Sometimes it's best if I just start writing here, as soon as I get home. The moment I sit at my computer. Because if I start to read emails or check out facebook, I will often get distracted. My head will get filled with things not of my choosing. That is fine sometimes but it is important, too, to empty your head. To throw a bucket attached to a rope, throw it in, let it fall deep down. Let it splash on the bottom. See what you bring up from the well of your subconscious.
Writing is as easy as that sometimes. It's just about doing it. Getting started. Hopping on the bull or the horse, or the bike, or whatever imaginary mode of transport you wish. Just get started and keep going. Whether what you write will be any good or not, of interest, of merit - well, that is a separate issue. But at least you will end up with something. Something that you can work with. Something that you can later edit, craft, into something better.
It is sometimes called 'automatic writing' and it's a technique used by many. I used to employ it, prodigiously, in the creative writing workshops I ran. It was interesting the way some would take to it immediately, like runaway trains, and others would balk, resist, be their own worst enemy. The trick is to let the right side of your brain take over. That's the creative, expressive side. Hush the left side, tell it to sit quietly, go to sleep, it's time to be critical, to judge, to impart it's need for order and perfectionism will come after. It will get it's chance at the editing stage. Right now it's all about non-judgement, flow, release.
When a writer (or an artist of any sort, for that matter), is able to get out of their own way and do it with ease, that's when the good stuff is allowed to come out, that's when the magic appears. It's the sweet spot, the zone, satori. Like everything worthwhile, it takes practice, lots of it, but it's worth it. You find yourself as a conduit, the voice, the hands of a higher power. You no longer even have to really think after a while. You just do your job, your duty; you just keep on writing whatever is there.
And because it is so smooth and easy, there is a great pleasure in the act itself. You are no longer questioning or judging - you are just as much enjoying the natural thrill of riding a wave as any surfer, relishing the free fall as much as any sky diver and getting lost in the moment of complete focus as any athlete of calibre. It is a thrill, it is a magical experience - available to all, I might add. I've had people come to my classes who started out stilted and clumsy and uncertain and left with a new outlook, a fresh confidence, a love of the play of the mind using just teensy letter and words sprayed out in sequence. I witnessed some amazing transformations in just a short period, when students where coaxed into dropping their guards and letting their minds dance, freestyle and ungainly at first, with their pens, only to eventually find that within them was insight and intelligence, poetry and lyricism, well beyond what they ever imagined.
I believe there is no, should be no, separation between good writers and bad. There are only those who do and those who choose not to. My job was to encourage the 'um, maybes' into walking to the edge of the plank and just diving in. It's an addictive thrill.
Of course, some people have natural talent, some are more practiced, inclined, and that is why we have great books. But everyone, has the opportunity, the talent, to at least record something of merit, surprise, meaning, joy, if they want to. Some of the most amazing pieces came from the least likely candidates in those workshops. After a few hours of exercises, we'd do twenty minutes of free writing, with minimal direction and guidance - just a few starting words. Some were reading out jaw droppingly good short essays and stories. Or provocative. Like the masseuse and artist, in her late twenties, who wrote about her sexual encounters. Boy, did she wake everyone up during the readings. It wasn't so much the sex that invoked attention, it was the HONESTY. (And the sex.)
Like the bike courier, who had never written before, who wrote with such gorgeous flow and cadence in such a free and enriching style that the whole class felt like they were witnessing the reincarnation of Dickens or Poe. Like the old fella, what was his name? He shocked everyone. Had he really done that? The story he just read out - it sounded real. Too real to be fiction almost? Him? Wild and crazed urban adventures like he said? And he never let on. Was it him or his imagination? It didn't matter. We all just want to escape. We all want to believe. Writing transports us. And when you are the writer, you are driving the vehicle.
In some ways, it's the freest you'll ever be. Am I trying to turn you on to it? Yes. Why? Because it's a delicious drug. Somewhat addictive. Is it harmful? Fuck no, it's good for you! Too good to be true? Yes. Just like the stories that are in you, waiting to come out.
Writing is as easy as that sometimes. It's just about doing it. Getting started. Hopping on the bull or the horse, or the bike, or whatever imaginary mode of transport you wish. Just get started and keep going. Whether what you write will be any good or not, of interest, of merit - well, that is a separate issue. But at least you will end up with something. Something that you can work with. Something that you can later edit, craft, into something better.
It is sometimes called 'automatic writing' and it's a technique used by many. I used to employ it, prodigiously, in the creative writing workshops I ran. It was interesting the way some would take to it immediately, like runaway trains, and others would balk, resist, be their own worst enemy. The trick is to let the right side of your brain take over. That's the creative, expressive side. Hush the left side, tell it to sit quietly, go to sleep, it's time to be critical, to judge, to impart it's need for order and perfectionism will come after. It will get it's chance at the editing stage. Right now it's all about non-judgement, flow, release.
When a writer (or an artist of any sort, for that matter), is able to get out of their own way and do it with ease, that's when the good stuff is allowed to come out, that's when the magic appears. It's the sweet spot, the zone, satori. Like everything worthwhile, it takes practice, lots of it, but it's worth it. You find yourself as a conduit, the voice, the hands of a higher power. You no longer even have to really think after a while. You just do your job, your duty; you just keep on writing whatever is there.
And because it is so smooth and easy, there is a great pleasure in the act itself. You are no longer questioning or judging - you are just as much enjoying the natural thrill of riding a wave as any surfer, relishing the free fall as much as any sky diver and getting lost in the moment of complete focus as any athlete of calibre. It is a thrill, it is a magical experience - available to all, I might add. I've had people come to my classes who started out stilted and clumsy and uncertain and left with a new outlook, a fresh confidence, a love of the play of the mind using just teensy letter and words sprayed out in sequence. I witnessed some amazing transformations in just a short period, when students where coaxed into dropping their guards and letting their minds dance, freestyle and ungainly at first, with their pens, only to eventually find that within them was insight and intelligence, poetry and lyricism, well beyond what they ever imagined.
I believe there is no, should be no, separation between good writers and bad. There are only those who do and those who choose not to. My job was to encourage the 'um, maybes' into walking to the edge of the plank and just diving in. It's an addictive thrill.
Of course, some people have natural talent, some are more practiced, inclined, and that is why we have great books. But everyone, has the opportunity, the talent, to at least record something of merit, surprise, meaning, joy, if they want to. Some of the most amazing pieces came from the least likely candidates in those workshops. After a few hours of exercises, we'd do twenty minutes of free writing, with minimal direction and guidance - just a few starting words. Some were reading out jaw droppingly good short essays and stories. Or provocative. Like the masseuse and artist, in her late twenties, who wrote about her sexual encounters. Boy, did she wake everyone up during the readings. It wasn't so much the sex that invoked attention, it was the HONESTY. (And the sex.)
Like the bike courier, who had never written before, who wrote with such gorgeous flow and cadence in such a free and enriching style that the whole class felt like they were witnessing the reincarnation of Dickens or Poe. Like the old fella, what was his name? He shocked everyone. Had he really done that? The story he just read out - it sounded real. Too real to be fiction almost? Him? Wild and crazed urban adventures like he said? And he never let on. Was it him or his imagination? It didn't matter. We all just want to escape. We all want to believe. Writing transports us. And when you are the writer, you are driving the vehicle.
In some ways, it's the freest you'll ever be. Am I trying to turn you on to it? Yes. Why? Because it's a delicious drug. Somewhat addictive. Is it harmful? Fuck no, it's good for you! Too good to be true? Yes. Just like the stories that are in you, waiting to come out.
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