The Perils of ‘Automatic’ Writing

I have spent a lot of time recently on automating the writing process on both computers and in analog notebooks (i.e. “journaling” – spit) – sometimes to the detriment of actually getting on with the work in hand. However when I get down to writing a poem it is on paper, with a fountain pen; nothing can beat that for thoughts straight to the page.

As for the rest, some days I wonder if I am just able to do nothing much faster than before – the whole operation can be quite a time sink. Overall I think it’s a plus being able to fire up and edit ‘work in progress’ in seconds but the initial genesis – well that’s a different story.

Today I’ve learned how to bring up my diary and blog writing pages instantly on any devices wherever I am – cafe, library etc. What that means in practice is that there might be more content on this blog in the forseeable future but that it could turn into a right nugatory bore for anyone reading it.

For example I spent an hour learning how to do the technical wizardry this morning by looking at a number of youtube videos by well known coding gurus. But I swear they must spend their whole lives creating content and the irony is the more they discover, the more time they spend on dissecting various elements until the whole thing becomes quite overwhelming to those of us who want a solution to a problem but then want to get out of that whole circus of palaver.

I can see the attraction – it’s a bit like visualising an exploded Airfix diagram of possibilities that are never ending; an extensible infinite ‘gestalt’ – but my I’ve trained my brain out of that for the forseeable thank you very much; I just want to be able get on the bike and ride it away. (look at the illustration below carefully)