Might be my favorite post of yours yet. “It’s gotta be fun” is the new rule I’m trying to enforce with everything I write. Harder than I thought it’d be!
WOW! I love her process and I loved this shorter version of the newsletter (I love the long ones too). I, too, love writing by hand. It becomes a different experience entirely when I have my fountain pen and a blank page in front of me. The possibilities feel endless and auspicious.
I have so many notebooks. I started keeping notes to books all over the place, and one year in London wrote my own thesaurus, using Websters and Brewers Phrase and Fable. Now I just do jottings mostly online. No I am liar, I still have notebooks. Notebooks of words quotes. Readings are along online are with little blister pops of commentary that really has no use except to myself as a "dug out." Mostly Philo. Which I use as paint thinner. I do somebody else index on line as a honey bee. Can barely keep up with what I am trying to finish. Clouds of meaning rolling this way and that. LOVE THAT!!! I think of it as Chronica, also, which Clarice Lispector did for a Brazilian newspaper but its all about her take on being what it is.
Thanks for an interesting insight, in which I find some overlap..... I spent 70+ years making notes on my adventures and observations, adding stories , poetry and songs, ad infinitum. Performed it all for a few years, rarely publishing. I have almost all this paper still, so nowadays I comb thru, revise, draft, edit, and repeat, until I have a piece for my NeXt Legend. The only papers I dump are the words that I have committed to Substack. The rest may come in handy. During this process the greater mass gradually becomes archived in nine themes. However none of my Climate Articles come from the same source, as they are current studies. It is a labour of love, my current incarnation.....
Nov 29, 2023·edited Nov 29, 2023Liked by Mason Currey
Terrific post! And thanks for the heads up on Jillian Hess's newsletter. Just subscribed.
I've been a note-taker all my life, albeit a not very consistent one. My note taking is a cross between a commonplace journal (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/magazine/commonplace-books-recommendation.html) and a vomit bag. Inspired by Neil Gaiman's work habits, I use a Lamy Safari fountain pen (I've tried them all) and cherish ink stains on my fingers. I've tried Julia Cameron's Morning Pages approach, but it just frustrated me, so I gave up. But writing with a fountain pen in a Leuchtturm1917 is the only way to start your morning (or evening).
I really love this. Both your vulnerability and Olds's process give creative permission to embrace being messy (or an organized mess in Olds's case of indexing) -- I have no idea what type of music you like but Olivia Dean's album + song "Messy" have been on repeat for me & feel kindred in their message of reclaiming messiness.
I've loved Sharon's work for over two(!) decades now. Thank you for reminding me of this profile! That picture of her is absolutely stunning. I still remember picking up Satan Says in a little Eugene, Oregon used bookstore in 1999. It was revelatory for me. How inspiring to think of the way she works and how she's stayed with poetry all this time, and continued to produce such incredible work.
I love a short newsletter! It's just the right length for me to read twice so I can really absorb the information. I've been thinking lately about how I assume length=value. (Did I pick up this idea in college, with required page-counts, I wonder?) But that's not necessarily the case. Especially since we're no long being paid by word-count--still thinking of Reardon and Grub Street🙃. Also, loved this glimpse into Olds's process. I could have included her in today's Noted newsletter! Thanks, also, for the kind shout-out!
Also love this observation you make - "to make notes in one state of mind (searching) and revisit them in an entirely different state (fussy)" - I've been thinking (and attempting to write) about the idea of being in the right "state" to become the person we want to be or doing the work we want to do. I love when in my own writing all of a sudden my ideas have babies and something new and insightful appears out of the musings that I hadn't thought of before.
This gets at two separate conversations I had with two separate writers just this morning. Sometimes the physcial act of writing longhand is the thing that shakes us lose. That gets us unstuck. And, sometimes it's the detritus of our creative process, the overlooked and discarded things, that undergird our new imaginings.
Slipping and falling-- good lord that's funny! You are not a mess. Thank you for writing this extremely tight piece of writing motivation.
Might be my favorite post of yours yet. “It’s gotta be fun” is the new rule I’m trying to enforce with everything I write. Harder than I thought it’d be!
Love her process for notes. Although, I've tried writing in spiral-bound notebooks and it is hardly what I would call dancing. ;)
WOW! I love her process and I loved this shorter version of the newsletter (I love the long ones too). I, too, love writing by hand. It becomes a different experience entirely when I have my fountain pen and a blank page in front of me. The possibilities feel endless and auspicious.
I have so many notebooks. I started keeping notes to books all over the place, and one year in London wrote my own thesaurus, using Websters and Brewers Phrase and Fable. Now I just do jottings mostly online. No I am liar, I still have notebooks. Notebooks of words quotes. Readings are along online are with little blister pops of commentary that really has no use except to myself as a "dug out." Mostly Philo. Which I use as paint thinner. I do somebody else index on line as a honey bee. Can barely keep up with what I am trying to finish. Clouds of meaning rolling this way and that. LOVE THAT!!! I think of it as Chronica, also, which Clarice Lispector did for a Brazilian newspaper but its all about her take on being what it is.
Thanks for an interesting insight, in which I find some overlap..... I spent 70+ years making notes on my adventures and observations, adding stories , poetry and songs, ad infinitum. Performed it all for a few years, rarely publishing. I have almost all this paper still, so nowadays I comb thru, revise, draft, edit, and repeat, until I have a piece for my NeXt Legend. The only papers I dump are the words that I have committed to Substack. The rest may come in handy. During this process the greater mass gradually becomes archived in nine themes. However none of my Climate Articles come from the same source, as they are current studies. It is a labour of love, my current incarnation.....
Terrific post! And thanks for the heads up on Jillian Hess's newsletter. Just subscribed.
I've been a note-taker all my life, albeit a not very consistent one. My note taking is a cross between a commonplace journal (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/magazine/commonplace-books-recommendation.html) and a vomit bag. Inspired by Neil Gaiman's work habits, I use a Lamy Safari fountain pen (I've tried them all) and cherish ink stains on my fingers. I've tried Julia Cameron's Morning Pages approach, but it just frustrated me, so I gave up. But writing with a fountain pen in a Leuchtturm1917 is the only way to start your morning (or evening).
I index my journals too. Lately, I’ve been thinking of indexing them into a spreadsheet so I can sort them and find ideas quickly and easily.
I really love this. Both your vulnerability and Olds's process give creative permission to embrace being messy (or an organized mess in Olds's case of indexing) -- I have no idea what type of music you like but Olivia Dean's album + song "Messy" have been on repeat for me & feel kindred in their message of reclaiming messiness.
I've loved Sharon's work for over two(!) decades now. Thank you for reminding me of this profile! That picture of her is absolutely stunning. I still remember picking up Satan Says in a little Eugene, Oregon used bookstore in 1999. It was revelatory for me. How inspiring to think of the way she works and how she's stayed with poetry all this time, and continued to produce such incredible work.
I love a short newsletter! It's just the right length for me to read twice so I can really absorb the information. I've been thinking lately about how I assume length=value. (Did I pick up this idea in college, with required page-counts, I wonder?) But that's not necessarily the case. Especially since we're no long being paid by word-count--still thinking of Reardon and Grub Street🙃. Also, loved this glimpse into Olds's process. I could have included her in today's Noted newsletter! Thanks, also, for the kind shout-out!
Love a short and sharp newsletter!
Also love this observation you make - "to make notes in one state of mind (searching) and revisit them in an entirely different state (fussy)" - I've been thinking (and attempting to write) about the idea of being in the right "state" to become the person we want to be or doing the work we want to do. I love when in my own writing all of a sudden my ideas have babies and something new and insightful appears out of the musings that I hadn't thought of before.
Great poem by Olds ! Thanks for sharing
I love this quote: “Clouds of meaning were rolling this way and that,”
I loved reading about her process - especially that writing is between “drawing and dancing”! ♥️
This gets at two separate conversations I had with two separate writers just this morning. Sometimes the physcial act of writing longhand is the thing that shakes us lose. That gets us unstuck. And, sometimes it's the detritus of our creative process, the overlooked and discarded things, that undergird our new imaginings.