LOG231310-11.8 1/2 Research Day 2

Research went well today. Gathered some good stuff. Turns out there's quite a lot of material on forgotten histories, usually involving conspiracies and aliens. There are There seems to be quite a lot of stuff on alien origins; on legends of Lemuria, a sunken country, on the Nommos of the Dogon, an amphibian alien race who gave great knowledge to an african tribe. There are lots of water connections, which is interesting because in writing about my dreams there is a continual water theme. Correspondences between subterranean, subaquatic and subconscious abound.

On the one hand, most of the stuff is paranormal, leaving me feeling like a nut. On the other hand, I invented this stuff. It came from my own searching within myself. Only after writing notes and recording using a dictaphone did i then hit the web for other people's ideas, leaving me feeling less like a nut and more like I've tuned into something other people share. An archetype, perhaps.

I didn't get much writing done during the day. It seems that night is my preferred time - when all the phantoms of the day quit their jabbering about cleaning the kitchen and paying the bills, then my imagination is free. I felt a little blocked during the day, and planned for an early night. I then did one of the exercises in the Creative Writing Coursebook, and it got me all fired up and I wrote a 300 word story. Thats all my assignments done already, leaving aside redrafting and editing.

I started a new notebook specifically for the exercises in the book. First one - write down five sounds you hear and all their associations. This was gold dust! Its an excercise to find your creative voice, and it worked so well I shot straight off from the sound of scratching to a full blown story. I never knew scratching could lead to scouring, digging, unearthing, voodoo and skeletons in the closet. I will definately be doing more of this - the associations seem to be where the marrow is, and I love finding them. My thesaurus is my favourite toy.

I'm going to repeat the excercise tomorrow. There's something meditative about listening; listening to the sounds of the world, to my own associations, to the stories that are already in me, in who I am.

The story itself, not so great. But that makes it great. Its honest, an illustration of where my skills lie. I really enjoyed that it was loose and flabby, because it means I can tighten and trim it. More fun!