Ahh, to reflect on the writing process. It seems like all I do is reflect. This post will discuss my writing process so far in this class.

Approaching Twitter to begin "making notes" was easy. I had no problem, at first, using text messages in lieu of a pen and paper to make observations. After a while, I noticed two things. First, a lot of my observations were internal. As much as I described the physical world I was experiencing, I tweeted about thoughts that occurred to me, revelations that appeared only in my head. Second, as I amassed a collection of followers, I became more and more aware of the people who were reading what I wrote. Gone were the carefree inaugural days of using a new social media platform. My notepad was now a glass slate with the world on the other side. My tweets became more focused on real things (promoting events, etc.) and less about ideas.

Writing on Weebly has had its own share of difficulties. I was initially scared to compose directly onto the internet. I try to be organized as much as possible, and I'm used to keeping Word documents in folders on a hard drive. It's a way of keeping everything central. But I don't really know what's more reliable: files scattered over an array of external hard drives that may someday stop working, or work scattered on the internet where I can find it always (probably). I suppose it's a wash, but it feels like I'm just adding to the digital noise. It feels like these words are cheaper per pound than Microsoft "Words."

Once it came to actually working on the twitterive, I didn't know where to "enter" the "story." I didn't know if it was a story, and I didn't know what form it could or should take. I needed restrictions, but I didn't want to limit myself before I knew what was possible. Finally, in distressed phone call to my girlfriend, I articulated that "if it was just a double-spaced thing on paper, I could do that, I could write a shitty draft." She replied, "Then do that. Start there. You can add things later." This now seems like the most obvious thing, which is usually how our conversations go.

Writing my micro fiction pieces was really kind of fun. I found a tweet I could work with, and then totally removed myself from the situation in which I tweeted it. It was like being forced into a backseat with a blind fold on, driven out of state, and left to fend for myself. I had to write myself out of it. Of course, familiar places crept back in. But I was able to keep them at an arm's length to avoid bogging down with unnecessary detail. After writing three such pieces, I didn't think it was helping me arrive at my twitterive. I thought maybe I was going the wrong way. I got discouraged and stopped working. This is the worst thing to do. Once I stop working, it allows for a whole host of unsubstantiated thoughts to creep in.

Finally, I told myself to just write something and go from there. I wrote a scene. I noticed rust on light poles. I noticed rust on coffee pots. I thought about what rust implies: neglect, desertion. I thought about the desert, and how nothing rests there. I thought about the necessity of water, how it functions in growth and decay. This was enough to convince me that maybe there was something to this. But I'm still not convinced.

So here are five questions to those who read my twitterive in progress:
1. Is this at all interesting to you, do you have a reason to care?
2. What does rust make you think of?
3. What are the implications of living in an emotional desert?
4. What do you do when you feel like no one cares?
5. What other kinds of modes or genres would work here?

P.S. Someone called me a deconstructionist. Part of me is hopeful that maybe there is a pattern to what I'm doing. And that the pattern reaches across modes. It's also kind of fun to think that maybe there is a name for it.

I am going to try something different. In order to break the ice, I am writing with absolutely no plan of what to write. "Writing to make meaning," if you will, or "Improv Writing." There seems to be this idea that writing is permanent, that it should be completely accurate and error-free always. If you're publishing a book, these are important things. But the ephemeral world of the internet challenges that tradition. Writing is often in the moment, like Twitter, or meant to be added to or revised later. I am not afraid to record my thoughts as I think them; I have been doing this for years. What scares me is the real-time sharing that Twitter and the rest of blogging technology allows for.

Reading something you've written is sometimes an out of body experience. "Did I really write that?" I often ask myself. Identity is fluid and affected by context, life status, art, you name it. We're always changing, even just a little bit. These changes manifest themselves in different voices in writing. When I write something, I want the chance to read it over with a different identity before I share it. I want to at least try to read it from more than one perspective. I want to meditate on how it will be received by others.

The internet doesn't necessarily eliminate the meditation process. But allows for in-progress sharing. It's like a notebook whose pages are one-way mirrors. When you look at them, all you see are your words. But from the darkened room on the other side, the whole world can see your words, and through them, you.