There are times I splatter stuff on the empty page and expect them to become a concise, perfectly clear, contained essay or chapter that will have the power to change the planet simply because I wrote them.
I quickly wake up from that dream and realize being impulsive is a grand thing and a part of the overall creative process and as a stand-alone, it is reminiscent of the first and second of the three little pigs whose houses were easily destroyed by the big, bad wolf with one not-so-mighty huff-and-puff.
The other day I had the assignment of writing and speaking on Periscope about “Impulsive” as a part of the PeriGirls HeartTribes. I did like I often do, I researched quotes along the theme of the word.
The very first quote I found had me chasing after it, with an angry, frustrated impulsive edge (naturally.)
This is what I found:
“Sometimes it's a good idea to think about what you want from a situation, and try to get it, rather than just blurt out the first thing that comes into your head.”
The quote came from the pen of a writer I had never heard of before, E. Lockhart – who apparently doesn’t want to reveal her gender in her first name, though I suspect her name is Emily. If her name was Eleanor she would wear it proudly, one might suspect. I didn't have a problem with her deliberate quote, it was her name - or lack of a complete first name - that had me on edge.
Naturally I paid a visit to my second best friend, Google, and immediately discovered her name IS Emily, as her website proudly proclaims, but this still doesn’t give us a true reason why the names on her “audience appeal looks to be girls” is only an initial, like other women SE Hinton (who declared stories about girls were “boring” so she masked her gender and wrote of boys) and JK Rowlings, who went so far to have a male alter-ego to write a crime busting series – and whose Harry Potter books are predominantly male characters.
The choice to write “not as women” was an intentional choice in the latter two cases. I don’t know about “E”/Emily yet as I found her simply by doing a search for “Impulsive” quotes and got rather far off course as I am likely to do as I chase thought butterflies around the stratosphere.
I have been known to be impulsive which I like to think of as highly intuitive and adventuresome.
It seems as if some of us naturally make an impulsive nature a negative and deliberation a positive thing.
I prefer to look at both as simply “things” without a slapped on, easily peeled off label of judgment or bickering. “Impulsive immature, deliberate wise. Impulsive the hare, deliberate the tortoise – and we know who won that race!”
Jane Austen takes a more balanced approach as the scribe of Pride and Prejudice: “Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.” Then again, Jane uses her name not "J" alone.
She was wise in a day when women weren’t supposed to have the slightest compulsion – or impulse – to think nor to write. Even in her pseudonym moments, she referred to herself as "A Lady." (If you want to discover more about the use of pen names by women to disguise gender, there is a link below the essay here to an article from the Guardian in the UK which talks about the Bronte Sisters and beyond.)
I prefer my definition of impulsive: intuitive and adventuresome.
I might take it a little deeper and say risk taking and willing.
Another toe dip into the “impulsive” stream and I discover “Courageous with a dose of naivete built in for good measure.”
Impulsive. I splattered words and got the page and the surrounding ground coated with orange and purple word-paint, too. This isn’t entirely a bad thing, it is simply a “thing”.
I’ve found a theme.
It might not change the world right away AND it might change the way one person thinks which is more than enough.
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"A Potted History of Pen Names"
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Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives.
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