A Magic Trick Gone Wrong

This is not the first time I have written about the difficulties and process of writing a blog post, and I suspect not the last. As was illustrated by a previous post, the process between initialization and conclusion of a point, thought, or concept can be a rocky one. This is definitely something I've been working hard at to improve. I'm sure there are some kind of mental devices for planning out what you want to say so that it either fits in a given space, or takes a particular time to write, but I've always been a free-flowing kind of writer. I start with an idea, roll it around in some flour, bake it for a while, and then sit down and just start writing what comes to mind. Yeah, I know, I completely mangled that metaphor, but you get the idea.

The trouble is that free-flowing mode I'm so fond of tends to not have any boundaries. I write until I can reach a concluding point, or can't think of anything more to say about the subject; assuming I haven't changed the subject several times. Welcome to Tangentville! What tends to be the worst case scenario is when I'm interrupted (like I just was with a phone call) and it becomes difficult to rediscover the stream of consciousness I had been traveling along.

I have likened this writing process with the age old magic trick of pulling a streamer from your mouth. The "device" that allows you to do this is called a "mouth coil", but that as far as I'll get into the mechanics of the trick. The magician seems to pull an endless, colorful streamer from his mouth.

"I don't remember eating anything that color."

Now imagine that you are the magician, ready to wrap up this little trick and anticipating the end of the streamer, but it just keep coming out. In fact, you realize that it is no longer a trick and you seem to have no control over it anymore. Yes, I do have a lot of nightmares, why?

Anyway, it gets out of control, and so you snip off the streamer, swallow, and move onto the next trick. The only difference is, with my writing, you don't see that first part of the trick where it all went wrong. It's more like if the trick went haywire during practice and it was just eliminated from the show. So what is the point in writing about it? Well, I sometimes think better when I write it out, and maybe someone will read this and offer some suggestions for working out my writing obstacles. In the meantime, I'll keep drafting up things to say, and maybe one day someone will put all those unfinished thoughts into a book and it'll make millions! Hey, it worked for the son of J. R. R. Tolkien.

I think I'd much rather do this trick, but maybe with Jessica Alba.