Vintage: How to Write (Oct 2010)

First write everything that comes to your mind and keep writing, keep writing, keep that pen on the page, don't think, don't critique...did you see 8 mile?  (it was so-so)  The pieces of paper Eminem scribbled on weren't in lines, weren't in rows, just words and ideas scattered on a page and he didn't limit himself.  He wrote on the bus, at work, whenever he got a line he wrote it down.  Don't limit yourself.  Write crap.  Lots of crap.  Don't worry about grammar, don't worry about whether or not it makes sense until after you finished the danged poem/story/whatever.  Blossom.  Freely associate whatever is coming into your mind.  Run in circles.  Write the same crap you wrote yesterday, write it different today.

Heart:  Record man in  "Walk the Line" says something like 'You're dying in a gutter and you got five minutes to live.  What song you playing?"  Write that song.  Play those songs.  Write with purpose.

Be you.

Push/play:  Garden State:  "Do something that's never been done before."  Combine words.  Combine ideas.  Wreck grammar and genre.  Read ee cummings:  you can do a-maze-ing things with w(lovely)o(shocking)rds.

Invoke/Evoke (Universality?): Quote an epic poem from your universe (Tolkien), drop place names in a song (cheater):  it makes things seem real.   For example, "Empire State of Mind" is mediocre poetry, and okay music, but it evokes a place (NYC) and the dreams of millions of people in a powerful way.  In the real world, there are millions of things going on that we don't see but get hints of all the time.  Passersby.  History.  Relationships.  These unimportant things make literature seem real.

Now make them important.  Is this worth writing?  Worth reading?

Imagery/Specificity: Take your pick:
1)James mournfully chomps apple pie amongst the vines under gold Olive Garden lights OR. 2)He was eating at a restaurant.
A poem needs a place...it can meander through place, it can be a stream of images, but the reader needs a pillow, a place to rest, an image, a room.  Evoke taste/touch/sound/smell/sight.

Humanity:  humans care about humans.  Most love songs are terrible poetry but people think "hey that's like me and so-and-so."  Or "I wish that could be me."

Trim.  Say only what you want to say.  Orwell:  Test every word.  Spare none.  Cut all words without meaning.  Prune and cull.

Layer.  Limit yourself to three lines.  Say as much as you can.  Have a series of lines be a tiger, clouds, and a subway train all at once.  Learn to layer.

Edit.  Take those two pieces of crap yesterday, combine them with Thursday's crap, grab it by the tail and flip it on its head.  Repeat.  Then add more layers, trim some more.  Trace the progression.  Where did you start?  Where did you end?  Are the words taking you there?   Does style match content?  Does it flow?  Every great poem I've written has been through at least ten edits.

Read it.  Out loud.  If you don't believe in it in your bedroom, how do you expect others to read it?  Now, for those of you who are perfectionists...read it to an honest friend, someone who will tell you if it's terrible.  Never throw anything away.  Instead, edit.

Get an outside opinion:  Because nobody else lives in your head.  Workshop.  Get critiques.

Share:  Blog, read, share, read, submit, read, self-publish, read, get published.

Oh, and don't listen to me:  be you.  :p