NOTE

As I continue to work on things away from this blog (which is a collection of Free-Time/Casual Online Writing, Remarks, And Notes By ME Whelan) and continue to figure out what goes and what stays of my existing online-writing, the de-emphasizing of one or another continues as well....

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

How Strong and Assertive, But Non-Aggressive/"Loud" Women Were Abandoned by The Women's Movement

There are so many people who just kind of take for granted that The Women's Movement, at its height, made enough strides for women that today's women don't have much to worry - or complain - about.  While there's no doubt that a whole lot of progress has been made with regard to things like laws/policies; it can be out-and-out disturbing to the person who is aware of a more hidden type of inequality to see exactly how little progress has actually been made by/for women.

How Stronger and Assertive, But Not Aggressive/"Loud" Women Were Abandoned by The Women's Movement 


Thursday, August 22, 2013

Of Writers Versus "Plain-Old People"

Just the other day I ran into a couple of quotes aimed at writers.  The message in one of them was that writers don't really write from experience, because if they did all most writers might get out of their own experience might be one book and (I think it said) a couple/few poems. 

Then a related quote showed up near that one, and the idea of that one was that once a writer has written about his own childhood he most often doesn't have much else to write about (or something along those lines).

When I saw the two quotes my first thought was that maybe some writers spend more time writing than they do really "having a life", and that could explain the apparent wide-spread lack of life experiences in some.  The other thing that occurred to me was that, perhaps, some people really shouldn't be writers at all because writers generally need to be able to notice the things in life that, maybe, a lot of other people wouldn't notice.   With regard to the idea that writers often have "nothing" to write about once they've written about their childhood, my thoughts about that were that the things about which I want to write pretty began after I'd passed through what was a very nice childhood.  Occasionally, I've found things to write about that were related to my childhood; but for the most part, it is the life I've had since becoming grown up that has offered me the most inspiration, "fuel", and drive when it comes to writing subjects.

When it comes down to it, however, I think I've realized that I'm far less "writer" than I am "just a plain, old, person"; so while writers may spend their time trying to think up, dream up, all kinds o fascinating things about which to write; plain-old  people sometimes simply live their life until it calls out to them to be written.

"The Hat Box Journal" - Just Another Layer Of The Foundation To Long-Range Writing Aims

After more than a few years of writing online, I've come to be particularly aware of my own approach to broad-range/long-term aims; and that approach is to lay a foundation, little by little, for everything that will eventually be built on that foundation.  Some people (and with some types of projects/aims, even I) take the approach of working on one, small, thing and getting it good and completed before moving on to another small part of what will become part of a larger, long-term, picture.  As I said, I sometimes take that approach.  With my writing, however (and primarily with the writing that I do for myself, as opposed to what I do for someone else), I've been taking that "build-to-broader-foundation" approach for a number of reasons that may be clear or not clear, but that are too numerous to go into right now.

The discouraging thing about taking this approach is that it's a slow process, and it can - for a very long time - appear as if a person has nothing finished, no particular direction, and no real system.  Since I am otherwise someone who is efficient, completes what she starts, and generally gets depressed by seeing what looks like a big mess of one sort of thing or another; I've often struggled with making myself motivated enough to keep my eye on that not-so-obvious, long-term and broader aim.  I fight it, though.  So, over time things have been falling at least a little more into place.  The good thing about the approach I've taken, however, is that if a person can stand living with it for long enough, one day the work is no longer a matter of laying a foundation and is, instead, a matter of all the pieces falling into place.  This is when this approach turns out to be the most satisfying, and far more satisfying than a lot of less "peculiar looking" approaches; because once everything just kind of falls into place there's little left to do but enjoy the accomplishment and the freedom to move ahead with whatever is most rewarding (in one way or another).

One challenge for me has been, of course, that my online writing is a free-time thing for me.  Sometimes I have quite a bit of free time.  At other times I just don't have the time to devote to laying yet more foundation.  Without a solid and well designed foundation there's pretty much no way to build much of anything on top of it, which means a person can either be satisfied with no apparent, or slow, progress or not.  Sometimes it just have to remain a matter of patience and persistence while reaping only the smallest of rewards that can come with slow but certain progress.