Word Vomit is when I write 1000 words in 15 minutes, without editing. I’m sure you have better uses of your time than to read this.
It’s 4:25am- again? And I’m wondering whether it’s a good idea to build this practice of writing at such a late hour. Still, I think it’s better to write than to not write, so here goes. This is an experiment in stream-of-consciousness writing with absolutely minimal editing.
There are two things on my mind- late night conversations, and truths that have emerged through trial and error. (Truths that I have learnt about myself and how I operate.)
First, late night conversations. I just had one with a few of my close friends and it was a great experience. I am thankful for my late night conversations with close friends. We inevitably talk about a bit of everything- about people, about places, about ideas. We talk about what we’ve experienced, we talk about what’s on our minds, we talk about what’s interesting, what’s novel, what’s new, what’s old, what’s familiar, what’s different, what’s fun. The most interesting thing of all about these conversations, I find, is not what you talk about, but the act of conversation itself. What you communicate to one another simply by choosing to communicate to one another. I exist, and you exist, and you are valid, as am I, and we have perspectives that are interesting and valuable that we ought to clash together just to see what emerges. It’s very life affirming. Conversations are my favourite thing.
I like to think of conversations as a kind of engagement. It doesn’t have to be between living people- you could have a conversation with yourself, or an unseen audience (which I am doing now, I think). You could have a conversation with a piece of art, or something completely mundane, and it might be interesting or relevant to you. Conversation to me is the act of clashing, the process where things get shaken up and swirled around so that new ideas and perspectives emerge, things that are perhaps different in terms of breadth, depth, clarity or brevity. This is the source of learning and insight. I especially like the social element of it all- the act of conversation validates experience, it validates existence- we could be talking about little-nothings, but the act of talking is somehow meaningful, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it.
You could say that we do meaningless things- that is true. I’m not entirely sure how to tell the difference between a meaningful conversation and a meaningless one, but I think we all intuitively know the difference- we know it when we see it. It’s the same feeling we feel when we encounter good art. Something engages you, something shakes you up, something changes inside you. Interestingly, what is meaningful to one person could be devoid of meaning to another, and what is meaningful on one occasion might not be so under different circumstances. It’s all pretty cool to think about.
A random quote I remember reading somewhere- late night conversations are the best, because we speak the truth when our eyelids are heavy. I’m paraphrasing that, of course, but there’s something about tiredness that forces you to be a little more economical. It’s kind of like living with the shadow of death- when reminded of our own mortality and limitations, we strive harder to make meaning somehow.
On to self-evident truths. I discovered during my NS that I can write in far greater volume when I write with pen and paper, as opposed to writing into my blog’s display in a browser. The obvious difference, of course, is distraction- I can’t open a new tab while I’m writing with pen and paper. That sort of writing requires full engagement- or rather, full engagement is the only option, because there are no distractions. I’m experiencing something similar right now as I write into my “Write Or Die” app, where I have 15 minutes to write 1000 words, and I don’t have time to think, to adequately structure my thoughts. You just take your thoughts and you run with them without knowing where they’re going to lead.
I think there’s something to be said about how writing-while-editing is qualitatively different from writing without editing, then editing afterwards. I get much more words out, for one. Does that mean anything useful? Is it just drivel? It could be, but I don’t really think so. I think there’s an element of “free association” that happens when you write without editing- you take paths that you might otherwise avoid when you’re overly conscious of the act of writing. When I’m self conscious about my writing, I probably tend to stick to certain paths, certain formulas, certain tactics. When I don’t have the luxury (or burden) of self-consciousness, perhaps I am freer as a writer- or perhaps I lapse into other patterns and formulas. Time will tell. What I do know is that it’s worth trying something different for the sake of it, so that I can compare and contrast the different approaches. I do find this process (writing without editing) to be much more cathartic- instead of trying to sip from a firehose, I spray the firehose into a container, and perhaps drink from it afterwards, when my thoughts have settled and I have a clearer idea of what I want.
My paragraphs are certainly longer and more verbose, and I kinda apologize for that. Then and again, when I write in this state, I write for nobody’s consumption but my own. (I still have 2 minutes and 46 seconds to go, and we’re at 900 words). Wow. That’s pretty startling. It shakes me up to realize that I could write a thousand words in under 15 minutes, even if it isn’t of particularly stellar quality, even if much of it is mush. Because I used to think that such quantity takes hours and hours of practice. I suspect this isn’t the case, I suspect I had vastly underestimated my own capabilities, and that the act of multi-tasking (writing and editing at the same time) greatly slows me down- (1000 words!). Multi-tasking is just a generally bad idea. It makes more sense to focus on one thing at a time- content generation, and then content curation. You don’t know in advance what will work best, so it’s better to just wing it, and then count your kills afterwards.
This is incredibly cathartic and therapeutic for me, and I plan to make it a habit. Who knows what my next session will bring. That said, I cannot waste time trying to linger too long on a particular matter. (Perhaps sometimes that might pay off, but I don’t think it makes sense to do that when you’re trying to form a new habit altogether.) So I’m going to go to bed early- or as early as 4:40am can be, and perhaps contemplate what it means to be able to generate so much more content than I formerly thought possible. This is going to be interseting- to me, at least.