The world of the poet-writer is always evolving, shaping and forming. This side of creativity never ceases; it is not something that you want or can turn off. The writer is always pregnant with new and old ideas, and therefore, he is always "visually spatially", writing on the sand, in a book or on the mermaid’s tail. This is a living process that consumes and therefore there are no set times to write although the writer may set a time to document the jewels of the journey.
Writers spend a lot of time in the incubation of their ideas,travelling them, and shaping them to be of the earth and experience.
When Albee was asked how long it took him to write he replied, "All my life". When Beethoven asked a student, "Do you play?" and the student replied, "Sometimes", Beethoven responded with, "There is no sometime, either you play or you don’t". Also in creating there is no repetition, or "boredom". It is not a duty, it is a deep journey of "creative spark "in love with the human condition and the world.
So I do not sense that Nietzsche would have seen his creativity as a chore or a repetition rather he reminds me of the Bronté sisters who lived their passions in their writing.
Therefore he would have lived in the world of investigation, shaping, formulating, inventing, creating and writing all the time, "all his life", and this would have been the world in which he was most alive. His work is always alive, personal and involving just the way he was and therefore he loved being in the world of the maker, inventor, creator, writer and dancer. "Today I wasted my day, I did not dance" (Nietzsche)."Creativity is carnivorous, and it is most carnivorous when it smiles". My research and understanding is that Nietzsche carried his notebooks everywhere he went and wrote down ideas or evolved thoughts. I especially like the notebook that has flowers on the cover. Did you know that he wrote his work on paper and then cut it out and pasted it? From my observations of the original notebooks, the cuttings, or shapes are "Steiner" in shape. I have read that he would do much of the "serious" writing at night, as most writers do. The night song could only have been written at night. How many hours did he spend? And how far did he work into the night and morning? Did he write daily? Did he write on many issues or did he work on the same one until he worked it out? Maybe some of the notebooks would tell you this. Don’t forget that when he was ill he found it difficult to travel the road of the philosopher and poet. How important would have been for him to dialogue about his ideas with another? Did he have kindred that he could share this struggle and inspiration? What happens to a poet-writer when they are left totally alone in the valley of struggle and creativity? Does one feed from their own light?
I think to understand the markings of such a poet one has to work inward travelling outward. I would be interested to hear what my readers find about his writing in the "practical" world .
In his later notebooks he wrote on paper and carried the notebooks with him all the time, while travelling, eating or walking. He wrote down ideas after conversations, reflection and difficult times.
He wrote all sorts of things from the profound to "recipes" and at one time had a suitcase of these papers left behind at one of the places he stayed. Elizabeth collected all these papers.
"Nietzsche once gave me the good advice to keep paper and pencil on hand at night, as he himself did, since at night we are often visited by rare thoughts which we should record immediately on awakening in the night, for by morning we can usually not find them again. They have fluttered away with the nocturnal darkness" (Resa von Schirnhofer)
So, as is suspected, to live out your life as a poet means that you are in this yellow pollen all the time. To be without it causes you much despair and deeper aloneness; continually there is in sleeping and waking, the state of concepts, formulation, incubation and finally the painting of the hidden with black ink.
Writers use all sorts of material, the sand, the sky, paper and the mermaid’s tail.
Did you know that Beethoven wrote on his window shutters?
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