Writing and Editing

Back in the day, when I first starting writing various stupid things to My Friend Jonny, I concluded that I was not a very good writer--but I was a good editor.

A really good writer can sit down and just bang out great stuff. Anthony Troloppe qualifies. He wrote 47 novels, all in longhand, much of it (if I remember my Troloppe) while on the train to his day job. He'd finish one novel and start the next one the next day. Isaac Asimov is the gold standard for writerly productivity. There's debate about how many books he wrote--even he lost track; the number is now considered well above 400, and may be greater than 500. Of course he had an advantage over Troloppe: the typewriter had been invented. No telling what Asimov would have done with a word processor. It might have been in the thousands. And if the Internet had been invented it might have gone up even further--or dropped to zero as he surfed his way to idiocy.

I don't have Troloppe's that talent, much less Asimov's. For one thing, I have trouble finishing what I start. For another I've found that most of what I write isn't very good; but almost everything has some good ideas in it. So I keep the good ideas, and rewrite the rest, and gradually something emerges that I'm happy with. "Writing is rewriting," someone has said. For me, "writing is editing." I know what's good and not good. I throw out the not-good, keep the good, and assign my writer-self to do a next draft. Then I repeat the process until my editor-self is satisfied. Over time, my writer-self has gotten better--or perhaps my editor-self has grown more tolerant. Or both.

In any case, the "Formula for Creativity" for me has been this:

1. Create a lot.
2. Throw away the crappy stuff. (There may be a lot of it)
   
3. Keep the good stuff. (There will always be at least some)
   
4. Create some more.
5. Stop when it's good enough.
   

The problem is that I haven't wanted it to be that way. Here's the process I want:

1. Create something perfect the first time.
2. Tell the editor to shut-the-fuck-up.
   
3. Stop, because perfect is more than good enough.
   

Since I haven't been able to get what I've wanted, I've responded in a very effective way: by going on strike. The process has been:

1. If you can't create something perfect the first time, don't create anything at all.
2. That way, all of what you create is perfect.
3. The editor has been shut up.
   
4. Whoopie doo.
   

Clearly this is not a good strategy. So it's about to change as follows:

1. Write this essay, without too much editing.
2. Read through it once and fix what is obviously wrong.
   
3. Move along. Move along.
   

So in less than 30 seconds, I'll hit the publish button and we're on the new process.

The Artist's Way

A few months ago, a friend of Bobbi's loaned her a copy of "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. I think I may have seen it before, but this time something about it struck me and I started writing my "Daily Pages." Daily Pages are a ritual that Cameron recommends: each day write, in longhand, three pages of whatever comes into your head. Don't read it. Just write it. So starting sometime in February, I started doing it. I've missed a day or two, no more, and some days I've written more than three, to catch up.

Cameron's got a whole program, not just the morning pages, but I did not have time to start before we left, so I just kept writing my pages.

When we got home I pulled out the book and started her Eight Week Recovery Program. I'm on Week One which is called "Recovering a Sense of Safety." The idea is to "protect the artist child within" using affirmative weapons." Part of this is just writing down positive thoughts about yourself, letting shit come out that denies the positive, and then being positive in spite of the crap.

So that's what I have been doing for the last few days. It's been interesting. The first day, just as soon as I wrote something positive, The Critic came roaring out to deny my affirmation. I talked back and fought it to a draw. The next day when I said something positie, there was something far weaker trying to contradict me. It was quite easily overcome.

We'll see how it goes.

People who succeed...

In a Rolling Stone article about Kris Kristofferson (written by Ethan Hawke) I found this quote attributed to Eugene O'Neil that I thought was worth passing on:

"The people who succeed and do not push on to a greater failure are the spiritual middle-classers."

Looking it up on the Internet to verify it, I found this for context:

"I love life. But I don't love life because it is pretty. Prettiness is only clothes-deep. I am a truer lover than that. I love it naked. There is beauty to me even in its ugliness. In fact, I deny the ugliness entirely, for its vices are often nobler than its virtues, and nearly always closer to a revelation ....To me, the tragic alone has that significant beauty which is truth. It is the meaning of life -- and the hope. The noblest is eternally the most tragic. The people who succeed and do not push on to a greater failure are the spiritual middle-classers. Their stopping at success is the proof of their compromising insignificance. How petty their dreams must have been!"-- Eugene O'Neill, from the biography by Barbara and Arthur Gelb 

I'm already hard at work on my next failures.

Brenda Euland and William Blake

I'm rereading Brenda Euland's wonderful book "If you want to write." Her book is not just about writing, but about all acts of creation.

Chapter 1 is titled: "Everyone is talented, original, and has something important to stay." She goes on to proove it and to give examples of people who reached their potential as creators. I'm reading her recounting of William Blake, and that sent me off on a research project to find out more (Damn that Internet! It makes it too easy).

Quotes from Euland about Blake: [Blake's] free and abundant use of his creative power made him one of the happiest men who ever lived. He wrote copious and endless poetry (without the slightest concern that it would ever be published)

Blake said that most of us mix up God and Satan. We see God as "mere prudence."

The only way we can grow and know if something is good or bad is to do it. "Sooner strangle an infant in a cradle than nurse unacted desires."

The Reason that "shrivels the ardor and freedom and the passionate enthusiasm that wells up in us" is Satan. It limits our creativity and denies God, for "nothing is pleasing to God except the creation of beautiful and exalted things."

"Writing, the creative effort, the use of imagination, should come first: at least some part of every day of your life. It is a wonderful blessing if you will use it."

"I want to ensure you with all earnestness that no writing is a waste of time--no creative work where the feelings, the imagination, the intelligence must work. With every sentence you write, you have learned something. It has done you good. It has stretched your understanding. I know that."

Euland helps inspire me to silence the Critic(s) of my writing--all of them internal. Why write WPFW? Who will read it? That's just become a non-question. I write it because "no writing is a waste of time." I will grow from the writing. Similarly, I draw inspiration from my other sources of advice.

Be the one who helps yourself

Every once in a while I feel I can almost do something, but feel like  I just need a little help. Then I get stuck, when there's no one there to help.

A variation on "Be your own best friend" is: be the one who helps yourself.

Really, our potential is limitless. It takes nothing at all to stretch yourself a little bit and be what you need.

Anyhow, it worked for me, just now.

The destination

I not only have to remember to jump through psychological hyperspace, I have to imagine my destination. Here’s my current destination.

I’m smiling. I’m energetic. I’m purposeful. That is: I have things that I want to do, I’m clear about what they are, and I’m doing them.

I have clear priorities I got a list of things that I’m going to do, and I do the one at the top of the list, knock it off, and go to the next one. If I hesitate, I consult my list, maybe reorder it, and strike out again.

I’m in motion. If I stop, I notice it, and start again, maybe in a new direction, maybe the same direction as before.

I visualize that destination, jump through pychological hyperspace, and I'm there, writing this post, and more important--posting it.

Psychological hyperspace

I’m in some mental state. It’s not the state that I want to be in. How do I get where I want to be?

The wrong answer, the old answer, was to try to find a way to get from here from there. Maybe ask “What’s keeping me from getting there?” Maybe ask: “What do I need to do to get there?”

The right answer, the new answer, is to just be there. It’s a jump through psychological hyperspace. Instead of moving from here to there, instead of becoming what I want to be, I just declare myself to be there. And there I am.

It works lots of the times that I have tried it. But sometimes it doesn’t. I end up someplace different than I started out, but generally closer.

The thing about hyperspace jumps is this: sometimes it take more than on jump to get where you want to go. So I take a second jump. Or a third. And get there.

I just have to remember to jump.