I never—in
a million years—thought I´d use this metaphor, but “writing is like sex.” You have to be ready for it, turned on by it,
have all of the right equipment for it, even if you want to do it, it doesn't
mean you are able to perform during it, and when the act is over, you have the realization
that it was either good or bad.
Just the
other day I was speaking with a classmate (Patricia) in the creative non-fiction
class about our writing and how we can never tell when the inspiration will hit
us with the topic to use in our next essay.
What should I write about? How should I present the topic? Is the subject worthy of reading? Why does it matter to me that the subject has
some meaning to the reader? Am I just
writing it for myself, just to put my thoughts on paper? Most times these are the questions I ask
myself during my writing process. Of
course, there are other questions that pop up, but these are the typical ones.
Sometimes I
think I was born to be a writer, but now think that maybe I’m just a good story
teller through the written word. My
earliest recollection of actually writing a story is when I was in the fourth grade,
and I think I still have the story—and the pictures I drew to go along with the
story—buried in a box in my crawl space.
It was about the animals which came over on the Mayflower and how the
turkey was afraid of the dark in the ship’s hold. How did I come up with that idea? Only God knows at this point, but all I can
think is that it must have been Thanksgiving time at Navesink School. I was hooked on writing from that point
on. I wrote more stories and poems and
played word games—like Scrabble (and I still do, both with the board game and
online)—and I even wrote a short play once, kind of like Dudley Do-Right of the
Canadian Mountie fame, but mine was called Peter Peppernickel, and he was a
sailor—sailing around the world doing good.
Nowadays my
inspiration comes in fleeting moments, like the “writing is like sex” metaphor,
which hit me just this morning as I was crossing Green Lane on foot, with the
wind blowing in my face and the pelting snow causing droplets to form on my
glasses. How did that inspiration
happen? I wasn't thinking about sex, but
I was thinking about writing this craft essay about my writing process. Well, whatever it was, this is how I look at
my process:
The topic
is usually the toughest thing to decide upon, so I search my brain for
something that is fun, exciting, or has a deep hurt within me. I don’t usually like to write about the
hurtful memories, but sometimes it seems to help as a form of release of
emotions—like my” Painted Moons” piece.
I cried while I wrote it, and even now I can feel the tears welling in
my eyes just thinking about the whole story.
Those kinds of hurts may never go away, but writing about it also brings
out emotions in the reader of stories like it. Do I write to please
others? Do I write to bring out emotions
in my readers? I think the answer is a
little bit of both, especially if it’s meant for to be graded—I hope it’s good
writing.
As a
non-traditional student with lots and lots of experiences, there is always a
plethora of subject matter to use. The
fun memories are usually the ones that stand out in my mind, so I like to write
about fun or funny things that have happened in my life—like all of the road
trips with friends. I was relating a funny
story to Patricia during our talk about subjects. The event I was telling her about was
something that only lasted during a 20 minute period of time—one brief
encounter—but the memory is so vivid and funny, that I’ve related it to many
people over the years. I can’t tell it
without cracking up and have yet to put it on paper, but only time will tell before
I do.
The
brainstorming activities in class and on the class blog are good to do, but it’s
not something I’ve done in the past. I just like to search my memory. My friends have always told me that I have
the best memory. It can be a curse and a
blessing at the same time. Why do I have
all of this useless knowledge in my head?
Why? What purpose will it serve
to know, for example, that the dot on a lower case I or J is called a “tittle”? Once I stumped an English teacher with that
information in the form of a question.
She had to look it up. OK, so I’m
cursed or blessed with a memory like no other.
Do I have to bore you with the gory details? Do you even like to hear my “war stories” as
my divine truth? Maybe I embellish the
stories a bit. Who doesn't? OK, maybe Mother Theresa didn't, but she was
one of a kind, too, and no longer among the living. Maybe I’m the only one left! Maybe I’m meant to share my stories with
others through my writing.
The hardest
part of writing creatively for a class like creative non-fiction is that when
it is required to write a draft, I have a really hard time doing that. I tend to just write and polish the writing at
the same time. If I had to write a draft
and save it to a flash drive every time I made a change, I’d fill up a 1 Terra
Bite flash drive in a flash. My first
attempt at a draft left the reader with a cliffhanger—my “What Did I Do to Get
Unfriended on Facebook” piece. The
assignment was to draft about 7 pages out of 10 to post on the class blog. I was already at about 8 pages, but the story
wasn’t finished. So, I posted what I’d
done up to that point, only to get flaming comments about the missing end of
the story. Fail! Big fail, right? So, my next attempt at writing a draft—“Putting
all of my eggs in one basket” piece—left the reader wondering what this
collection of stories meant. Well, to
put it bluntly, it meant fun memories for me, and to heck with the reader, I
guess. It’s not part of my process. How do I make it a part of my process? Maybe
I’m just not meant to write drafts, or stories that mean something specific to
the reader. Can’t a reader just read my
story and say, “I enjoyed reading that story,” without analyzing it like a
literary critic? Maybe I just write
because I can and have some funny stories to tell. Maybe I should write a book of funny stories,
like Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader by the Bathroom Readers’ Institute. Mine
might be called Mountains of Memories, M&Ms for short, or something else fun.
One day I
would hope to write a book. I can’t tell
you how many people I've met who all say they’d like to write a book, but there
have been plenty. I think everyone has a
story to tell. I have lots! I hope to be doing a creative non-fiction
journalistic piece for my thesis in the spring.
The story has been brewing in me for quite some time now, but I have to
do more research and get all of my ducks in a row to get it done—the one about the
house I grew up in and how it was “stolen” and knocked down by a lawyer who was
renting it with the option to buy. I've
got to add a personal angle to the story, and I’m thinking that it will be how
hard it is for me to watch all of that happen and have no control over it, since I
still live in the same town and pass by the house about once a week. Who knows? Maybe this thesis will be published as a book. I know I've got it in me to write it. I think I'm ready for it, I'm turned on by the thought of it, I have all the right equipment at the ready, I want it, and I hope that I'm able to perform the right words. When it's all done, I hope that a publisher has the realization to know that it's good enough to be printed.
