Flashwriting.

“I’m sitting in front of my screen, feeling the beat, the monotone drum of hands banging canvas as the dust kicks around me, shards of brown specks glittering as they fall back to the floor. I’m being sucked in by secret moves so succinct I think this toil is gonna explode with crazy Tribal dances as we yelp and howl around the fire.” (Flash in Time, 24/07/2004)

Flashwriting is where the fire can kindle. The heat washes over your body. You find out very soon whether you’re dry wood for the World Wide Write or if you have simply found a knack for sponged words and clever twists of the flannel.

I uncovered the world of flashwriting four years ago. A woman called Zoe, writer and editor for two magazines, asked on writing website, Writersdock, for fourteen people to participate in a writing experiment.

I was at a crossroads with my writing. I’d recently had a short story folded and transformed into x-rated origami, then cut into tiny pieces and thrown from the edge of a cliff. It was the blackest moment of my writing career and I honestly considered quitting. Maybe find a 9-5 office job and spend the rest of my life writing pompous letters to the editor of the Daily Mail about the degeneration of society, because some excitable girls were enjoying hopscotch outside of my driveway. My gut, however, wanted to try this ‘writing experiment’. What did I have to lose?

Zoe explained to me that she was unsure of what would be achieved in this experiment. Named ‘Flash in Time’, she was going to try and get us to embark on an exploration into our pasts, thoughts and writing process. Every Sunday, we’d enter this chatroom provided by the Writersdock team. The first session is still very vivid in my mind’s eye.

Slowly, the guinea pigs amassed at the feet of the mad scientist, exchanging nervous banter and polite conversation. I’m sure everyone, like myself, clock-watched as we considered what was about to happen. At 9.15pm, Zoe asked us if we were ready. With trepidation and tingling sensations, I said yes. She explained to us we would be given a visualisation, a walkthrough, hopefully triggering subconscious thoughts. After ten to fifteen minutes, the visualisation stopped with the prompt, ‘NOW WRITE.’ Here is a section of one of her visualisations, taken from session five:

“09:22:18pm Zoek> First of all, I want you to close your eyes for a moment
09:22:28pm Zoek> and breathe deeply…
09:22:39pm Zoek> things may feel a little strange at first,
09:22:44pm Zoek> but just relax,
09:22:56pm Zoek> try to focus, and go with the process.
09:23:06pm Zoek> We’re about to take a walk…
09:23:18pm Zoek> It’s a clear, balmy evening…
09:23:31pm Zoek> and the sun is just painting the finishing touches to the sky…
09:23:40pm Zoek> and to the red mackerel clouds.
09:23:46pm Zoek> As you watch…
09:23:53pm Zoek> you let your mind explore the clouds…
09:23:57pm Zoek> create countries,
09:24:03pm Zoek> paint pictures….
09:24:09pm Zoek> A soft rain begins,
09:24:12pm Zoek> but it’s warm.
09:24:22pm Zoek> it feels good on your skin.”

This particular visualisation was ten minutes. The whole process of this visualisation was to bring us into a pseudo-meditational frame of mind. We wrote non-stop for twenty minutes with no consideration for grammar or punctuation. Every session, I switched off my bedroom light and played some music, very quietly, with just the white screen in front and keyboard below. I imagine it is a similar buzz to a sprinter at their starting block, that quiet feeling of containment, attempting to resist the pressure of the moment from affecting the psyche. When the gun fires, the energy bursts through you as you try to type as fast as you think, not happy until you have exhausted every thought. Here is the beginning of my written piece for the fifth visualisation:

“And I’m here, I’m beneath the rainbow, this wondrous rainbow that shows so much, elaborates on the core of our life, on our semblance of life, our snippets into the past, into a life hidden, stuffed into the closet, hidden and told to leave. Leaving too much pain and too much hurt. It’s my aching bone. It’s my ugly neighbour of the soul, an unclean memory of what ifs, and how it could have been.

I wish it were gone, but it isn’t. It’s here, with the rainbow, a different representation in each colour. The complexities of colours, the different tastes, from sour to sweet, from bland to burnt.

If only she knew the hurt, the pain, the grief she caused. When I saw those pictures, when I saw her infidelity, when I saw exactly what she wanted me to feel. To feel the jealousy, to tear at the picture, to hold it in pieces and cry, and curl up on the bed and shake, a mirage of the happy self moments ago.

She knew she’d ripped me apart, she’d taken my melody; she held my blackbird voice and twisted the crow out. I was broken, shattered self’s of the mirror. And I lay there, and I cried, and shouted and wondered why? Why had this happened to me? Why was this the reality check?”

Now the piece itself has its moments of evocative writing and other aspects of broken ramblings full of adjectives. However, the beauty that came from this ‘writing experiment’ was the ability to escape the analytical intrusion of the brain. This experiment allowed me to find freedom in my style. The above piece was reworked. It found a home with an online e-zine. After nearly twenty-five Flash in Time sessions, I found my voice and have since had varying success with my writing. I was no longer a dog chasing its tail.

Do I say to everyone that they should try and organise a similar process amongst friends to try out? No. All I can say is that this worked for me and most of the other adventurers in the Flash in Time project. Samuel Beckett says ‘take a leap of faith into the dark.’ Why not? There might be a light somewhere.