
Well, if this isn’t pressure, you can just slap me silly. Because when I start writing, it’s exactly like that pretty picture – a complete blank canvas. Then I think about Zen Master and Zen Mum. And then I think about our shenanigans that usually happen in a normal day in my life being their daughter and caregiver.
And then the juices begin to start flowing and my fingers begin tap-tap-tapping away on my keyboard. Yes, they’re my muse for everything. My idea generator, life exasperater, reason-for-aplenty-of-eye-rollers … and my life.
Sometimes it’s so hard to write until you. just. write. Think about what matters to you, what makes you want to scream, what drives you so incredibly nuts that you just want to spit!
Then write.
As easy as that.
Idea for Grieving for Someone Who’s Still Alive
But I’m being a little bit cheeky when I say it’s as easy as that.
When I wrote Grieving for Someone Who’s Still Alive, it was straight from my gut and painful. It might also be complete TMI (Too Much Information). But you know what, the words just flowed out of me the moment I started writing it to the moment I finished it. This’s what I know, what I was feeling.
Did I have any qualms on revealing these intimate details? Maybe for a few moments, but I find that being a writer, being authentic, means to reveal oneself. And I’m almost 49 years old soon. My motto nowadays is either go big or go home.
And once I committed, I didn’t turn back. That’s how I usually am. And like I say in previous stories, my true audience for my stories is just for two people: the Universe and me.
Now, it’s truly as easy as that.
Sally in the Zen
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Photo credits: Drawing Canvas – Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Photo credits: Little Girl – Photo by Jerry Wang on Unsplash
