One of the more frustrating aspects of writing anything is that sometimes you have to put it aside and wait for a while. Combine that with a day job and other obligations, and it's very easy to look up and find that a year has passed and you're no closer to writing the thing.
I am also a bit prone to what I've heard described as time blindness, in which the past seems much nearer than it actually is and I am often unaware of how much time has really elapsed. (If you're one of the poor folks to whom I have an owed an email for months or years, I promise you are still present in my thoughts and the overdue communication causes excruciating amounts of guilt.) So there is a balance to strike between "enough time for perspective" and "not so much that the pause lasts forever." I flail at it far more often than I strike it.
Case in point: this post, which—according to the surrounding dates in my notebook—I started writing on September 2.
But I did finish a music notebook in the interim, which provided a useful opportunity for going back through and harvesting the ideas I like. The amount of time required to fill a notebook* is usually adequate for perspective. If an idea doesn't stand out when I go back through the pages, it's probably not a great idea. Most of them aren't, after all. It looks as though I've flagged about 10 percent of the pages here, which doesn't account for the pages where I've already finished the song or posted the lyrics to St. Jerome's Charitable Home for group development. So in this review, I'm probably erring on the side of generosity.
I am also a bit prone to what I've heard described as time blindness, in which the past seems much nearer than it actually is and I am often unaware of how much time has really elapsed. (If you're one of the poor folks to whom I have an owed an email for months or years, I promise you are still present in my thoughts and the overdue communication causes excruciating amounts of guilt.) So there is a balance to strike between "enough time for perspective" and "not so much that the pause lasts forever." I flail at it far more often than I strike it.
Case in point: this post, which—according to the surrounding dates in my notebook—I started writing on September 2.
But I did finish a music notebook in the interim, which provided a useful opportunity for going back through and harvesting the ideas I like. The amount of time required to fill a notebook* is usually adequate for perspective. If an idea doesn't stand out when I go back through the pages, it's probably not a great idea. Most of them aren't, after all. It looks as though I've flagged about 10 percent of the pages here, which doesn't account for the pages where I've already finished the song or posted the lyrics to St. Jerome's Charitable Home for group development. So in this review, I'm probably erring on the side of generosity.
Harvesting is also good for juxtaposition—finding seemingly disparate ideas, from different moments, that turn out to be related. This week, two or three of these flags came together into one song I'm hoping to demo tonight. Old heartbreaks merge together into something new. Time does that too.
*The amount of time required to fill a notebook differs by notebook—the Roterfadens have fewer pages than the much-lamented Moleskines did—but it's in the ballpark of twelve months. Roterfaden seems to have discontinued its pocket-size staff-paper notebooks, though, and my stash is not going to last forever, so the time between idea and harvest is going to go through another forced shift. (Does anyone make a pocket staff notebook any more?)
*The amount of time required to fill a notebook differs by notebook—the Roterfadens have fewer pages than the much-lamented Moleskines did—but it's in the ballpark of twelve months. Roterfaden seems to have discontinued its pocket-size staff-paper notebooks, though, and my stash is not going to last forever, so the time between idea and harvest is going to go through another forced shift. (Does anyone make a pocket staff notebook any more?)
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