Dreamy Thoughtlessness

“Writing takes you in a direction,” claims the renowned Michael Meehan, “The idea of writing a book, comes from just writing the book”. This quote, from The Mallee Project session, was something that resonated and stuck with me like glue throughout the remainder of the writer’s festival. I was struck with the realisation that everything Sue had been saying was truly how a writer writes, and everything that I had thought about writing was wrong. 

Before the festival had started, Sue, the Writers in Action lecturer, made the effort to teach my class how to write in a way that would allow myself and my peers to make sense of imaginative and informative writing. We were taught about the four different purposes and voices within writing, which expanded to understanding the audience that would be viewing the work and what they would be expecting to find in certain styles of writing. However, finding my voice was easily the most significant, but also hardest, part about writing for myself.

As I powered through the weekend with my voice in mind and, regretfully, not much about the authors and their work, I felt inspired and influenced in a way that I had never been before. I would listen to the thoughts inside my head and try to understand where it was taking me and what I was thinking about. I passed all the nonsense of shopping lists and wondering if penguins had knees and shut myself down to sink into, what Michael Meehan would call, a ‘dreamy thoughtlessness’. After I did this a first time, I wanted to keep on going. I would return home after the festival had finished each day and start writing about other’s readings, which progressed to reading my own writing and wondered why I had never tried to do something so creative before now. But that was when it hit me. I had.

I am very much a musically orientated person and have always been ever since I was a little girl. I would always make up my own songs and music, while playing the guitar and the piano, in any spare time I had. I was, essentially, making stories in my own head and expressing myself in the same way that a poet or writer does, except I would just not put it on paper. Due to this past time, I felt a strong connection towards the poets of the festival and their writing. I identified strongly with these thoughtful individuals and was particularly intrigued to hear their thought processes and ideas about their writing technique and how they put their thoughts onto paper.

All the poets had their very own way of writing and expressing themselves, each varying from the other. Some would write about their own personal experiences of hardship or their past, whereas others would write about politics or a passion of theirs. However, one thing was clear, they all allowed the voice inside their head help create their writing and take them in a direction that was purposeful and true for them.

Although I have a long way to go, and still have much learning to undertake, I do believe that I can relate to the poets and feel a sense of comfort knowing that I can write creatively even if my creative writing is more basic and simple compared to others. I am now able to hear the voice in my head and what it tells me; it exclaimed that I am capable and that even though my stories may not be long and may not make sense to others, they are real and they are meaningful. They are my own dreamy thoughtlessness.