“Freewrite – 29 Mar. 2020 (Sharing is Caring – Part 1)” by Richard F. Yates

Hey Hiversters! Today has been a BIZZZZY one! I’m not exactly sure what’s happened to my head, lately, but I’ve gone BUCK WILD CREATION CRAZY over the last few days. I’ve made a ton of art, Mariah and I have started a wild thread on FaceBoot (which is fun enough that I’m going to do a whole post about it), AND we even did some freewriting today!

It’s been quite a while since either of us did any freewriting, so it was a bit of an “ice-breaker” session. Mariah wrote in a notebook (I’m going to let her decide if she wants to share her writing on her own page ( Hive account@mariahyates ) or not), while I dug through my art supplies and found a stack of white cardboard and a few pens. We decided to write in silence, as opposed to with music or anything else playing in the background, and we didn’t use any kind of prompt. Whatever came into our heads would go straight to our pens and onto the paper…

I set a timer on my phone for 10 minutes and 1 second (I’m weird), and we said GO!

And away we went! Mariah’s writing was more focused than mine, but my head is a messy place at the best of times. (The trick, for me, is getting the mess down on paper as quickly as possible, then spending hours and hours editing and rearranging and sculpting my words into something COHERENT. What you see below is RAW, straight from the tap, CRUDE… But I’m pretty happy with it. It’s got gumption!)

Read for this? Ah, sure you are…

Here is a typed transcript, in case you can’t read my writing or you’re reading on a tiny screen:

*[29 Mar. 2020] – Freewrite!
10 minutes + 1 second! Okay…here we go!

Been about a million years since I FREEWROTE… But now that we’re stuck in the house, I thought it might be appropriate. (Pen is fighting me! But I set out extra pens, just in case! I FORESAW the possibility! My… Oh my…)

Let’s do stream of consciousness ramble word association…
Sounds good!
Okay GO!!!

Paralyzed lemon squeeze
dent cop hard barstool
over liquid pop up charts.
My sugar overflows!
Lists of obscene
gestures coagulate amidst
the humble petroglyphs.

It’s ASTHMA time, baby!
Rock that hard place.

Limited limping juggernaut.
Secret buzz holistic cow tipping
vacation gum engine cleaner

Hazel linked 2x4 in
a romantic thumb cuff.
Choking off the excess turbo
vacuum cheese. Don’t blink!
Or the car-parts-man will
get you!

Does any of this
make sense. (If so, up
your medication!!! Helped
for me!)

The rolling smiley
face ate frigid dots [while]
complaining of excess back
fat! (I repeated the word
“EXCESS.” Damn. I
have FAILED the
free association test!
Back to elementary
free-writing for me![)]

(Freud would be so
displeased – but he’s
dead so…you know…)

Will we ever
recover? Will the
cornflakes be soggy
by spring? What’s
under the bed? How
many teeth does it
have? These questions
and more are still…
still not… They ain’t…
Even… or ODD…

Left behind by the good
folks. Only the weirdos
left. Finally… Done!

(Finished with 20 seconds left on the clock.)*

And that was my freewrite today! Like I said above, I’m pleased with it. I haven’t written poetry for a while, and I’m not sure why I stopped. I love the SOUNDS of words---much more than the MEANINGS of words. The MUSIC of language.

After we finished our written projects, we read them to each other, which was fun.

SHARING IS CARING!

THEN I took my four chunks of cardboard, even though they were various sizes, and taped them together to make a little book:

I’ve made dozens and dozens of these weird little books. Sometimes I’ve sewn them together, but most of the time I just use tape. Once they’re finished, I stick them in the banker-boxes where I keep my journals. I don’t know WHEN I started making little books like this…maybe when I was about seven or eight? I think so… I don’t have ALL of the books that I’ve made over the years---(I’ve lost a lot of them, given a bunch away, mailed some to people---but I have quite a few, still.)

And that’s PART ONE of today’s THREE PART art/writing/music day! Keep an eye out for PARTS TWO and THREE, which I’m going to TRY to get up before I go to bed tonight---but I’m OLD, so I might only get the first two up tonight before I get too tired and have to sleep… We’ll see!!!

---Richard F. Yates
(Primitive Thoughtician and Holy Fool)

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