On writing ‘07, pt.I
I don’t usually do how-to manuals but some of them get really interesting at least to provide me with some new insight when the dinosaur of my creativity is stuck knee-deep in tar waiting for Darwinism to check in.
Case in point, I was thinking back of this writing how-to book I read a few years ago. I think it’s called Writing Without Teachers and despite being more oriented for a group setting instead of a single person-enterprise it offers the reader some good advice, fresh ideas and downright practical tryouts, etc. But this is not a plug nor product placement.
Point is, I think it’s this book that mentions a very important point about writing which is pretty much, Just do it. It stresses out that it’s not about quality when you’re learning, but more like pure quantity. Because let’s face it, I am not getting any Shakespeare out of a daily blog, alright?
Since what I’m doing here is sheer training and not the final product per se- regardless of whatever this “final product” might be- this is no more than practice.
I mean, sure there’s the whole personal aspect to it regarding the content and the works but I’m looking at this at a purely technical POV today.
The output then must outweigh any sort of self-criticism to the very point we’re trying to develop a habit here: Even though I’ve come to a point where I’m pretty comfortable filling up a page of text at any time I still find it a little difficult to break it past this limitation. There are days, of course, when I can punch through say five or six full pages or more without stopping to catching my (creative) breath but all in all I’d say my limit’s still a page or two on a regular morning and it simply doesn’t cut it.
I’ve been thinking also of every amateur writer’s answer to Ben Kenobi, Mr. Jack Kerouac. Now Jack, good ol’Jack, would preach day and night about his “spontaneous prose” method and he’d say, you don’t really have to edit your texts, just write for writing’s sake and mend things as you go. Let the text flow out of you, avoid the excessive use of commas and stuff.
Thinking of it Jack really was a genius by suggesting the use of dashes in lieu of commas- you gotta keep some rhythm to whatever it is you’re writing else it stops cold and you lose the motivation and the point. As Keroauc once put it himself, “The gig is shot”.
And what do you know, I’ve just broken page one again ya babes…
Case in point, I was thinking back of this writing how-to book I read a few years ago. I think it’s called Writing Without Teachers and despite being more oriented for a group setting instead of a single person-enterprise it offers the reader some good advice, fresh ideas and downright practical tryouts, etc. But this is not a plug nor product placement.
Point is, I think it’s this book that mentions a very important point about writing which is pretty much, Just do it. It stresses out that it’s not about quality when you’re learning, but more like pure quantity. Because let’s face it, I am not getting any Shakespeare out of a daily blog, alright?
Since what I’m doing here is sheer training and not the final product per se- regardless of whatever this “final product” might be- this is no more than practice.
I mean, sure there’s the whole personal aspect to it regarding the content and the works but I’m looking at this at a purely technical POV today.
The output then must outweigh any sort of self-criticism to the very point we’re trying to develop a habit here: Even though I’ve come to a point where I’m pretty comfortable filling up a page of text at any time I still find it a little difficult to break it past this limitation. There are days, of course, when I can punch through say five or six full pages or more without stopping to catching my (creative) breath but all in all I’d say my limit’s still a page or two on a regular morning and it simply doesn’t cut it.
I’ve been thinking also of every amateur writer’s answer to Ben Kenobi, Mr. Jack Kerouac. Now Jack, good ol’Jack, would preach day and night about his “spontaneous prose” method and he’d say, you don’t really have to edit your texts, just write for writing’s sake and mend things as you go. Let the text flow out of you, avoid the excessive use of commas and stuff.
Thinking of it Jack really was a genius by suggesting the use of dashes in lieu of commas- you gotta keep some rhythm to whatever it is you’re writing else it stops cold and you lose the motivation and the point. As Keroauc once put it himself, “The gig is shot”.
And what do you know, I’ve just broken page one again ya babes…
posted by 186282mps at 8:29 AM
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