techniques: awake and dreaming

There are several different techniques which may be utilized by the writer. These aren't exact definitions, but techniques of people that I know. If you have any unique ways which inspire you to write, feel free to contact me and let me know.

1. Dictionary Diving: First sit down with your favorite informational book, such as a dictionary, thesaurus or encyclopedia. It could be any book in fact. I wouldn't recommend, however, using someone else's work as you may end up accidentally stealing their ideas or form. Get a paper and pencil, sit down in a comfortable chair, with relaxing music and open the book to a random page. Scan the page quickly for a word that suits your fancy, even if it's just the sound. What will end up happening is that you will be choosing words that naturally go together. Here is an example: I chose calendula, calabash, embryonic, emcee, elixir. If you like alliteration, or when words start with the same sound that is fine and dandy, stick to the same section. The embryonic emcee guzzles his elixir of life near the calabash tree. His friend the calendula smirks beneath the eleventh hour in elflocks. You can edit it later, you could change it up however you like. Of course it will reflect your personality and tastes as opposed to mine.
2. Stream of consciousness: This is a wonderful technique to simply draw out what lies within your subconscious. It takes the ability to "not care" what anybody thinks which I think is one of the keys to good writing. Another thing that is "key" which you can delve deeper into with the book by Brenda Ueland's IF YOU WANT TO WRITE a book about Art, Independence and Spirit; is to write about what you know, what you've experienced. If not people will be able to see through it from a mile away. The technique: sit down, relax, by yourself is best in the most comfortable position for you and let it all come out. Write in a blind fury until you just don't feel it anymore. Just remember that it's like taking pictures. You get about one great photo out of about a hundred. Don't be hard on yourself. Along with this technique comes another that I personally savor and it is called channeling. This means that it comes from another place, some say the spirits or the universal knowledge that we can all draw from. I say, I'm not sure but I completely clear my mind, put my legs up on a footstool in a certain position, close my eyes and type. I fight the thoughts of who would like something like this, if I can't stop thinking about that, then I quit until my mind is ready to rock and roll on the positive side of things. I see it as a movie in my head sometimes. Sometimes, words that I don't even remember a meaning for come out, I look it up later and voici, voila it's perfecto. With a double meaning and everything! Sometimes it reflects an ill of society from which I struggle, or a state of mind I'm not particularly crazy about or a human being I'm crazy about. It may or may not be for you, but I think it's important to draw things out that you may not even realize were bothering you or exciting you. It's a sort of waking dream state.
3. Cut up and rearrange: a fellow poet/photographer I know used this technique and came up with pretty amazing results of ideas and imagery. Sometimes this can work if you have too much "filler" and not enough of the concentrate. Cut the lines out that stick out the most to you and rearrange the little pieces on a piece of paper. Make several different poems to suit your fancy. I haven't personally tried this technique but I can imagine since I have pieced poems that are unfinished or stopped short together and since I write several in a row with automatic writing mode, sometimes they are really just one big poem. Don't be afraid to throw something away if it doesn't appeal to you. I remember throwing away quite a few disturbing and/or depressing chunks of imagery that I don't want to represent me as a person. Although, I have quite a few of the dark images that I did keep.
4. Write when you feel like it: I'm not one of those people who believes that you should write a little bit every day. I write a lot some days and none others or a little every once in a while. What I will never do again is force myself to write. It will come out sounding that way. Others swear by it. When it comes to me, it comes to me pounding on the door, I open the door and there it is, knees knocking together in a cold sweat in the pouring rain until I give in. Some people can force themselves then if the time isn't right, they'll immediately look down on themselves and say, see? I can't write at all. When it's just that they weren't in the mood or mode or right frame of mind. I know some people that can't write a lick when they are in love but they could write a whole novel about the heartache they've endured. Some go a whole decade without writing. A kind of creative stagnation has parched their soul.
5. Take care of yourself: Get your blood pumping, go for a good jaunt or bike ride. Hans Christian Andersen the author of many brilliant poems and children's stories walked back and forth across Denmark by himself and these stories often came to him then. They were all based on his personal experiences to name a couple: The Ugly Duckling and The Little Mermaid. He felt ugly and his friend drowned at sea. He is a literary hero in Denmark. I took a whole semester at Portland State University in Oregon taught by Inger Olsen who is also a proud Dane. When something happens in your life that is major, whether or not you are hurt or enlightened that is usually good to write about. A poem I wrote called Ver Olas which translates into "To see waves" those words popped into my head, I looked out the window, hadn't had enough sleep and was pretty depressed, I looked at the house and imagined inside it a victrola, in the garden a man and his chorus singing (the singing soma) personified the feeling of sleeping while awake, my feelings slept as I troubled for a pinch of the dusty dreary (sleep). Time and time again (so sick of going through it over and over again). Ver Olas, from sweet victrolas, comes the singing soma, with goatee and bolo performing a garden suit solo (solo=lonely) troubles it's fellow for a pinch of the dustry dreary, wiping weary from its clouded windshield (tears from eyes), sways across the moat time and time again. Ver Olas, Ver Olas, Ver Olas, Ver Olas. Feels spooky, feels sane, to stand upright in the wave. I don't think I've written any others quite like that about depression, the rest are all pretty dreary but less ambiguous. If your heart is screaming and you've noone to talk to, write! Stop caring about what other people think. Happy wordsmithing, friends.
6. To Read or not to read?: This is entirely up to you whether or not you care to take classes on how to write. This site is designed only to inspire you and hope that you can find some reason to let go of your intra/outer critic. I read very little other poetry because I find that it may influence me. However, if I happen upon a book, or if one is given to me, I read it. For instance, The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot was given to me by my friend Mikhail. Since it was a favorite of his, I had to read it. After I read it, the whole time, worrying that I would end up sounding like a T.S. Rip-off, what happened was that I had digested only what I needed, the beautiful flow of it all. It was my own kind of flow that developed, however. e.e. cummings, I am still leary of really studying his form because it is so unique and I think I would definitely try to copy it. No matter what, we probably all have a poet that we can relate to or may be compared to. I was given a book by my friend Starlite Motel a poetess by Mina Loy The Lost Lunar Baedeker she wrote in the inner cover "Astrid, I think you are this woman reincarnated!". Wow! what a compliment. Her work is very unique and was not thought upon as conventional enough to be "good". Don't be afraid to really take a crazy chance with your words. Starlite has her own unique voice in which she writes about the subculture of motels and passioniate dispassion, romance on the run, kiss and cry. I say she is the "nineteenth nervous breakdown of poetry". I know she really likes the beat poets and possesses similar raw telling skills, however, in her way or the highway! Bon travailles, mes amis.