I haven’t re-read any of my blog posts as I go along, but I’m aware that as I go along I have been repeating myself across posts. No big deal, but I think the repetition is probably a good thing; it means there may be some thematic consistency across posts that I can work with if I begin to revise my writing. As it is I have written about 110 posts already. Probably 10-15 of them I could delete because they are devoid of any substance.

Most of the posts, though, have some bits of usable writing scattered among them (at least I think so). I thought maybe this past weekend I would begin to print out the various posts, but I think I’ll just keep chugging along for now. My original concept for this blog was that I would never re-read or revise anything, choosing to exercise my freewriting muscles instead. So far it is making a difference in my level of comfort with producing text rapidly, and that alone is good enough for now.

But I probably should plan for some sort of revision, though revising for what is not clear to me just yet. I really don’t know if there are any stories or essays lurking among the posts. It would be cool if I could cobble together a rough draft of something. I really need for my writing to take several steps toward a more professional practice. Now that I am writing this freewriting blog I have gained quite a bit of confidence in my ability to produce. Just as with composing music, I need to be willing to throw everything away if I don’t think it is worthwhile. When I first began to compose music I found it so laborious that I continued working on a piece even if I didn’t like it. After a while, though, I got more comfortable with composing and became willing to abandon something if it wasn’t speaking to me. I need to adopt the same attitude with writing.

Freewriting, for me, makes it possible to work with an abundance of words rather than the slow, meticulous way I have written my whole life. Now I write like I don’t care, allowing my thoughts to wander over a subject, chew on it a bit, and see where I end up. I suspect that when I begin to re-read my posts I will find some stuff that is worth keeping and expanding upon. I may be wrong, but we will see.

What I would like to produce is one longer narrative rather than a series of essays. Perhaps, at some point, I’ll start over again with this blog, writing with more focus. For now I am happy to keep banging away at my keyboard, writing whatever nonsense that comes into my head.

Let me brainstorm a bit on what I might focus the blog on if I were to re-start this project. I could write specifically about musical practice, or about writing practice. Writing has been one of the more consistent categories I have hit upon in this blog so far. If the writing is to be revised I need to be looking for the repeated topics - those are the main topics that have been crossing my mind. Repetition is a good thing in art, though, as H.L. Gates put it, “repetition with a signal difference.” That’s the real art of writing: knowing how much repetition to leave remaining and how much to cut away. Repetition in writing should add depth, and shouldn’t feel repetitious. As the title of a book I once read puts it, I am searching for The Fine Art of Repetition.