For My Writer Friends

I have several friends who are doing some writing, or thinking about doing some writing… you know, documenting their lives, their work and their adventures for their loved ones, their children, maybe even grandchildren. I’m hoping that one of these quotes will help them on their way, as it’s not easy for them to sit down, embrace the solitude of their own thoughts, and put them down in a way that is satisfactory to them.

Most of them are busy people, often too busy to carve out an hour or two each day to share their thoughts and memories for us. Even though three of them are retired, still they have to deal with the necessities of daily living, and it’s surprising how busy those retired guys can be!

Most of them aren’t interested in writing the next great American novel, but rather simply documenting their lives, their times and their adventures for family and friends. It’s an honorable endeavor, and in each of their cases, an endeavor well worth pursuing, as they each have had interesting and colorful lives. “There is absolutely no reason in the world why a man in America may not write exactly what he feels, in any form that suits him, and if he has what is known as talent, or even genius, there is no reason why it should not be published and be read and understood by many other Americans. It doesn’t have to be a “novel,” or a “memoir,” or a “diary,” or a “travel book,” or an “essay.” It can be just plainly and simply a book. The writing does not have to be “good writing,” that is, artistically labored writing with significant absences of statement of feeling. It can be ordinary writing and full of feeling.” ― Jack Kerouac, Self-Portrait: Collected Unpublished Writings

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Yeah, Jack! Extremely well put! My feelings exactly. It is a reward, it is cathartic. It can be easy, it can be challenging, it is always a good exercise for us, for it’s a fine and lasting form of communication, and whether we’re social butterflies or recluses, nearly all of us want to communicate something, to someone.

I’m not suggesting to my pals that writing is easy, but if they can write a letter, an email, keep a journal… anything like that, then they can write. Being happy with what one writes is another matter entirely. Most of us are not going to come off as Kerouac, Vonnegut or Hemingway, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is whether we catch ourselves being truly us. That’s just about always worth sharing, worth writing!

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Kurt Vonnegut // “Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow… The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don’t show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward.”

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“as long as the mother-in-law
and many others protest
I will know that I am on the trail of a living and lively thing.

not that I write in order to create great and ennobling works
but if they become so and finally silence the grating bellows of idiots,
then let that be that.

~ Charles Bukowski

I’m always amused by the agony that some of the famous writers and poets have gone through and have taken great pains to explain, from the stark brutality of a blank page staring at them, to “just the right way to phrase a thought” which eludes them. Hemingway was great at expressing his angst.

“There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.”

Or, “Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, ‘Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now.’”

“Critics are men who watch a battle from a high place then come down and shoot the survivors.”
– All Hemingway quotes.

All well and good, Heminway, but I’ve also looked out over the rooftops of Paris, and if that’s not a city of artistic inspiration, then I don’t know what is! As one of his swooping-down critics, I would have suggested that he get out of his own head and let Paris in… the inspiration would come roaring in!

But let’s think this through… you mean deep and cool, sometimes amazing thoughts don’t just roll off your mind and out of your fingers? Well shit – perhaps I shouldn’t be trying this writing business at all, but rather stick to my music, stick to something I know about, something I can actually communicate with. But too late. Writing, for me, is much like composing music, it’s an ectivity that I’ve loved for some 60 years now. I’ve been hooked, landed, fried and eaten.

I know that many creative types become invested in their results, worried about being accepted, concerned about their perceived popularity, and even stressed over whether they can make some money with it or not. That last one is often an instant cork on the bottle of creativity. I’ve said this before and it deserves repeating – Quincy Jones once said “When money comes into a music conversation, God leaves the room.” Game, set and match, Q.

There simply doesn’t need to be all this anxiety and angst regarding writing. Worrying about where the ideas might come from, and when, is so useless. Worrying about it usually insures that the ideas, the thoughts won’t come… at least not right then. Better do to something else, clear your mind, take the pressure off that which you perceive to be “a problem.”

“I think one should write, as nearly as possible, as if he were the first person on earth and was humbly and sincerely putting on paper that which he saw and experienced and loved and lost; what his passing thoughts were and his sorrows and desires.”
~ Neal Cassady in a letter to Jack Kerouac

Agreed, Neal. As soon as we try to imagine how our readers will respond to our writing, we immediately dilute whatever personal uniqueness we might bring to the page. Our writing doesn’t need to be about us, but it does need to be from us… not what we think the world wants to hear from us, but what we want to share with the world, and from our own perspective.

I’m thinking about my pals as I write this… what to say that might inspire them, might jumpstart their creative engines. And only this comes to mind – Just start. In almost every creative process, there is a point, usually right after staring, that the work, whatever it is, begins suggesting where it wants to go, and often we end up simply chasing the dancing thread of the idea we started with.

Try it… just start, without worrying as to the content, the quality, none of it. Just start, keep going a bit and see if the thread doesn’t begin leading you to the next thought, the next line, the next paragraph. For the spirit of creativity loves its participants, and the more honest and heartfelt your intent, the quicker and stronger will be your muse to assist you with the task at hand.

Steve Hulse