Deep Dive Into My Super Emo Mind
What an interesting thing this was to write about. Thank you Colleen Millsteed for the invitation to play and the author of this most interesting set of questions to write about Subhi Najar. Perhaps you’re wondering why I put a picture of this pretty girl at the head of my article. She is perhaps the most honored member of my dead poet society and I get almost religious when I see her picture and read her work and hear her sing . Before I blow it and get tears all over my keyboard again and short it out I better get on with what I have to say :
1 — — — -when did you start writing ? Is there a specific story? — — — — — -
I started when Covid started. I got a voice recognition app called Dragon and I love it. I am not losing my mind any more from getting cabin fever. My wife and I are super evaders and we don’t meet the public, at all , ever. I started going kind of crazy and crying about commercials and old romances that went wrong and other useless things and I found that by writing about these things, not only did I feel better about being locked away in the house with self imposed jailhouse restrictions, I could through catharsis unload my crap onto the world and feel great after doing so. For instance, let me tell you about JoAnn, my first love..blaa blaaa…. ………..You may end up writing something that is so beautiful, makes you feel like $1 million , even if only a few people like it. Writing is such a wonderful experience and can make use feel so empowered that I actually feel sorry for people that don’t write.
2 — — -Do you have rituals in writing? If yes, then please share them with us. — —
Oh boy, I never get a chance to talk about my rituals this specifically. Every time I talk about my rituals to my wife I get the thousand yard stare and I’m told to go back to writing because she has no idea what the hell talking about. I’ve gotten in the habit of getting up at 3 AM which is terrific because the only sound I hear for the next six hours is me. Sometimes that is not pretty, I’m just sayin’. I need to have quiet when I work or noise that I choose such as beautiful music. Others don’t sit quietly enough and move around and do things and naturally there will be noise and conversation and that’s a good thing because that’s life and it should be enjoyed. When home noises happen it’s time to put away your writing. Before I began to write each day is another story. I eat the worlds most nutritious breakfast to feed my brain. Probably 30 different super foods. If you saw the list of just my herbal capsules alone, you would gasp for air and be totally gob struck. Him him himI almost always began writing by writing emails to my two favoritest people in the world after my wife. We always chat back-and-forth and I think they know that this conversation is good for me because of my isolation and that they can be my window to the world. Usually when I’m writing to the people I love and listening to beautiful music I get into a creative flow type of emotional state where ideas seem to come to me out of nowhere. This creative flow — — I’m sure you have each experienced that.
3 — — The ugliest monster that writers are afraid of is writers block. If you have a recipe to deal with it, kindly share it with us…….
I feel that I have a good handle on dealing with writers block. You have to trick your mind. Your mind is like a wild horse that’s afraid of fire. The more fire the more fear.
It’s the same thing when someone who writes gets writers block. The wild animal inside of us starts getting scared. — — OMG — I can’t think of anything to write about and panic is setting in. I’ve used up everything I have to say. It’s just a deep black hole now and there’s nothing else in the well. When someone has feelings like this they are putting too much pressure on themselves. When you have yourself for a boss, you are your own worst task master. You’re driving yourself too hard. Try to write a poem every day even if it’s a crummy one. You need to tell your subconscious mind that everything is okay and now you’re back to finishing a poem every day. (Even if it’s a sily one. ) Write a limerick, maybe something naughty. Write a short story, maybe something scary. Enjoy writing for a change and don’t push yourself so hard. Maybe take time out and cook a delicious culinary dish. Have some fun. Write an email to yourself and tell yourself how life is going and why. Listen to beautiful music that thrills you especially by artists that write their own lyrics. It won’t be long and your creative flow will just start coming to you again. Don’t go looking for it and demanding of yourself that you be unblocked, you’ll scare away your creative flow when you do that.
4 — — —Describe the process of finding ideas for your stories. Please elaborate.. — — — My best ideas come from thoughts that have been playing in my head for a few days and because of that I feel that my subconscious Is repeating something that is important to me and it needs to be expressed. For example my cousin’s dog got hurt and had to have surgery. That bothered me long enough to cause me to write a poem about the dog and from the dog’s point of view . If a thought has been bouncing around in your head, it’s obviously important to you and this is a perfect inspiration to sit down and try and write a poem or a story. Words are like clay, you can shape them anyway that you like. You can even try to make a situation funny.
5 — — — as humans, we suffer without knowing it by choosing not to move outside our comfort zone.. Do you have a comfort zone in writing ( i.e. — a topic that you always like to write about) ? Have you tried to step outside your comfort zone and write something drastically different ?
I am more comfortable stepping outside of my comfort zone than staying inside in getting the doldrums. I have favorite things that I like to write about but they don’t represent a comfort zone for me. I might write a poem in Cockney slang for fun, or Aussie slang or a murder mystery involving cannibalism, or a poem about new love and love break-ups. . I love to write about things like health and childhood shenanigans. Recently I think I stepped outside of my comfort zone for the first time when I wrote an article about time I spent in juvenile hall when I was 16. When I hit the publish button I thought, well it’s too late now, it’s out there. Then I thought, I hope people don’t see me any differently over something that happened so long ago when I was just 16. Yes I think I stepped outside of my comfort zone when I wrote about my time spent in juvie.Ah yes, but I was such a bad ass all the girls wanted me and blaa blaaa blaaa.
6 — — Besides Medium, Do you use other writing platforms? Please share your experiences. — — —
I use All Poetry and Note Flight. Note flight is for music but all of the writing platforms create in different ways. For instance , there is rythm in music and poetry both. I wasn’t very crazy about Vocal when I saw all of the unsafe warnings. All Poetry is a delight because of the responses from other poets. I think the responses on All Poetry are a little bit more comprehensive then the responses you get on Medium regarding what you write. I got a review on one of my poems posted on All Poetry that was so wonderful it made me cry. However , Medium sort of feels like home. I feel comfortable writing there. If my writing doesn’t get the recognition I think it should have, that’s fine. The statistics shows me where I should try to write if I want a favorable outcome. Of course I want people to like my work and I am definitely writing to garner the favor of other writers. I love the feeling of having something I worked on for two days ,being appreciated. Usually I post on both Medium and All Poetry , and see how the two different platforms compare for the same poem.I really need to use note flight more often because applying musical notes to poetry is so amazing.
7 — — -Oh yes, not to brag but I have published several best selling books. Of course I published many books about the art of love spreading my wisdom gained over the years by being one of the world’s greatest lovers. I’m not going to brag but I have several certified “Attaboy Awards” from those I have pleasured.Last night I could hardly get any sleep at all because of some woman banging on my door. Finally I got sick of it and got up and let her out. I have written books on gourmet dishes. My latest book entitled. “Are you crazy ?” Speaks to people who jog in rush-hour traffic to build up their bodies. With all my money that I’m getting from my publishing achievements, I am donating that money to finding the cure for poliosis. (Not the same as Polio.) If you don’t know what it is you should look it up.
Now is the time to confess that everything I have said under article 7 so far is a complete lie. I have never published a book, but I would like to publish a book on some of these interesting subjects. Doesn’t that count for anything?
8 — — You write because writing provides you with something special.. Could you share your experience ? — —
I have a severe case of motormouth. Once I get going I can’t seem to shut it off. I get up six hours before my wife so I am running at about 180 miles an hour when she gets up. She is not exactly ready to hit the ground running yet and I’m already motormouthing her to death. She tells me I need to be quiet and turn around write something and listen to music and leave her alone until she wakes up. I’m rocking out to Gretchen Wilson and Halsey and, well you get it. I think writing gives me something all right, it keeps me from getting killed by my wife. Seriously, writing open so many horizons for me every day that I feel like I’ve never been happier in my life and I’ve got everything I want including a wonderful wife. I know this is a rare experience and not everybody has this and that is what makes it valuable all the more every day.
I’m pretty old and I’m very hyperactive. Science tells me that I’m operating out of both hemispheres of my brain equally so if you are young ha ha, I have an advantage on you if I know how to write. I would love a competition but every time I read a good poem by somebody else the game just changes to,
“Damn , that was so good ! Nobody should even try to compete with that.”
9 — — Do you write a paragraph, a chapter, or a story with the end in mind or not? Please explain — -
Oh, nay nay………I try not to preconceive and let my inner self choose the direction of things I write. Sometimes my inner self leads me to a happy conclusion and sometimes to a darker conclusion but I try not to make things seem hopeless in the end ever. I wrote about my dog that had to be put to sleep. It’s hard to put a positive spin on something that dark but I tried to speak to that in one of my poems.(I want to ask you to figure out which one because I want you to read all of my poems — please.) I think I put a spin on the conclusion by saying that sometimes the best decisions are the hardest ones to make under the circumstances.
10 — -Every writer has an idol. Who is yours? And what you find inspiring in his or her trajectory. — -
This is a very loaded question for me. I just got emotional because I started running over the list of people in my head that I admire. those would be the ones that move me emotionally, of course. Duhhhhh……..The vision and memory of the girl at the top of this might be one of the top poets ever, quite a few people have this opinion of her works and her courage. She went by the name of Nightbirde. I have to stop talking about her right now because her memory is making me cry. I never ever avoid crying because it’s good for you but right now I’m trying to finish this article.
I have so many artists that I idolize and admire.I have extremely eclectic tastes and I can’t think of any genre that I would reject and not read. Maybe rap music which is just poetry I would reject because it is so hateful. There is no one person that I find inspiring about their trajectory. I try to see life through that person’s eyes. It takes practice and close reading to get it and each poet is like a snowflake with their own particular unique wonderful point of view. I find it inspiring that it is brains speaking to other brains through empathy. So much of my inspiration comes from music which is really a form of poetry. If the singer of the song that I love also wrote that song they are a poet. Check out Leonard Cohen doing “1000 kisses deep. That piece of genious is a speaking poem that resembles music also. We are living in a time of great poets such as Jane Marczewski, Taylor Swift, Prince, Miya Angelou, Adele, Tom Waits to name just a very few . I print out everything they do and study them intently. Each has their own style that you can learn from.
11 — -Does being on a writing platform like Medium, help your writing plans? Please elaborate. — — — -
This one is going to make me think.I hope things don’t go like yesterday. I got up and tried to think , but nothing happened. Yes that was a joke. I’m trying to be more upbeat in my writing but that’s up to me and not the writing platform. I’m 81 so my writing plans would be to dump off any stress I might have so I can live a nice relaxed life and live to 120. ( I have a plan and so far, so good.) I have so much to say all the time and by writing it down on medium instead of bombarding my wife, I will probably have a much improved lifespan. All I have to do is write it down and send it to others and they are free to praise me and my poetry will echo around the planet forever and ever — — -amen….In the future there will be pilgrimages to my home every year on my birthday to honor me for my fantastic wordsmithery to honor the greatest poet that ever lived. (me me me )I don’t really have any long-term plans. I just plan to make my next poem a little bit better than my last one. I seriously think writing is good for your health.
