two sides of wrting

winter aspens

summer canopy

 

There are two basic phases of writing. And they are both essential. The creative phase and the critical phase.  A writer alternates between the two. Both phases are necessary, and they are also mutually exclusive.

The creative phase is about getting words down on a page or into a computer. It may be the first draft of a work, or a re-working of a section after a critical look, or just jotting down notes. The thing about the creative effort is, it's shy. It's sensitive. It doesn't take well to criticism. And it is easily scared away. So if you want it to come out from the shadows and do its dance, you have to create the right atmosphere.

There are ways to create space for creativity to flow. Firstly never mix critiquing with writing. If you write a sentence or a paragraph and immediately critique it you’ll scare away your creativity and writing will become a torturous struggle. Do creative writing when you are doing creative writing and do critiquing when you are doing critiquing. Next whenever you have an idea write it down. It could be for a new piece, or a bit of dialogue for a current project, or insight into a character… Whatever it is write it down. Now. Don’t judge it! Just record it. If you get an idea in the middle of the night get up and write it down. If you are driving in your car, pull over and write it down. Einstein found answers to physics problems in his dreams. I know, he is a scientist, not a writer, but science and art are less different than we imagine they are. Remember Einstein said imagination is the most important thing. When you follow this practice, you are letting your creativity know that you value and welcome it.

If you do this, you will find more ideas coming at you and your creativity will flow.

When you are looking at your work with a critical eye, don’t mix creativity with it. Don’t immediately switch to re-writing. The critical eye is shy in its own way. Just note the parts that you think need improvement and keep going. When you critique your work, don’t judge it! I know that sounds contrarian but it isn’t. Don’t say to yourself this writing is terrible, lousy, cringe worthy. I’m never going to be good at it. That kind of self-talk isn’t helpful. It fact it will set you back.

Never take your own critique, or anyone else’s personally. Just look at the piece and notice what doesn’t work and needs improvement. I find the concept of a piece working or not working better than the ideas of good and bad.  And stop worrying about how good or bad a writer you are.  Judging your own writing ability is unnecessary. Just focus on the piece and if it needs improvement or not. If you do this your critiquing will be easier, more fun (yes, it can be fun), more productive and it will help your creativity also.

Common advice to writers is, put your work away for a while before looking at it critically. You need some distance to see it in a new light. And you do.  And you do before every re-critique. The thing about critiquing is if you look at the same paragraph continually, over and over again, you will become bewildered and confused. You need that fresh point of view. When looking at your work go straight through it noting your first impressions and marking what needs improvement. Don’t ponder and second guess your impressions. If it is a long piece, you may have to split it up into several sittings to look it all over. For each sitting don’t go back and re-critique what you just did, move on to the next section.

The thing about both these phases is that they need time for the work settle. You might think I am going to write a first draft in this or that amount of time and charge right through it no matter what. Not a good idea. The thing about writing is, it’s mentally exhausting and is most fun and most productive done in spurts with time away from it. Your brain needs time to assimilate your work and process it in ways that at present we really know nothing about.

Many writers work on more than one project at a time. In this way one project has time to settle while the writer works on another.

Another funny thing about critiquing is it’s never really done. If you do it without being personally judgmental, just focusing on the piece, you will find things you want to change every time you look at your work. There is a story about Picasso: he used to see his work hanging on someone’s wall and want to go over to it with a brush and paint and change things. You know your critiquing is on the right track when finding things to change is not depressing it’s exciting.

There is an idea that in writing there is the perfect word, the perfect sentence, the perfect paragraph, etc. And that great writers are the ones who can produce these perfect creations where no other combination of words will be as stellar. I don’t think so. There are infinite ways to write any piece of equally wonderful text. And there are infinite numbers of opinions on every piece of text and they are all valid. So as a writer just write what pleases you. And when is it perfect? Never. And when do you stop changing it? Whenever.

Now that I have laid out one process for writing I will tell you something. Everyone needs to invent their own personal process for writing and only you can discover what your process is.

This is what I tell myself: use less words. 

Writing is not talking

 

Grammar as a force of nature

Long ago and in another galaxy when I was a child at grade school I was terrible at writing.  Actually I was abysmal. My writing was incomprehensible. I was particularly bad at grammar and spelling.  One teacher wrote on my test paper that my spelling was very original. It was. My content was good, but it was hard to get at through all the gnarly grammar and spelling.  I did not care.

Some teachers liked me and wanted to help me – god bless ‘em. They got me books on grammar that had easy lessons and workbooks with exercises. I read the books and did the workbook exercises and finished them all correctly. But it had no effect on my writing. And I still didn’t care. Time passed and soon the day to go to college was not so far off. And that meant it was time to take tests which colleges would use to judge me on my acceptability. Now I was very good at math, science and history. I excelled at what we now call STEM. But as you already know I was hideous at what we then called English. It dawned on me that if I wanted to get into my college of choice and perhaps get a scholarship I needed to up my scores on the English tests.

Being a scientific/engineering kind of person, I approached the problem with an engineering frame of mind. I looked at my spelling and realized that many words I knew how to spell while many others I did not. The solution was simple; when writing an essay or any text on an exam never use a word when you are not totally certain of the spelling. There is always some other word that has the equivalent meaning which you can spell. This was my first encounter with the important life lesson: there is always another way.

I have worked for many years as a software engineer and what I discovered is that there are always bugs, issues, problems with the code you create. You never get it right the first time. No one does. Most of those bugs are relatively easy to fix in the sense that you know what is wrong and it’s not too hard to figure out how to fix it. But there are always a small percentage of bugs where you can’t figure out what is going wrong or you can’t figure out how to fix it. The hard bugs. The thing is if you think about it and play with it long enough you will either figure it out or figure out another way. There is always another way to get it to work. It may not be the best way, the most elegant way, the most direct way, the most satisfying way, but there is always a way. And in life as in software development there is always another way. Sometimes you just have to put in the work and the time to find it.

Back to writing things other than code. After figuring out the spelling fix I took a look at my essays. I discovered they were like a transcription of a conversation in my head between me and me. I was writing as if I was talking to someone. And talking is not writing or at least not good writing. What you might say to another person in conversation when put down on a page is often fairly incomprehensible when reading it. Suddenly I realized why you needed grammar and punctuation and organization. I got a book on grammar, the most simple and direct one I could find. Then I looked at my writing and made up a rule list of things I should and should not do. Most of it could be expressed as just refraining from incessantly blathering on as I had been doing. The next big English test I took I received the second highest mark in my grade. My grade consisted of one thousand two hundred students. It was a very large school. Some teachers found it hard to believe I did not cheat, but you can’t really cheat on an essay test. To take a phrase from tennis: I made no unforced errors. An unforced error is a mistake that is your own fault rather than due to the greater skill of your opponent. No bad grammar that could take points off my score.

Advice to writers usually includes instructions to read your work out loud. To get some objectivity on what you write. To encounter it as a reader does so you can see where it’s incomprehensible or glaringly rough. It is also good to know the rules of grammar and check your sentences to see if they comply. Of course some good and great writing is ungrammatical, but that’s another story.

I enjoyed blathering on in my writing and using words I couldn’t spell. But it wasn’t helping me get to my goal of a better mark on my tests. We all have three choices: what you want to do, what you like to do, and what is more helpful to do. Sure you might want to eat a whole chocolate fudge cake but eating a small slice might be a better idea or eating an apple even better. But that’s another story.

my definition of poetry

 

 

Sky Poetry

I have my own definition of poetry.  It may not be everyone’s definition. It may not be anyone else’s definition but it is my definition.

Words are poetry when they evoke what cannot be expressed in words.

Poetry should be an evocation, spell, or incantation. There should be something magical about it. If it is too intellectual or logical it is not poetry.  There should be something that is downright illogical about it. Its appeal should be right brain not left brain. It should fill you up with a feeling that you can’t categorize. It should take you beyond the statistics of your life. It should make you feel timeless and invincible. It should make you feel capable of magic. Like a trip to another planet or being overpowered by an ocean wave it is dangerous. It reminds you that you are alive. It wakes you up from the slumber of civilization. It makes you a child again.