Well, that'll teach me. Maybe...

[desperance]

I had to go to the supermarket this morning. Went out of the house, crossed the road - and stopped, and turned round, and crossed the road again, thinking "oh hey, I could take my camera!" And reached the door and stopped again, thinking, "oh, but I'm supposed to be thinking about the book, plotting what happens next; and if I take the camera I'll be thinking about pictures instead; and besides, I've taken the camera that way once already, and it's awkward with the camera-bag and the shopping-bag, and..."

So I didn't. I turned and crossed the road one more time, empty-handed. And went into Birdcage Walk, and lo: the light was all soft and pearlescent, and it was entirely cool and quiet and cathedral-like under the high arches of the trees, and I really really wished I had my camera.

And then there was a little leaf caught on a fence that I wanted to photograph, and great marshy puddles because it's been raining all night, and and and...

And by the time I was coming home the sun was out and the light was all hard-edged, and I didn't see anything at all I wanted to photograph.

Hrumph. I guess I should be taking it everywhere just in case, but it is a little awkward as per current arrangement of bags. Perhaps I need (another!) new bag, that can carry both camera and shopping, or camera and laptop and book...?

Comments

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

I can't deal with the shall I/shan't I crises. I don't go anywhere without my camera.

And I like to think that photography has taught me a lot about seizing the moment.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup. Whereas writing (at least the way I do it) is often about postponing the moment: the process of generating ideas takes me away from the computer, and then maybe it all needs thinking about and running through my head a time or thirteen before it's ready to be written.

Or maybe I just sit down here with a blank page and a blank mind and let it happen anyway, but even so the moment of generation is usually long gone. The scene I'm writing now has been building for a week or more, in so far as it wasn't inevitable from the moment I first thought of the book; the actual conversation that I'm writing was realised in my head this morning, after I had regretted the absence of camera; word for word it's happening right here right now, because of course I don't remember what the words were before...