Word After Word

“First, there is the barrier between image and language,” writes Irving Yalom in Love’s Executioner. “Mind thinks in images but, to communicate with another, must transform image into thought and then thought into language. That march, from image to thought to language, is treacherous. Casualties occur: the rich, fleecy texture of image, its extraordinary plasticity and flexibility, its private nostalgic emotional hues—all are lost when image is crammed into language.”

“Great artists attempt to communicate image directly through suggestion, through metaphor, through linguistic feats intended to evoke some similar image in the reader. But ultimately they realize the inadequacy of their tools for the task.”

I love this passage, and I think a lot about that “march”—getting the image in my head, in all its fleecy fullness, onto the page. But I don’t think we “cram” the picture into words. I think we use words—they don’t even feel like words when I am writing—to press the image out, to roll it out. Words aren’t thoughts, when writers work at this image level. They’re strings, pulling away the curtains, revealing only what is there, what was there all along.

(The Unfinal Assignment is below….a few posts down….here’s Kay’s response): 

“The voices of doubt were very aggressive. Lots of, “what’s the point? It’s not Friday.” Lots of ragging on me for falling behind and being sick. Not nice, these demons of doubt. It took me a while to stay still. I noticed I got up a lot for strange reasons before I could get started. Like, it was imperative for me to find the phone charger so I could charge my phone while I worked. This was not at all imperative, of course. The distractoid demons were full force. The mean ones kept chiming in “you screwed up. this is whack. this is pointless. don’t bother.” So I charmed myself. I charmed myself into the space, a desk in the downstairs facing a window with a view of spring green trees and sunlight, by lighting some candles, laying out feathers, amethyst and rose quartz and turquoise bears, and aromatherapy. I dabbed lavender and patchouli on my temples, back of my neck, wrists and third eye. I made myself tea, gorgeous tea, soaked rose, jasmine, and orange tea leaves. That is how I got myself to settle.  I tapped into that pregnant energy. I got my blue index cards out. Delicious blue cards. I began with a method on the blue card “sons.” Sons were quick to conjure. Lots of sons floating around. And then came Bob. I wrote a big lettered slow method on my friend Bob. It was golden to be with Bob, because he died when we were nineteen. After the method, I began to write poetry for him. I kept seeing him with long strands of wooden beads around his neck. which I never knew him to wear in life, but they really suit him.  The blue cards were great launch pads for poems. I wrote about the lads I lived with on the mountain in Oregon last fall. They wore thick sweaters and smoked pipes by the pond. All in all, a delightful time.”
I have these moments when I am so hungry to write, as though I wrote nothing for the last month. It’s always only the beginning.
 

Really, Toss It

Once I was in a conversation with an extraordinary and famous chef. She said something during the course of the chat that has always stuck with me. “Never hesitate to throw out anything. Just throw the whole thing out. Toss it. Don’t get obligated to the thing.”

In writing, I see my students and myself laboring over ugly, nasty, spoiled, or just plain dull concoctions. Really, we need to toss out more. We need to just move on.

Notice the famous chef didn’t say “Start over.” She didn’t say “Try it again!” She didn’t say “Always carefully read the directions and follow them to the letter!” She said only one thing: Toss it. Don’t get obligated to a failed dish.

In other words, when something doesn’t come out right, You haven’t messed up. You haven’t failed. You haven’t brought upon yourself an opportunity to self lacerate, self macerate. You don’t need a class, or easier recipes. You just need to toss it with complete and total joy and freedom. (We are afraid to do this. Afraid of waste, afraid of chaos, afraid of an empty plate, nothingness.)

But that’s what the famous chef is talking about it: freedom. If you aren’t able to move very quickly and sturdily past mistakes, you won’t enjoy cooking/writing enough to keep doing it frequently enough to see improvement, to keep the joy boiling. The freedom to fling the muffs out—out of your writing room, out of your vision, out of your life, your memory—that’s what is needed. Don’t file the duds. Don’t belabor or revise weak work, work that bores you, work that is heavy, forced, dull, tasteless. Burn it, fling it, throw it away. Don’t start over.

Go play: make a tasty snack.

The bad writing? Blow it off. Blow it all off. With a giant loopy grin on your face, fearlessly, hurl those fallen cakes, those sodden biscuits, that terrible swamp off rice. Away with it. Wanton waste. Get it away from you.

How did you get yourself to the desk?
I walked over to the Albion College atrium which is this room with
massive window walls, stage lights, a wooden staircase, pterodactyl
skeletons, and a wave simulatior
How did you keep yourself there?

I sat down, pulled up one of the tables and wrote, then spiraled then
wrote some more
What did you battle?

Demons, all sorts when I ripped the band aid off, self doubts, self
worries, thoughts of deserving the blame
How did you succeed?

Went slow, kept writing, addressed each demon in a way in the writing,
then wrote another game seen where the hero triumphed over the
villian, then spiraled, then wrote a story of all of us on the
Endeavor, plowing head first through a storm

“What writers want is time to write!” a brochure advertising a summer writing retreat exhorts.

No no no no no no no.

They do want time to write but it’s not what is needed.  What is needed is something to bound the work, a Square or other Shape. (For many writers, the workshop itself would be that shape, but it isn’t about time, it’s about space. Big difference.)

Most professors I know (but not all, such as the amazing gifted ND, but certainly me) greet a giant uninterrupted block of time with a strong vision for kitchen renovation and a new proclivity for napping, blogging, Wagner, etc.

I can work today because I have in front of me fifteen pages, printed out, which I dragged along in my purse yesterday on all the errands—the chicken store, the camera store, the garden shop (there is a monkey there, Mingo)—just in case there was downtime, like the car died or we were stuck behind a train for a couple of hours, and I had time to work. I kept the file open. Literally. I have the pages here on the desk, and I know what I am supposed to do today and how to do it, more or less.

Sarah asked me so how long do you have to work to get a star? It doesn’t matter how long I work, only that I do my best, bring my best concentration to the book that day. It might be ten minutes or it might be thirteen hours. Time doesn’t matter. Shape matters.

It doesn’t usually work to say “I will work for four hours a day this summer.” What works is to say “Tomorrow, I will work out the sequence of beats in the Schulers bookstore scene. Then, I need to sort my cards again for the scenes in Part Two. If I have time (which means energy for more concentrating), I can start the next scene.  There’s also all the little notes I took over the last 48 hours—in the tub, in the car, in the middle of the night—and I can feather in those little bits.” In my books, I call this “Wake Up Working.”

Rarely do I feel I am working hard enough. When I hear N and

Who?

A master of “rigorous noticing.”

“It you don’t consent to understand a little, on its own terms, what you dislike, your love loses muscle tone.”

Schjeldahl is one of my favorite writers and I’m loving his new book immensely, Let’s See, the collection of his writing on art for the New Yorker.

Some of my students complain about having to write about other people’s work (published authors and peer authors). It’s always, always, always the case that the best writers in the class are the students who work hard on reading—noticing—and articulating what it is they think about the work.

There is never an exception. The noticers have the cerebral six packs

I’m teaching the May Term–best class ever. I’m using my textbook The Practice of Creative Writing and we are all working hard, so hard, writing much every day. The class meets for three hours a day, every day.

Yesterday, we were going to run over. We weren’t done but we had to be done; I pride myself on perfect landings–I’m saying my last sentence of the teaching day at exactly 3:59:30, every day.

“We can go over,” Charlie said. “We want to.”

I said No. We can’t! We have been here three hours.

“No we really want to stay.” I’m sure not everyone in the room felt this way, but enough of us did. Making this the high point of my life as a teacher. (This glorious event–staying after on purpose–was followed by gorgeous gifts and a heartfelt amazing tear-creating thank you letter from my stunning student of four years, Miss E, and hours of good craic, well, Wednesday sure was a good day.)

Here’s a funny thing, too, which relates to Ignoring/Distrusting Praise-Believing Criticism, which I wrote about earlier this month.  I read the email from the director about the Balcones Prize (”It goes to a book, not a person,” he said) I immediately forgot about it.

I went on to other things. Later in the day, I scanned over my inbox and there it was. How could I have forgotten this, not called him? How can I chew over the possibly minor Wrong Thing I said this morning and not remember this?

We’re insane.

I just want to be writing. All day. I want all day to write.

But I am teaching a class–we meet every day for three hours. Here’s the thing. This is the Best Class Ever. Amazing class. Usually, it takes five sessions for our in class work to kick in. This group? First time. They go so deep — so fast–their work is blowing me away. They are not afraid to go slow. This group has been around the block. They know fast. They appreciate slow. They seem, unlike any other class I’ve had, respectful of fear, not freaked out by it.

So, I’m happy I am teaching. Much happier than I thought it would be and it’s hard, harder than I thought it would be. I get up very early and get the writing done and wish I had four more hours to write.  I do not have time for free cell, email, my super long poetry bath, dog walking, very much yoga, or laundry, etc. I just have to get in there and get started. This is very refreshing. No time to be blocked.

If I didn’t have to be out of the studio at noon to go and to go see these Focused Darlings, my May students would I be working so concentratedly? I don’t think so! I think I would probably be less focused. Spongy. I am not sure. I wonder.

So, it’s ten hour days, intense focus. (The teaching is so much like writing, so much.) But it’s lucky work, great work, comfortable good work, work that means a lot to me. Both sides of it, the revising and the teaching.

I’m happy I have six great writers in my studio half the day. And I am exhausted and it’s only Day Two.

Now, I’m going to Pizza Hut to get Jacob some breadsticks. He’s exhausted too. He has three more days of high school. He says it went way too fast, so weirdly fast. He says he wishes he would have enjoyed his vacations more because he sees the road ahead–no long breaks. What would you have done on your vacations? I said. He wasn’t sure.

But something. He would have gotten more out of them. Of that he is certain.

“One should not pray or meditate with any thought of gain. Hold no expectations. Then the rewards will come. Praying for results brings no results. The true spirit appears only when there are no expectations to hamper it.”  Deng Ming-dao

This passage fits perfectly what I want to teach my students this term–today’s the first day of May term, creative writing class. I want to remember this lesson for my daily writing, too. Teaching and books prepare us for what we will experience when we write. But teaching is always a descriptions of what we will encounter. Not something we don’t know must know.

I love this paradox. It is in meditation and love and writing practice. “Sit down with no thought of results and you will go naturally and spontaneously” to good work, the right state of mind. We know what to expect, but we must not expect it!

I had a Cinco de Mayo party on my porch on Friday night, with tamales and tulips and good friends. And some new friends. One of whom, Andre, told me, inside when we ran into each other in the kitchen, he wants so much to start his graphic novel. “I have to get my courage up and just do it,” he said.

To which I said, quickly, without thinking, “Andre. You will not get the courage. You have to start it without the courage.” Bossy Heather. Hostess with platitudes! But I was in my pretty new flowered skirt which grazes the floor (a star chart prize, it’s true!), and my turquoise jewelry and I felt like the Fairy God Mother and Luke Skywalker combined.

And I keep thinking about what Andre — a superbly talented super genius–said. And what I said. And it’s true. You have to start (I know, this sounds like my least favorite platitude, feel the fear and do it anyway) your book (project, whatever it is.) You can’t wait to feel differently. That’s a different book. To write this one, you start now. Tonight.

And you do it every day.

 You don’t get the courage. You live with mind-numbing soul-killing self doubt and it crushes you. But you have that anyway! You write underneath all this, on the sly, trying not to think about it, never talking about it. Just do it! (That’s supposed to be funny.)