Every now and then, I find myself having these moments when I just get the sudden urge to write. It's quite strange really, because I could be in the middle of doing something and then suddenly I get an idea and I just have to go with it! For the most part, what I end up writing are first or third person narratives about the most random things. They can originate from personal experiences, other people's experiences that I find I want to write about, or like the example below, a combination of the two. I got this idea after watching an episode of Degrassi (Yes I'll admit it, I was a HUGE Degrassi fan! side note: this popular "Drake" figure will forever live in my heart as Jimmy haha). Ellie Nash, a former cutter, has a personal physical therapy that involves snapping a rubber band she wears against her skin whenever she gets the urge to cut herself. A leading reason as to why individuals cut is for the sole purpose that it puts them in control of some aspect of their lives. Its a positive reinforcement for them to see the blood and to feel the pain, and to know that they are responsible for it. That being said, I started thinking...don't we all--in some way, shape, or form--constantly make attempts to control the amount of pain we undergo, be it physical, emotional, etc...? Whether its ignoring the pain in a broken finger in order to finish playing a basketball game, or always keeping people at an arm's length so that they never get close enough to hurt or disappoint-->Everyone wants to be in control of the situation at hand; as if being in control lessens the potential risk of getting hurt. I had the urge to write something that stemmed from this topic.
Being an "English Buff" as those close to me call it, I was interested in finding the correct literary term for these short periods of intense writing...these bouts of creativity. And then it hit me: stream of consciousness! In terms of literature, stream of consciousness portrays a character's point of view by providing a written version of his/her thought process typically in form of a narrative. A wonderful published example of this would be T.S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (a must read if I may say so myself). I love reading things like this almost as much as I love writing them. It's therapeutic and just plain old fun! :) Enjoy.
4/23/09
1:44 AM
SNAP...SNAP...Snap goes the elastic that she is wearing around her wrist. The stinging feeling she gets in the same place she is hurting, goes red as she continues with this self-inflicted pain. It hurts, and she knows it but she doesn't care. Any pain she can generate just to block out the one she is feeling in the vicinity of her chest's center. She hurt him, he hurt her...all unintentionally of course--or so they say. This does not hide the fact that it keeps happening, and it hurts all the same...every time. SNAP...SNAP...SNAP! The pacing of the snaps quicken as she recounts their last interaction. His diverted gaze, her heavy sighs, his clearing of the throat, her deep inhales--all in an effort to break that earsplitting silence between them that has enough volume to drown out her thoughts. It's awkward and she knows it, but she doesn't do anything about it. It pains her and she feels it, but she doesn't do anything about it. And him? It appears as if everything is just perfectly fine; like there isn't a tension so thick it could suppress their breathing like the air on a hot and humid day, like pollen at the zenith of allergy season. Tension, Tension. Tension. SNAP...SNAP...Snap goes the elastic as it pops across her wrists and snaps her back into reality. He's gone: just like that. Snap!
