The Writing Wars

Rule #5: Write Yourself into It
If you aren’t sure what to write, just start writing. Eventually, you will “write yourself into something,” and the introductory, typically bad, material can be deleted.

I can’t remember the first time I heard it, only that I was opposed to the idea of creating something to destroy it, and I’d never experienced any of this “if you aren’t sure what to write” nonsense. And so, I balanced myself on that line, as I did with all rules. I never believed boundary pushing to be disobedient; after all, I had a right to disobey at will, and it was called youth.

It was during my years of study that I did not decide to use this rule; rather, I was forced to submit new poetry at every class. I recall the absurdity of that notion as well: manufactured poetry and all the pleasures of turning in what you knew was crap only to sit through an hour of everyone reaffirming your discontent.

The endeavor had me developing a poem for every class and taught me the purpose of this rule: it is not what you write about but that you are writing, and if you keep writing crap, at least you have something – something to turn in – something other than a blank page to work with. If you keep writing crap, you are at least providing the sculptor with a block of marble.

I don’t wonder so often anymore how much of life is preparation. “Always the student” my father used to say, and I thought, “Great! I love school.” Then I graduated three times over, and I was met with a rude awakening. School wasn’t my preparation at all, not even remotely. A piece of it, yes, perhaps the sculptor’s sketch of his creation: certainly a key part, but just the beginning.

This is when I discovered that I needed to build tools, lots and lots of tools, and materials: not just marble, but granite, limestone…If I wanted to write for the rest of my life, I had keep writing something, anything, crap. Every page I turned, I filled with words, blocks and blocks of words.

I kept getting journals to fill – ideas to trace – I was cultivating angles and drafting sketches. I have written myself into so many different pieces, different genres, different characters, and outcomes. I have written myself into the corner, barricaded by mounds of marble--

As a tutor and teacher, I would often see my students get stuck, as we all do, unsure of themselves, not quite confident in their phrasing and articulation of thought. They’d read lines aloud stumbling over the consonants and continuing on as if nothing had happened. I would stop them and say, “Well, what was that?” Immediately inflicted with the same knowledge, they would admit, “It doesn’t sound right.” So I’d flip the paper over – all white and clean that daunting image – blank paper. I would say “What is it you are trying to say?” They would give me the prefect expletive and I would tell them to write that.

This exercise wasn’t just a learning experience for writing and communicating; I was trying to teach them to say what they mean and to write what they say without editing. The editing comes later…something that has gotten me in trouble in my own life. And there it is, we are so stuck, we don’t pay attention to our stumbling. This rule of writing tells us it is okay to stumble, to write yourself into it without worries of how it will turn out. There is so much tension surrounding end results, goals, purpose, and truth when the matter exists in the production of the outcome. That is when you are likely at your best anyway, and in this simple notion (write now, revise later) we gain freedom, a green light to continue with what we want to pursue. The weight is taken away.

And in my endless desperate pursuit to fill every margin, abusing this privilege that promises a life without worry, I have become stuck. I know now that I have pushed this rule to the opposite edge. It is time to sweat out that heartache that every writer dreads (and some like me, put off) and dig through my crap.

Funny how all I can think of now is that I’ve known my husband twice as long as we’ve been a couple, and the notion reminds me that buried deep in all these journals, folded note papers, napkins, and pads of words and even all those phrases that lost their way in trash, recycling, and wash, there’s at least one poem waiting for me to chisel into it, waiting for me to apply the attention it deserves.

And I empathize with that timid student walking to class sure that what’s under her arm is crap, and so unsure of what it is she is really trying to say.


All Rights Reserved; Elizabeth Bohlander Wilson