Clustering

This is what I've been working on. Clustering. For those of you who don't know what it is, its more or less a bunch of ideas that you have about a certain word. The first thoughts that come into your head and how they relate to each other. As you can see I can't do anything without Pandora, and tonight, I needed my glass of wine. This is harder for me then I thought it would be. It kind of frustrated me because, while I can see how I could potentially benefit from it I can't see how it relates to the story that I am trying to tell yet. You are supposed to let your Muse take over. To work on each section, and there are 6, which I have oh so cleverly taped together, for 10 minutes each. And eventually your Muse will poke his tiny voice in and all of a sudden you are writing outside of yourself. That didn't really happen to me. I did have two reoccurring themes though and I thought that was interesting. They were Z and coffee, both of which I love and couldn't imagine my life without. But so far I can't see how any of my plot points will be sorted by this exercise. Although it was a lot of fun, and got me writing, which is always fabulous.

Its weird to have homework now. Almost every night I am working on something that has to do with my novel. Its an exciting change, and all because I got the nerve to take a course.

I'm always telling Z about how I wish I could be a full time writer, and he always says that I can. I don't have to work. Although I fear what my days would look like if I didn't work. I would bleach the sink 97 times a day and then rearrange the furniture and then wash the already clean sheets, just to be sure. My floors would be scrubbed clean at least once a day and polished at least three times a week. Yes I am neurotic about the cleanliness of my house. Although you couldn't tell right now. I really need to dust. BUT, that's because I have a full time job, that I go to everyday, and it wears me out so by the time I come home I don't want to scrub every already clean surface. I fear for Z's life if I was here by myself all day. By the time I got done with all of my cleaning and internet surfing Z would be home from work and then I would sneak away to write, which would be counterintuitive because either way it would take away from the time that we can spend together. But a girl can dream right?

I'm excited to find what Holly has for me next week. This will be my week three. I think I'll start tomorrow. I downloaded the lesson yesterday but I didn't start it yet because I was so involved with lesson 2.

Anyway, back to Clustering. I think if I wasn't doing it for my homework I would pick different words to center around. Different main themes. I think that would help me, but because I was practicing I felt that I should do what Holly told me to. I mean the woman is a professional. And I am not. So there's that. But I really do think you can break through writers block by doing that. Just pick a word and write down all of your thoughts that have to do with it and how they relate to each other. And then you can figure out where to go next with your story. I'll show you how it works.

So this is my I hate section of it. It was all of the random things I thought of at the time and then the thoughts that ricocheted off of those original thoughts. Kind of cool how it worked. Try it you may like it!

“There are no failures - just experiences and your reactions to them.” Tom Krause