Wet Ink

If You Can't Write It, Don't (And Other Helpful Rules)

These are my feeling-rules for writing.  All they are is a set of simple opinions, which are pinned to my cork board.  Somehow, they help.  Now and then, I edit them -- add things, take things out.

1.  If it hurts you, try and write it.

2. If you can't write it, don't.

3.  A thing that's never hurt you probably won't make for a powerful piece (be that humour, satire, noir... whatever).

4. Working in metaphor, (e.g. writing about suffering using the point-of-view of a werewolf,) will sometimes help you access pain more deeply, and can therefore be braver than "writing-it-real."

5. If it's hard to write about a hurtful thing, go away and do something else.  Return to the work when you've gained distance, then re-read and re-assess.

6. Wit and irony are classic defense-mechanisms against depth-of-feeling.  They're beautiful in themselves, but aim to never rely on them entirely -- the work can come across as fraudulent otherwise.

7. If you're writing about something frightening, do it in a place that feels safe.

8. If you're writing about something safe, ask yourself why you're writing it.

9.  To write courageously, read courageously. 

10.  There will always be people who won't see the pain you put into a piece.  As long as you acknowledge your struggle, this is okay. 

So.  What are yours?

Breathless

I love the single-sentence story because it's so damn beautiful, the way it rolls across the page and creates a surge of rhythm; with those beats building, building, it's not hard to find pure feeling -- I suppose, if I'm frank, the form's sheer flow and undulating meter makes me express more boldly, plowing meaning, tapping mood, free-writing till I'm giddy -- most of all, I pen stories about sexuality, physical expression, yearning, touch, because this, in our culture, is so often repressed, and when we connect to it, finally and fully, it unfurls with a power that the single sentence suits -- in fact I've sometimes drafted in just one sentence simply to find the emotion in a story, before transforming it into a longer piece, which must -- in truth, needs -- shorter sentences... but honestly, stream of consciousness without full-stops (or periods in America) can forestall repression, plumb the unconscious, and let us speak more truly. 

Ooh.  Headrush.

To read a wonderful single-sentence story by Cami Park, click here.

Make the Fist-Fights Count

Several years ago, when I was juggling part-time teaching jobs, I found myself at a loose end over summer.  In need of cash, I agreed to help out at a nursery for kids.  I'd never worked with two-year-olds before, but took to it easily -- when you've sorted out fist-fights between raucous teens, you can pretty much bring the peace with folks of any age.  It was the cleaning up of vomit, the setting toddlers down to rest that really made me learn!  Often, I'd find myself asking, "Why am I doing this?  Why not take a simpler job?  Why not temp?"

Yet strangely enough, that job has given me loads of material.  I only did it for three months, yet I come back to it, in my writing, again and again.  An understanding of small kids has prompted many stories, and the cleaning jobs, in retrospect, were grim to the point of being intriguing. 

I have a rule, as an artist, and it's served me well.  Any time I get the urge to really take note of something -- no matter how banal -- I know I must do so.  It's following intuition, I guess, and it never fails me.  Often, months after I've learnt about cleaning out the penguin pen at the Boston Aquarium, or what it takes to tune a piano or check the lifts in our condo, I suddenly find a moment when these details become vital -- and it's usually when I'm writing a piece.

One of the many privileges of being a writer is they way each moment is packed with potential.  Everything we go through, everything we learn, can bring creative juice.  I love that.  What a great way to live a life?  Knowing it can all be made to count.

Postscript:  Case in point:  While I was working at that nursery, I was responsible for getting the kids to sit down for lunch, and, with thirty two- to three-year-olds, this was quite a challenge.  At one point, little J. was roaming around, staring through the windows, when he should have been seated.  "Hey J," I said.  "What you doing?"  He shot me a guilty look.  Then he puffed out his chest, like an adult might, and said, "Just checking the coat is clear."

Now how's that for a quirky little yarn? ;)

No Contest

"But I tell you this, Henry, not another book of mine comes out before yours does!  You and your work mean more to me than my life.  I want the world to know you, the value of you.  I swear it will.  Today I loved the selflessness with which you enjoyed my successes.  You are great, great, great, Henry.  I will never tire of saying it."

From A Literate Passion: Letters of Anais Nin and Henry Miller  1932 - 1953

I'm currently starting a new project with some good friends of mine -- a collaborative venture  -- and damn, it feels great.  Know why?  Because it flies in the face of divisive competition.  So many of us, as artists, get low, I believe, because we lose sight of the fact that we're in this together.  Taking something on as a team is competitive too, but it can also thrill and gel us.  And the successes of our friends (no matter what that might mean) can make us feel sublime.

Competition can be fantastic.  I enter contests all the time, and whenever I read an inspiring piece, it's a great incentive to start scribbling afresh.  Writing with friends can be competitive too -- can drive you all to achieve in a stronger way.  It's also good to understand the part you play as an individual.  (If ever, for example, I sell a book, I'll be spreading the word like wildfire!).  But there's a time for competition and a time for teamwork and it's important to discern which is which.  

I always come back to this:  we must try not to write for the kudos or the money.  (Not that there's a whole lot of it around for us writers!).  I admit, there are times when all I want is to be sold; but there's a hard, bright part of me that knows there's something deeper.  Story isn't about what you sell or print, which is why my friend Wayne and I began Art2Art; and believe me, every time I'm there listening to folks perform, I feel like I'm part of something wonderful.

This is about expression, craft, people, imagination.  Creativity and passion.  First and foremost, always that.

Not in Iron Shoes

"There are Cinderella's two stepsisters, who cut off their own toes, and Snow White's stepmother, who danced to death in red-hot iron slippers.  The Goose Girl's maid got rolled down a hill in a barrel studded with nails.  Travel is hard on the single woman.  There was this one woman who walked east of the sun and then west of the moon looking for her lover, who had left her because she spilled tallow on his nightshirt.  She wore out at least one pair of perfectly good iron shoes before she found him.  Take our word for it, he wasn't worth it.  What do you think happened when she forgot to put the fabric softener in the dryer?  Laundry is hard, travel is harder."

From Travels with the Snow Queen by Kelly Link (which you'll find in her gorgeously surreal collection, Stranger Things Happen)

Since the Middle Ages (and surely before) we've been obsessed with travel.  Back then, a knight would journey, both day and night, through barren land and savage forest, often for the sake of some beautiful woman's honour.  Even some of the earliest existing stories include the journey motif.  For the Anglo-Saxon poet who first coined The Wanderer, life itself was journey -- we traveled on the ocean of this transient life to get to the Divine.  And of course, we've now the road trip, the plane trip and the safari, though bizarrely enough, the themes haven't changed so much.  We still believe movement of the body can mirror, or even encourage, that of the mind.

One thing I love about using the journey motif in stories is that the very act of writing is a journey itself.  This is a most fitting metaphor for me because I tend to plan after I've written my first draft.  Zany?  A tadge, but I know I'm not the only one!  The story tumbles out, then I go back through and sew it carefully together.  This means, initially, the whole piece unfolds without a plan -- a bit like a treck through the wilds with no map.

Travel is hard, writing is harder.

And isn't that excerpt from Kelly Link's story fabulous?  To take fairy tales and retell the journeys within them, and all in this wonderfully casual tone that brings the humour...  Of course, the story itself is about a particular character's journey.  She must navigate her course in an extraordinary way.  But I mustn't say too much... 

Journey on.

Photos from Art2Art4

  

Art2Art is a free event run by myself, Wayne Strattman and Jerry Fireman.  If you'd like to read, perform or be a member of our wonderful audience (or indeed, exhibit your artwork), drop me an email.  And if you're excited by Wayne's sculptures in the photos above, visit his site to browse or buy.

Photos by Mark Hoffman, with thanks.

P.S I am fortunate enough to own two Strattman originals.  They are stunning.

Blog Down

I won't be blogging here for a couple of weeks, but hope you're all doing well.  See you soon.

Duffy Poem

Click here to read Carol Ann Duffy's first poem as British Laureate.  Now that's steel, baby.

Moving Forwards, Back-to-Front

Last night, at Brookline Booksmith, I had the honour of talking about and reading my work alongside Stace Budzko, Steve Almond and Rusty Barnes, with introductions by Tara Masih and Abigail Beckel of "Rose Metal Press".  To start out, I read Stace's wonderful exercise prompt aloud.  (Here it is, quoted from The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction):

"In order to fully understand and appreciate characters in conflict, sometimes we have to push REWIND.  Write a story that begins at the end of the action and moves backward.  What was the flashpoint that initiated the event?  What insights or observations did the characters initially have?  How might their lives have changed if they went in another direction?  One thousand words or less."

Filthy Little things was my response to this piece.  (It's actually published on editor Tara Masih's site, rather than in the Field Guide).  It would never have been written if not for the brilliant prompt above.

I thought it might be fun to share with you, here, what the backwards story awoke in me.  I admit, when Stace first offered me this particular challenge, I gave a large and fearful snort!  I know, from teaching students text-level literacy, one of the first things we learn is that a story works forwards (beginning - middle - end).  So engrained is this "formula" that we bring it to every piece - a template, if you will, to help us interpret.  Yet the truth of the matter is that, in life, we often work backwards.  We reflect, search for answers in the mirror of our pasts, saying "How did I get here?  Well, last Thursday, I did this... last year, I did that... but maybe all this started when I was five..."  Whether with friends, doctors or therapists, our stories must often be unravelled: solved from a root we must first locate.

It goes without saying that, in the backwards story, the linguistic signposts must be clear.  "Before", "After", or "Way before that..." are a few ways of guiding our readers to understand the temporal rules.  But what was more significant for me within this process was this question:  Which stories are best told backwards?  I sensed that, if I gleaned the answer, the signposting would come more easily.  In fact, that's exactly what happened.

In my own life, I've suffered from a phobia of moths that began in my early years.  I had to work backwards to solve the puzzle of this, and see finally that those moths were symbolic of a deeper fear.  It seemed so fitting to draw on this story in a fictional account -- why wouldn't I tell it backwards?  See, that's how I found my own answers.  And of course, the things that pain us (when it's time for us to share them) can make for the most powerful art.

After I'd found my story, I had to work out why it would be told.  The answer came quickly:  My narrator wanted to explain to a former lover why her behaviour may have seemed contradictory; and also reveal that her part in their relationship was based on something more complex than "kindness" and "cruelty".

The "backwards story" was the most powerful flash form I've ever worked with.  It was also the most challenging.  The depth of insight it gives both writer and reader is hugely worthwhile, I argue.  

Wait for it.  Here comes the plug...

The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction contains Stace's wonderful meta-fiction "Hanging Fire: A Meta-Narrative on Flash Fiction", along with a great example of the backwards story by Anna Geneva Renz.  Among the other treasures in this stellar book are Randall Brown's "Making Flash Count" and "You and the Piano Bench" by Pamela Painter, not to mention a stunning introduction on the history and cultural context of the short-short by editor Tara Masih.

Why Not Do It Here?

I find it hard to write on the train.  I can get ideas, can plan, can mull - but if I put pen to paper, it rarely works.  The balcony's tricky too, as is downstairs in the local library where everybody chatters.  And yet, on a trip to Chicago, I sat with my friend in the most crowded bar, and in spite of the noise and music, a story flowed out.

It's strange how certain places seem to open us to writing.  Perhaps it's to do with how relaxed we feel, or maybe how much we need the work.  When I first moved overseas to Boston and turned up in a small flat with no furniture at all, I perched at the worktop with the only stool we owned, and the words poured out because I needed them.  Here, in story, was a world I'd brought with me - one that was so familiar I could allow every problem it posed.  In fact, I've often felt, whatever happens in life, my creativity's a home I'll never quit.

On the other hand, it can be exciting to write against an environment.  I've written sex-scenes in snooty English tearooms, and have penned about paganism in Exeter Cathedral (where mermaids and green men watch from the bosses - the symbols adopted by Medieval Christians to bring pagans into the fold).  

But these are tiny rebellions.

When I think of writers who were bold enough to write against cultural restrictions (Salman Rushdie immediately springs to mind) it makes my small environmental challenges seem flip.

I'll write on the train tonight.

Yearning Thwarted

In a recent essay, Robert Olen Butler writes about creating the short-short story.  He says:

"Plot, in fact, is yearning challenged and thwarted.  A short short story, in its brevity, may not have a fully developed plot, but it must have the essence of a plot: yearning."

From Robert Olen Butler's essay A Short Short Theory, in Narrative

Such a beautiful essay.  It rings true for me.  In part, perhaps, because I think of story as a way of writing about life, and I can't think of a time in my life when I've not been yearning for things I can't have.  Know what I mean, right?  Life is so often "yearning challenged and thwarted."  This very fact reminds me of how gutsy we are.  We feel it, then we write it.  Yearning thwarted more than once?  And by choice?    

Damn, we rock.

Meta-Learning (Or 'How to Love Your Brain')

When I was teaching teenagers, particularly those who were struggling academically, I'd talk to them about meta-learning (in other words, understanding how your own brain operates and using this knowledge to help yourself improve).  The word "intelligence" is misleading, I'd suggest.  What matters more is knowing your own difficulties and understanding how to best support them.

In the classroom, I'd use myself a as model.  "When I'm stressed," I'd explain, "a linear task is difficult for me, but that's fine because I know where I tend to go wrong.  As long as I check myself afterwards, I'm sorted."  Later on, before we started reading, I'd tell them to support themselves.  "Follow the words with a pen-tip or a ruler or mouth along as we read."  I'd model the process myself, following my own text with the tip of a pencil.  Then, when I saw students doing the same, I'd praise their ability to help themselves.  (Our society often frowns on those who struggle with literacy.  Folks hide their difficulties because they feel ashamed.  It's important to break that cycle).

One winter term, there was a new Head at our school, and when I was sick she ended up covering my lesson.  Seeing the names on my class list, her heart sank -- I had twenty-five of the naughtiest kids in school.  But on entering the classroom she found them sitting in their seats reading their own books, following the words with pen-tips, rather than her usual experience with this group, which was a fist-fight or two at the least.  (It was a nice experience.  I got a promotion out of it.)

Knowing how we operate and being patient about this is the root of true learning.  We've a tendency to say, "I'm crap at that," rather than asking, "How can I help myself?"  My take?  No, you're not useless at spelling (or whatever it is you find hard) -- but you might need to take some time to find how best to tackle it.  Try different strategies.  Be patient.  Think it through.  Work with a dictionary?  Sound out words?

What's spouted about "intelligence" is often a load of guff.  Self-knowledge, wisdom, tolerance -- these are key.  

Meta-learning's groovy.  Check it out.

A Flashy Little Reading

I'll be reading along with Tara Masih, Stace Budzko (who read at the first Art2Art), Steve Almond  and Rusty Barnes (editor of Night Train), at Brookline Booksmith  on June 11th.  The event is promoting the wonderful Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, edited by Tara Masih.  We'll each be talking about different ways of approaching flash fiction.  Kick off is at 7pm.  Hope to see you there!

Also, if you'd like to read about what went down at Art2Art last Saturday, visit the Art2Art blog!

We're All Vulnerable Monsters

And in addition to the post below, here's a quick little plug (which is another plus-point of keeping a blog!):

"Vulnerable Monsters" Seminar on June 16th at Grub Street :

From fairy-tale wolves to modern-day vampires, monsters have often stood for the violent in us; but many authors stress another side: how vulnerable it can feel to be different.  Drawing inspiration from literary examples and classic types, you'll create a monster or human hybrid who exists in a world of people.  Through our writing, we'll challenge readers to ask deeper questions, such as, "What is it like to feel monstrous, and how do we cope when we do?"  This seminar will be a great way to build a new story or to better understand the character(s) in an existing story or novel.

To read my instructor bio, click here.

To find more details about location and cost, click here.

Blog is a Blog is a Blog

Thinking, "Woah, I've been blogging for ages," I tried to make this blog into a book.  It was an idle kind of project -- to see if it could be done.  What would go first? I asked myself.  How would the "essays" be grouped?  Did the pieces need extending?  Who was my target audience?  "To make your blog into a book," the experts say, "you need to have a massive following."  But I don't want a "massive following".  I just want you... else I'll stop confiding.  And why should a blog not be small?  A kid with big boots.

One of the most wonderful things about blogging is this:  The content truly belongs to both reader and writer.  No big publishers, no marketing -- just you and me.  It's direct.  And, for the most part, it's all about the work.

Last night, at Art2Art, a performer stood up and, before he shared his music, talked about what these evenings mean to him.  I won't name him because I suspect he wouldn't want me to -- it was an intimate moment between fifty people at the end of a relaxed night.  What he said, more or less, was that what we're doing isn't about fame.  The quality of the performances is increasingly impressive, but that's far from the bottom line.  Art2Art is about the work and the people.  The process, the sharing.  And, ya know... being passionate.

Just as story isn't about publishing, so a blog is not about money or fame.  What we do here is different to printing a one-time volume.  It shifts, grows, muses.  And it's here for the screen.  

So the identity crisis is over.  

This isn't a book.  It's a blog.