Strange to think I've been here over 3 years... I shared this 3 years ago and it's a good remembrance for my attention in general, and my writing specifically:
Writing Excerpt from by Natalie Goldberg
Watch when you listen to a piece of writing.
There might be spaces where your mind wanders.
We sometimes respond with comments such as "I don't know, it got too deep for me" or
There was just too much description, I couldn't follow it."
Often the problem is not the reader but in the writing.
A writer might be writing about a restaurant scene but become obsessed with the fly on the napkin and begin to describe, in minute detail, the fly's back, the fly's dreams, its early childhood, its technique for flying through screen windows. The reader or listener becomes lost
because right before that the waiter had come to the table in the writing
and
the listenenr is waiting for him to serve food.
Also the writer may not be clear on his true direction or not directly present with his material. This creates a blur in the writing. It is some area that is fuzzy and so loses the reader's attention because it makes a little gap, letting the readers mind wander away from the work.
A responsibility of literature is to awaken people. Make them present, awake, alive.
If the writer wanders, then the reader, too will wander.
the fly on the table might be part of the whole description of a restaurant. It might be appropriate to tell precisely the sandwich that it just walked over, but there is a fine line between precision and self-indulgence.
Stay on the side of precision.
Know your goal and stay present with it.
If your mind and writing wander from it, bring them gently back.
when we write many avenues open up inside us. Don't get too far afield.
Stay with the details and with your direction.
Don't be self-absorbed, which eventually creates vague, muddy writing.
We might really get to know the fly, but forget where we are: the restaurant, the rain outside, the friend across the table. The fly is important, but it has its place. Don't ignore the fly;
...the best art
almost becomes sentimental, but doesn't.
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