Hubby's just got into the shower and I just got out. He wants to go down to the dental hospital. Oh, what fun. That gives me just enough time for an entry in my blog. Not that it goes in there until I actually get online. As I mentioned to one of the ladies in Boot Camp, I use WordPad to draft my writing. Later, I use the spell check, etc. I find all that stuff distracting when I'm trying to write. The baby is sleeping, so I have no excuses. I can sit here and tap out an entry. Only problem is... What do I write about?

I know we were given room for freewriting, which I did yesterday. I couldn't bring myself to tap out a poem, not on this keyboard, anyway. For me I think there's something about sitting with a pen in hand for poetry. I do believe writing with pen and paper is different to using a keyboard or word processor. There's somehow a closer connection to the heart, or perhaps I'm simply being fanciful. I know I have often cried when writing in my handwritten journal. I rarely do that here in a computer journal, although if I'm honest there have been moments. The physical act of moving your hand, the one you favour, into those scrawls and swirls, it does something, accesses a different part of the brain, the heart. I must use both hands to type here. Surely there is something different.

I know in workshops, there's definitely a real sense of raw emotion in the writing we share. There's a different feel to the stuff we read aloud that was written previously at home, or wherever. The voice is more stilted, perhaps. I just know the writing we read straight after penning it is far more emotive and there's a certain energy in it that just doesn't happen with other writing. Perhaps it's more about group dynamics. The fact you're sitting there knowing you're about to read what you're writing, perhaps that shifts something else in the brain. That knowing makes you aware of your words. Perhaps you censor as you write. I know I've shocked people with the things I've written in those workshops. They've approached me later, at the end of the class, and shook my hand, thanked me for being so brave.

But I don't think it's really so brave. I'm just letting the pen and the heart rule. I'm bypassing the brain, or at least the censor, and accessing the part of me that touches and hurts and remembers and laughs. I'm not listening to that strict voice of reason, of instruction, of governing and ruling over my thoughts. I assign that voice to another task, for another time. I let the ink flow along with the blood in my veins. The beat of my heart thuds out a rhythm, a voice, a lullaby that whispers secrets and takes me places I wanted to forget, or thought I had forgotten. This can and does happen when writing here at the keyboard, but it comes out raw and in gushing chunks that will needs sifting and sorting later. But there's that energy I recognise in work written by hand. Poetry has that energy; though I'm sure someone would disagree and say they compose all their poetry on the word processor. But I can bet it would change the moment they had to read it aloud.

Once standing in front of a crowd words have the ability to tell you they're all wrong. You know how they really want to come out when you stand to speak them out in front of a crowd. I've altered poetry this way and then noted the changes after reading the words aloud. This happens with fiction, too, but not as much. Poetry is down with the pulse of the people, not stuck in some writer's imagination. It begins there, but it does not remain. The words become alive once they leave the poet's lips.

Anyway, I had to complete this in dribs and drabs. I hope it has continuance. My hubby kept interrupting and talking to me while I worked.