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Week
1: Writing Practice
Or, Going for the Crapulence!
Crapulent.
This is one of my favorite words. Bart Simpson says it one day to his
teacher, Mrs. Krabappel, and she chides him for using a made-up word.
But later on she uses it herself because it's so delicious and tempting.
What?? You don't watch The Simpsons ? Well, you don't know
what you're missing. You think you are missing a childish, annoying
cartoon show, but really you are missing one of the cleverest, most
hilarious pieces of satire ever to be allowed on American television.
But, I digress. Just remember that word, crapulent , because
it's the theme for this week's lecture and assignment. We'll be coming
back to it. . . .
Now, what is the secret to good writing? Talk to any writer or read
any book about writing and the message is the same: the key to writing
is . . . writing. "Well, duh," you may be thinking, "no wonder you watch
cartoon shows."
But my point is that anything you expect to get good at, any skill you
want to develop, involves practice. This is true for playing basketball
or cooking gourmet food or singing. The thing is, most of us seem to
expect that we have to practice a lot to be an NBA all-star. We have
to go to basketball practice every day in order to play well in the
big games. Or we expect to make a few failed souffles before we get
the magic touch with the eggs.
But when it comes to writing, most of us expect everything we write
should do something. It should accomplish something: it
should become a play or a novel or a short story. Certainly it should
be published. Definitely we'd like to get paid for it. By all means
everyone who reads it should be profoundly moved.
Well, maybe you're not that naive, but I was. When I started to write
poetry in college I sweated over each piece and continued trying to
make each one "go" somewhere. It didn't occur to me until years later
that each poem I wrote in that creative writing workshop was serving
a very valuable purpose all on its own -- teaching me to write poetry.
I've never published any of those poems and I never will, and that's
OK. Those poems have done their job.
But how did I start writing poetry? Well, first my poetry professor
forced me to read poetry. It hadn't occurred to me, nor I think to most
of the other students, that to write poetry we should first enjoy reading
it. I didn't want to read poetry (how boring, how passe),
I wanted to write poetry. This is a silly, yet common,
mind set. It would be like trying to write a screenplay without ever
having watched a movie. (If you, too, want to write poetry and you are
not reading poetry I suggest you check out the poets on the Recommended
Reading list.) We also discussed poetry: what a poem is and
isn't and some of the established poetic forms. I talked about poetry
with other people who love poetry and most importantly, started attending
poetry readings -- hearing great poets read their work.
Why was it important for me to learn the language of poetry in order
to write it? Think about if you were learning a foreign language, such
as French. To learn French your best bet is to surround yourself with
French-speaking people -- this will make you more tuned in to the language,
to understanding it. That's why immersion programs are so successful.
But to hear the language isn't enough. You also need to practice speaking
French, otherwise you will not be able to produce language, but only
to know what is said to you. Even if the first words you say are unintelligible
to any French person and sound like you have just come from the dentist
and part of your mouth is anesthetized. Even if your French words are
halting and badly accented, these are the steps you need to take to
speak the language.
The same is true of writing. The more that you can do to surround yourself
with writers and good writing, the more these things will feed your
creative spirit. At the same time you need to practice writing. Just
like learning the French alphabet and the accent and practicing its
verb conjugation. . . je suis, tu es, il est, nous sommes,vous
etes, elles sont . . . you need to practice your writing. Maybe
in the beginning you feel like a foreigner asking for a cheese omelet
and worrying that you are actually saying your shirt is on fire. That's
OK. In time, if you keep practicing, your foreigner's accent will become
less pronounced. If you really immerse yourself you may even start to
think like a native writer. As with all foreign languages, the key is
not to worry too much about how you look and sound when you're making
those awkward sounds and just practice, practice, practice.
But, you may be thinking, how do I practice? What if I write something
and it's terrible . Won't that ruin my writing? Won't that
get me in the habit of being a bad writer?
Or what if I don't have enough time to write? I mean, I'm chronically
ill or I'm working or I have kids to take care of and a house to keep
and a partner to attend to and bills to pay -- how much practice can
I get in?
I will let you in on two little secrets. This week we will focus on
the one about writing junk. Next week we'll tackle the issue about how
much time you have to spend writing.
The first divine revelation is that it is superb to write crap. I do
it all the time. Actually it's not such a secret because two wildly
popular writing teachers -- Anne Lamott and Natalie Goldberg -- have
promoted this philosophy. Goldberg says, "You are free to write the
worst junk in the universe." Goldberg is a professional writer, internationally
recognized, a multiple best seller, and she has given you
and me permission to write abysmal junk. Check out the
Inspirational Quotes page and you'll
see it there. Isn't that terrific? I have it tacked to the wall next
to my bed.
While you're at the quotes page, check out Lamott's quotes, too. See
the ones where she talks about shitty first drafts and perfectionism?
"The only way I can get anything written at all is to write really,
really shitty first drafts," Lamott says. She also takes a whack at
perfectionism: "Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor. It is the
main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. Besides, perfectionism
will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life
force (these are words we are allowed to use in California)."
Now, why is it so important to be able to write shitty first drafts
and junk? Why is perfectionism the Darth Vader of the writing force?
Because, in order to be able to write creatively, with freedom, with
abandon, we need not feel that each keystroke or scribble of the pen
must create Art (with a capital "A"). We have to have the
chance to write shitty first (and often second and third) drafts. We
need to know we don't have to get it right the first time our fingers
hit the keys or our pens hit the page.
We need to not be worrying who is looking over our shoulder or whispering
in our ear, yet we all have these voices in our heads. Maybe they're
the voices of our parents or our English teachers or the New York
Times Book Review critic or our own sense of literary perfectionism.
Whoever they are, they usually say something like this: "'The'? You're
opening the first sentence of your short story with 'The'? What kind
of boring opening word is that? Nobody wants to read that! And how come
you're writing about your dog? That's so mundane! Why aren't you writing
about world peace?" Or, if you are writing about world peace, "That
is so grandiose of you! You're not Gandhi, are you? Who wants to hear
what you have to say about world peace? Why don't you write about something
people can relate to, like your dog?" Or, "Don't write about sex! Don't
write about food! Don't write about nose hairs! Don't write about depression!
Don't write about illness! Don't write about how your mother decided
she was going to kill herself and then you had to talk her out of it
and drive her to the hospital when you were only fifteen. What
will people think? It will destroy the family if it ever gets
published!"
Basically, we all have one or more voices that tell us that what we
want to write is shameful or embarrassing or will hurt someone who reads
it, or is mundane and stupid, or will be poorly written and unartistic,
or is not important enough, or if the topic is important
we can certainly never hope to do justice to it. If we listen to these
voices, we will never get one word down on paper. Or we will get the
words down, but they will be small, strangled, paltry words -- words
on life support because their beating hearts have been cut out of them.
And we won't get very far before giving up, because we will feel like
we are pounding our head into a cement wall and it isn't very fun for
us. (Nor, probably, for the wall.)
I have these voices, too. Some of my voices are the other students in
my first poetry class, who thought my writing was -- and this is just
one direct quote -- "gross." I've never told anyone this before because
I've felt ashamed and embarrassed about it. But I'm telling you now,
because it might be helpful to you. And because, in my experience, keeping
shameful and embarrassing secrets is usually not productive.
My favorite three writing topics for that college class were (1) being
a lesbian, (2) sexual assault, and (3) my body (especially what my body
did when I was sick or menstruating). These were not popular
subjects with the other students! Most of them liked to write about
beautiful horses and autumn foliage and frat parties. They were repulsed
by me and by my writing. Fortunately I had two things in my favor: a
supportive poetry professor and a political commitment to speaking the
truth about topics 1 and 2. However, even my poetry professor was put
off and confounded by me wanting to talk about mucous and menstrual
blood. So I was resolutely steered away from discussing illness or tampons
or pubic hair or intestines. Although I learned a great deal that has
served me from that class, I also carried a small, fenced-off suburban
lawn in my mind where there should have been a wild, open, flowering
pasture. This is too bad, because it is good to write the terrain where
our passions lie, and since body is a passion of mine,
I should be free to explore it. Because I later became chronically ill,
so that body and illness took over my life,
I needed desperately to express that aspect of my being. It would have
been better -- for my writing and for my spirit -- had I not been shamed
for wanting to write about my body and illness.
So, I tried to write about other things, such as food, which was almost
the same for me as writing about bodies. Or, when I did write about
bodies, I wrote in a way I thought would be accepted, such as adoring
a lover's neck, describing a parent's terrifying facial expression,
or compiling fact sheets on health and disability for my human services
job.
Then, three things changed. First, I started reading Natalie Goldberg's
first two writing books, Writing Down the Bones and Wild
Mind . I learned to give myself free reign. I decided I was allowed
to write the worst junk in the universe. Aha! This gave me the courage
to sign up for another poetry course, armed with the shield of Natalie's
say-so that I could write about anything I wanted. (So there.)
Shortly before my new class started, my best friend became severely
ill. As I watched her body wither and her life shrink into the space
between her apartment walls, I was overcome with guilt and helplessness.
I felt compelled to put her story on paper -- to make sense of it through
writing, to tell the truth about her illness. Finally, it turned out
my new poetry teacher just happened to have a disability. I hoped that
his personal experience would make him more accepting of less palatable
corporeal topics. So, I took the plunge and I wrote a poem about my
friend's disease. It wasn't a good poem, but it was important because
nobody shot me in the head for writing it. In hindsight I believe I
was lucky this was an adult education class, where the students were
generally older, more motivated to learn, more respectful towards each
other, and more tolerant of diverse experience than in my college workshop.
Did that silence the voices in my head? No, they're still there, but
I'm able to work around them. I write poetry, fiction, and essays --
some of my best stuff, actually -- about illness and the body. And I
write about all that other taboo stuff, too. For instance, I recently
published a piece of lesbian erotic fiction where both women have cancer.
That pretty much hits all the marks for what grossed out my college
classmates! But, let's be frank, even if I'd never been hurt by my fellow
undergrads, I'd still have an internal censor freaking out constantly;
writing about domestic abuse and homosexuality and chronic illness are
generally not warmly welcomed subjects in mainstream America. I mean,
you don't open up the pages of Good Housekeeping or Atlantic
Monthly and find an article on "Entertaining Disabled Lesbians
in Five Easy Steps" or a poem called "Stella Killed the Rapists." Even
if your passion is to write about puppies or home repair or traditional
wedding floral arrangements, there will still be voices in your head
telling you why you should be writing about malamutes instead of greyhounds
or linoleum instead of tile, or that you really are a lousy writer anyway,
so why even bother to attempt an article on flower arranging?
So, how do we do it? How do we prevent those nagging voices in our heads
from shutting us down when our pens hit the page?
Here is where the crapulence comes in! What is crapulence? Actually
it is not a made-up word. Crapulence means drunkenness. To be crapulent
is to be sloshed, besotted, plastered, stoned, and generally "sick from
overindulgence." However, Bart didn't know this. Bart thought he invented
a word that allowed him to get away with saying "crap." I think we can
learn a lesson from El Barto.
Bart Simpson is a little Id-machine. He goes where he wants, does what
he wants, but he's basically well intentioned. He doesn't really wish
to hurt anyone, he's just looking for a good time. So, he makes up words
that sound fun to please himself. Such as crapulent. And, real-world
meaning be damned!
Thus, this week, we are going to use Bart's definition of crapulent,
which is: We don't care! Crapulence means whatever we happen to be writing
at the moment. It is whatever we wish to say. Nobody can judge it. Nobody
can say it is this or that thing, or it should be something else, because
it has no inherent meaning. Crapulence is whatever our consciousness
dredges up when we write. It's whatever we spew out onto the paper.
(And if you really, really can't let go of the fact that crapulence
has a real meaning, you can still make it work. Pretend you are too
drunk to care what you write, who sees it, what you say. What mysteries
are you revealing? You're too loaded to notice. Are you writing a story
that scares you? Well, maybe if you were sober it might bother you,
but you're toasted, so go for it. Overindulge yourself
in your writing to the point where you are crapulent!)
Also, have you noticed what the first four letters of "crapulent" are?
Subtle, huh? We are back to the importance of giving ourselves the permission
to write junk. Write any old thing that comes into your head. Perhaps
you think that will produce a lot of garbagey writing and that my cheese
has slipped off my cracker. But keep in mind that Lamott and Goldberg
say the same thing.
And try not to think too hard about it. Try not to shine your high beams
on your thoughts, but just stumble around drunkenly, crapulent. The
creative likes a little mystery, I think. When we're trying to muck
about in the subconscious, it's better not to know exactly what we're
trying to do, where we're going. It's better to have the lights a little
dim, to be a bit in the dark, and just see what bubbles up to the surface.
That's more romantic, don't you think? More, umm, shall we say, craptacular?
And do you know what Brenda Ueland commanded, way back in 1938? "Be
careless, reckless! Be a lion, be a pirate, when you write." It's still
good advice today. It's right there on the Inspirational Quotes
page. Ueland also encourages us to "keep a slovenly, headlong, impulsive,
honest diary."
What does this have to do with crapulence? With being free to write
garbage and shitty first drafts? The answer is in the previous sentence:
"free." Freedom. It's about being free to break the rules. To decide
that there aren't any rules. To make up our own rules. Who does that
better than Bart Simpson? Do you know someone who is "slovenly, headlong,
impulsive, and honest"? It sounds to me like the description of an eager
child -- a messy, impatient, spontaneous, excitable kid. Kids are good
at pretending to be lions and pirates. They love to break rules.
So, go for it. Be messy. Margins, syntax, readability -- it's all immaterial.
What matters is that you write it. After all, what does a reckless pirate
care what the New York Times book critic, or your English
teacher, or your father have to say? Does a careless lion pay attention
to punctuation, grammar, spelling? You cannot be slovenly, headlong,
and impulsive while also trying to be neat and conformist and perfect,
right?
Because, paradoxically, when you let go of needing to produce something
beautiful, a space becomes available for something beautiful to emerge.
Not every time. Not everything you write. But that's why it's called
practice. The more you write, the more chance that there will be a sentence
here, a paragraph there, that is truly what you want to say. That is
richly, deeply, starkly crapulent.
ASSIGNMENT: WEEK 1
First, write down these four blurbs. (If you are able to write them
by hand into your notebook, that is preferable because writing by hand
seems to plant ideas more firmly in the subconscious. Otherwise use
whatever method you normally use for writing.)
- Craptacular!
- I am free
to write the worst junk in the universe (or Massachusetts, North America,
the Cosmos, whatever).
- A shitty
first draft is a beautiful thing. (If you're not comfortable saying
"shitty" then you can write "crappy" or "lousy" or whatever.)
- I am careless
and reckless when I write! I am slovenly, headlong, and impulsive!
Then, put those
quotes next to your computer or your notebook where you will be doing
your writing, so you can see them out of the corner of your eye when
you write (ideally, for the next six weeks).
Do a ten-minute writing practice. For ten minutes, write nonstop. You
can use one of the three topics below.
- I remember. . .
- The first time. . .
- When I left. . .
Or make up one of your own.
Let your mind go where it takes you. If you go "off topic," that is
fine -- often it is excellent. The only thing that matters is that you
keep writing. Keep your hand moving. Don't stop to think or erase or
censor. This is practice. Let yourself be crapulent. Be a drunken pirate.
You must write for the whole ten minutes. If you want to keep writing
past ten minutes, that's fine. If you get stuck -- if your mind goes
blank -- just return to the opening phrase, "I remember. . . ." or "The
first time. . . ." You can just keep writing, "I remember, I remember,"
until the words come to you and then follow them where they lead.
Have fun! And please, if you feel boldly and recklessly inclined, post
your shitty draft to the group's listserv so that we can all be extremely
proud of you. And inspired.
Super Size It!
If you're already familiar with writing practice, already comfortably
crapulent, and you are chomping at the bit, then, by all means, do more.
You can do three ten-minute writings, one on each topic above. Or you
can do a twenty- or thirty-minute writing practice on one of those three
topics. Just remember that it is much, much better to set smaller
goals and achieve them than to set bigger goals and fail at them
. I will explain more about this later. For now you must trust me, because
I am a dog trainer and practitioner of meditation.
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