Thursday, August 10, 2006

Slow, slow, quick-quick ?

Maggi Dawn has an interesting section called 'SLOW'. I haven't dug deeply into it yet, but one comment from the entry 'left unsaid' grabbed my attention. 'You can dash off a bit of writing, of course ... but you can't just dash off something really good' was the general gist. Oddly, my last-minute nature says 'is that really true'? My academic essays are almost invariably started within a few days of the deadline. In first year, shorter ones were started within 24 hours or even on the day they were due (although I had done some reading beforehand) and even longer ones (2.5k) have been done in a day and a half. Now I'm not saying for a moment that this is ideal, far from it, and perhaps I have been writing at a fairly basic level where I don't have to do much critical engagement yet (won't 3rd year be fun) but without blowing my own trumpet, some of these 'written at high speed' essays have come out with good grades - B+, or even A.

I know an essay is not the only form of writing by any means, and I doubt that many people would want to read mine, but I can't help wondering - am I a person where a lot of 'percolation' goes on in my head before the final - and only - draft comes out at top speed? I certainly hate substantially revising essays, even when I have the time to do it, although minor edits are good, and help me to thin out my more oblique and long-winded sentences. (No, I'm not revising these posts - what you see is what comes out at the time of writing. This may change, but I don't want to be like the person or character I read about who put post-it notes in her (I think) diary, to reflect how things should have been. (Apologies that I can't remember the source - if you know it, let me know and I will attribute it)).

However, I can sometimes be reflective rather than rushed, and here's a poem (one of about 6 that I've ever written, as an adult) from a recent holiday:

Carberry 2006

Baking hot stickiness
Moving giant's specs
Chilling time among tents and vans
Rowdy, conversation-filled dining
Wit and wisdom, Spirit and Word
Talking heads enable voices, heard
Creativity and creations
Exploding, colliding
Emerging, seeping
Into fabric of faith, fellowship, fun.

I don't know if it's finished, and is perhaps not liable to mean as much to those who did not share this holiday, but I offer it for any responses going.

1 comment:

Nodrog said...

Just for the record, I think the person who put post-its in her diary was the character Prof Bernice (Benny) Summerfield from Virgin's Doctor Who New Adventures and latterly her own spinoff series.
So there you go!