not my own words

I had a dream a while back where I was telling someone that I earned my living from writing – “But not my own words.”

No, it wasn’t an admission of plagiarism. I think it was a subconscious recognition of the fact that I am too busy translating to do very much original writing.

This week, I have written about 15,000 words for which I will be paid. The subject matter has ranged from robotics to geotechnics, to digital publishing platforms, to travel journalism. Only around 1,200 words have been my own, and of those, more than half were based on a National Trust press release. Just 500 were put together from nothing to create an original and creative article.

In addition, I must have written over a thousand words of comment and critique, and easily another thousand in emails.

All this in a five-day week begins to make the 50k in a month of NaNoWriMo seem really quite tame. Not that I’m saying I could do that. I have no aspirations to write a novel, and little interest in writing fiction of any sort.

I would, however like to have enough free space in my brain to be able to get beyond

The piebald cat treads gingerly among
the bone-bare branches of the apple tree;

which is just about all I’ve managed to write in the way of poetry this week.

OK, that’s not strictly true, I have actually got quite a bit more of the same poem, but it is complete and utter trash!

Author: don't confuse the narrator

Exploring the boundary between writer and narrator through first person poetry, prose and opinion View all posts by don't confuse the narrator