If i have an idea (I mean a new idea--like a germ for a story), I have to use it right then. If I write it down for later, it's lost to me. Those notes I keep on my phone or in my notebook--they're fun to look back on, but generally useless (to me). Walter Mosley wrote about this, and his words sum up my experience exactly:
"You write down a few sentences in your journal and sigh. This exhalation is not exhaustion but anticipation at the prospect of a wonderful tale exposing a notion that you still only partly understand.
A day goes by. Another passes. At the end of the next week you find yourself in the same chair, at the same hour when you wrote about the homeless man previously. You open the journal to see what you’d written. You remember everything perfectly, but the life has somehow drained out of it. The words have no art to them; you no longer remember the smell. The idea seems weak, it has dissipated, like smoke.
This is the first important lesson that the writer must learn. Writing a novel is gathering smoke. It’s an excursion into the ether of ideas. There’s no time to waste. You must work with that idea as well as you can, jotting down notes and dialogue."
Yes, it may have been Steven King who wrote: ‘Notebooks are a good way of crystallizing bad ideas.’ Everyone is different. Out of context (noted in today’s post) and the process, some perceptions are of little use to some artists. Others live by their notebooks, or their sticky notes. Each is unique, like the fingerprint.
" Writing a novel is gathering smoke." Quite so Mary.
Is same true of writing Short Stories, aka Shorter Form Fictions?
While you may well, knowing you as I have come to do, answer I'd be interested in any other - indeed why not all - Story Clubbers points of view in response to this query.
I hope other Clubbers weigh in for you, Rob, but my answer to your question is Yes. But that's only me. I know that George sometimes works on stories he started years ago. And others most likely do the same. For me, if I don't "stay in the room," with a story, I just lose that smoke Mosley writes about. And once that smoke is gone, it's usually gone for good. (Again--this is just me.)
Love this: " Writing a novel is gathering smoke." I appreciate your bringing in the observations of Mosley. And I appreciate your honesty that your jottings are, often, "generally useless."
I feel that, too, a kind of "what in the world was I thinking?"
Thanks so much, Geoffrey. Sometimes I feel like I am just tumbling forward through space, and a lot of things get left behind--including those jottings that I didn't use when they came to me. Goodbye old jottings! Thankfully, new ones always arrive and if I can capture them, then I can use them.
After forgetting several brilliant 3 am ideas that I was sure I would remember, I bought a pen with a small red light on it so I could write stuff down without getting out of bed or waking my husband. I clipped the pen-light to a small writing pad and left it on my night table within easy reach. Since then, night-time ideas have ceased.
Love that thought. I really do. The rebellious nature of the writer inside us who really does want free rein and just wants to keep going, without restriction, without being "corralled." Thanks for this thought -- and the response.
The rebellious nature of the writer! I love it! Two forces both at work, so different in temperament, both essential. Cowboy and steer? Fly fisherman and trout?
I love these questions and the answers. I can no longer roll over. I used to hate using my phone to write but after having a child I am so grateful to be able to rapid fire something. I’ve lost too many ideas in part time sleep!
I appreciate your discipline. A childhood friend -- a painter and writer -- used to have a small notebook and pencil on a shelf in his headboard and would, upon awakening, immediately jot down a dream, and would later flesh it out with words or art. He once showed me some of the paintings he thought unfit for public view that came from those jottings. To me, they WERE worth sharing to the public. But they were wildly different than his other paintings' style which fascinated me and made me think about how we often "edit" or channel our craziest ideas in ways that, perhaps, we shouldn't.
How many of those are completed…. Well… working on two films half way through one and in the starting stages of another. The other day I saw the rest of the movie and rushed to write it down on a piece of paper. Then tucked the paper down somewhere and can’t find it. It made me very grateful for the electronic hand thing.
I don't remember where I first heard or read this. I'm sure it was in some writing instruction book. Anyway, the quote goes something like this: If God gives you an idea and you don't write it down, She gives it to somebody else.
Wonderful thought. I think another old saw works for me "sleep on it," that is, give the idea some time and then come back to it and often, in writing fiction, coming back to it makes me see the idea -- regardless of who gave it to me or how it arrived -- is not particularly fruitful.
Puts me in mind of a Crock Market, on a Bank Holiday Monday, at The Fair, on The Common...
"What am I bid? Sold to the lady to my left. Sorry to those who, thinking, didn't get close to blinking a bid!"...
"Next up? Oh my! A dinner service to die for... Wedgwood, Blue Italian, Microwave Safe... £50 quid... whose going to start the bidding... £55 quid... £70 quid... at £80 quid to my right... 🔨 Going, 🔨🔨 Going, 🔨🔨🔨 Gone... SOLD to the gent on my right!"
Love "Custer in the Bardo" here's what happened to me last night:
5/1/25
"Its a sin to say 'things worked out'
Its a venial sin to say 'for the better'"
I woke at 3am with these words in my mind. I thought they had meaning so I wrote them down rather than turn over and go back to sleep. I'm not a Catholic, I didn't know the stages of sin, I thought venial was worse, (Sounds worse). Why am I even thinking these things? I learned that venial put you half-on, half-off, God's Venn diagram where as mortal put you totally outside. So after research I changed the quote.
"Its a venial sin to say, things worked out
Its a mortal sin to say, for the better"
Still, the next day it didn't make much sense to me. I'm one who would tend to say things turned out ok, even for the better. What could be wrong with that? How could that put me outside of God for God's sake?
Lao Tsu says:
in whatever you do
when you follow the Way be one with the Way
when you succeed be one with success
when you fail be one with failure
be one with success for the Way succeeds too
be one with failure for the Way fails too
I can't be one only with success. To skip over the damage done, the lives changed, the hurt compounded upon those creatures for whom it didn't work out is to leave the Way, is to sin, is to put yourself outside of God's Venn diagram.
That's how I think now of the random words I wrote down at 3am.
I copied your musings onto a Google doc, avoiding the admonition to myself that I really don't ponder a thought copied digitally, somehow using my hand to copy word by word illuminates the thought and holds it dear. I'm reading Carl Jung's book Answer to Job, where Jung points out what a megalomaniac God is and a sadist in his choice to inflict horrors onto Job. Jung asks the question, is God "good" or both good and evil. I recommend the book for believers and non-believers.
I'm such a Luddite, so hopelessly low-tech, that it would never occur to me to talk into my phone without there being another person at the other end. Or, if I'm on hold, at least the promise of one. Index cards! That's what I use. And whatever pen or pencil is handy, and there's always, always one handy as are the index cards. These are my tools. A flash of something could come at any time & it's my job to capture whatever my mind hands over. Judging it comes later. If something occurs to me in the dead of night I've become adept enough at scribbling in the dark that I can at least make out what I wrote in the morning. Making sense of it might be something else altogether. Sometimes the message on the card has some urgency to it & can be used right away. When this happens I get a very strong sensation in my solar plexus, a signal not to delay but to sit right down & expand on the idea, take it as far as possible, otherwise it vaporizes. This doesn't happen often enough, but when it does it's heaven. All the other cards I throw in a pile. When the pile is big enough, I go through it. A lot of the stuff is crap. Some of the stuff is pretty good & eventually comes in handy. Then there's the vast majority of cards that seem promising but which I've not been able to make into something. These I throw back into the pile in hopes that the next time I draw it some idea might spark. Here are a few examples: 1.) The sea of forgetfulness; 2.) It's never going to end, she said through her teeth. 3.) On 9/14/16 a human heart was found in a Ziploc bag on a street in Washington, DC. 4.) "That's what I'm talking about, Brother Man. I got two of everything. I say, I got two of everything, Brother Man!" 5.) Alvin Slippers, the hoodlum, is painfully in love with Mrs. Lapyear.
Rosanne, I have a lot of confidence in the kinetic act of pen in hand to paper. In fact I think there are studies correlating memory to the action of the hand. I don't even allow devices to be used in my classes (talk about a Luddite) -- and I teach Grad students. And they protest --- but then, not. (For me it's in the interest of creating esprit de corps among the students which is less likely when each is glued to a laptop) --- They report how much more they remember by taking notes with pen and paper --- they fall in love with having all their notes bound in a moleskin notebook.
And while I'm at it, I love Alvin and Mrs. Lapyear!
Yes, there's lots of evidence to support that in many ways writing by hand is a physical/mental activity. See especially Lynda Barry, the comics artist, for more on this & for her fascinating take on the importance of making by hand. As she'd so delightfully say in class, while jiggling her hands over her head, "In the digital age, don't forget to use your digits!"
To start, check out "What It Is", a sort of wonderfully crazy compendium of creativity & making by hand & writing. She has other titles, but this might be her best known. Also, check out You Tube for talks she's given especially about the importance of working by hand & for some how-to's that are just plain wacky fun. She's at UWMadison teaching art to kids & to grad students in the sciences. Like George, she also received a "genius grant" a few years ago. She did much to loosen me up & also to confirm what I'd often suspected but couldn't quite put my finger on.
I don't write fiction but I too am often awake at 3 a.m. composing some message. Typically when I try to wait to put pen to paper my mind won't let go and I'm forced to write the message sent by my psyche/dream. Thanks to all for sharing. I'll check out Lynda Barry
Gail, I had to re-teach myself to write with pen and paper this last year. It was a slow process! I'm so used to my computer keyboard. I'd really and truly forgotten how to form the letters on the page! Now I write by hand in a notebook every day and i love it.
I thought about you this morning, Mary, when I had the occasion to screen again a lovely short film made by friend and colleague, Julia Solomonoff. I think you might enjoy it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZh9EwjlRl0&t=6s
Oh, that was so lovely! I loved it. I loved her daughter's part--that must have been so fun and amazing to make this film with her. She is so right about handwriting--my mother's is so palpable to me, even now, years after her death. Coincidentally, I read through some old journals of mine last night. It seems I've been struggling with the same issues FOREVER. Sigh. I also loved that your friend advises us to MOVE. I always tell people to go outside. That can often solve a lot of problems. Thanks so much for thinking of me!
I'm so glad her film brought delight. Yes, reading through old journals is one sure act of SOBERING UP. Every summer I say, well, I'll go through a few to see if there's anything to seed creative work --- And FOREVER is still FOREVER.
Whoa: "On 9/14/16 a human heart was found in a Ziploc bag on a street in Washington, DC." ... now this is one that would be fun to explore. Have you thought of writing the next sentence?
I have a friend who is a short story writer (several have made The New Yorker) who says he starts all his stories with a single random sentence that pops into his brain. Then he writes the second sentence which relates to the first, the third relates to the second, etc., and after a while the story begins to take shape.
It's difficult to do. I've tried it with him. What is interesting to me is that when I was working with kids, I had him lead writing sessions both in person and online and the kids had a much easier time with this -- with letting go and just writing -- than we adults.
Which is what interests me most, as a former journalist, about writing fiction -- ways to let go of that conscious, critical-thinking part of my brain and just go.
One time it happened to me was a typo I made while writing a story that was to be put on stage. I was thinking about the horse (long story that I won't bore you with) and instead of writing "it" or "she" (it was a mare), I wrote "he" and I just kept going and created a whole new (and mysterious) character that I never truly explained. People loved it. And the character became a central figure in my novel which arose from my staged writings.
What you suggest is one of several ways that I work & though nothing's made the NYer (yet) most of the stories that have resulted have found homes in good journals. Generally, not always but often, I find that the sentences that are the least fantastic prove to be the most promising. Which may or may not be why human-heart-in-a-Ziploc-bag remains on an index card.
I'm so glad your works have made it into some good mags. Reaching the NYer is, of course, a nice goal but very hard to attain. It's readers we want, that's all.
Thanks for asking, GG. Try Vestal Review, online issue 59, for "Lore".
For print, see "Quinn & Son" in New Letters, winter/spring 2023. The Threepenny Review, where some stories have appeared previously, will also carry another new story in the fall issue. These stories are all part of a collection. Other stories unrelated are elsewhere online & in print.
Gail, Glad to hear you're enjoying Lynda Barry. And thanks for the link to your friend Julia's film, which was lovely & thought-provoking. "What do we lose when we lose our own handwriting?" is an excellent question that she asks, the answer to which involves losing part of our very selves, I think, by way of being able to express that self. It's shocking to me that kids don't learn script anymore. Everybody can type, or at least learn to, but handwriting is unique in the way typing simply is not and can't be, which is part of the point of typing: efficiency over uniqueness. And as the film also posits, "Thinking happens in movement", and what is writing by hand, or making anything by hand, if not movement? And I love "Garabato", the name of the city as also meaning "to doodle". I will from now on no longer be doodling but garabatoing!
I catch it in a Notes app — it might be good, it might be bad, that judgement is for later. But if the muse won’t shut up, it is literally the only way I can get back to sleep!
I use JustPressRecord App ... $5, easy to use, gives you a nice transcript.
Someone else here mentioned that it was difficult for her to dictate since normally she'd be speaking with someone else in the phone. I can appreciate that. Also, I can appreciate that speaking something is much different than typing or writing by hand.
I used the app quite a bit while I was writing my novel -- when I was hiking, or doing something else or was driving and something would pop into my brain about a character, or a conflict I was trying to resolve, or a way to get two characters from point A to point B. It was extremely helpful.
So thanks for the reminder. I haven't really used it for general ideas.
You know, when I read that, I wondered. That's a new thing. I already have the other app, but will try doing it on Notes as well.
I got the JustPressRecord on the advice of a blind woman I was working with in an online writing group. She said she used it to write. She also told me that she was getting her PhD in computer linguists and was working on AI that would provide more accurate voice to text and text to voice for people with sight disabilities.
At the time arthritis in my hands was kicking up so I actually tried using it to write -- not jottings or notes, but actual writing of stories and essays and parts of my novel.
I found it incredibly difficult and, eventually, went back to typing (and taking ibuprofen). Speaking writing, if you will, is just such a different process. Far more dramatic than going from handwriting to typing, or typewriter to computer.
Anyways, long response, but thanks for letting me know about Notes. I will try it.
I'm really leaning into the idea of the feeling and flavor of my WIP, as a way to decide which of all the scraps I've written belong in it and which do not. I started a little paragraph about the way I want it to feel, which only makes sense to me: how I feel about things like the discontinued Lenox Temperware pattern called Dew Drops, the wedding invitation for two high school classmates who married right out of high school, the smell of the old dirt in my grandmother's North Carolina home, the way the light shines into a certain house in my neighborhood at dusk, the idea of passenger trains through small west Texas towns in the 1940s. Every time I read this paragraph of feelings, I get more fully grounded in my story. Thank you, George, for this post, and for sharing the idea about the flavor and feeling of a story.
Thanks for this comment. Which amplifies, or offers a practical method, for what George is talking about. It is so difficult, isn't it, to get the character's feelings into the story and what you are talking about really are metaphors, similes even. Each of your lines DO connote feelings and, of course, a story so I might disagree with your statement "which only makes sense to me."
I definitely agree that the unconscious continues to work on something when one isn't actively thinking about it. I often tell students that they can help themselves on papers by putting in a bit of thinking time early, to begin organizing their ideas, because if they do, when they actually sit down to write, they are likely to discover that they have a better idea of what they want to say that they'd realized. Because the brain will have been working on it all that time.
Nevertheless, I wonder if I'm the only one here who just doesn't face the issue described by this questioner. When I go to bed, I sleep. Now, I generally work too late into the evening and get up reasonably early, so I'm almost always more tired than I should be, which I'm sure has something to do with it. And I do think my brain is mulling over things during the night, because when I do get up, I'm quite slow getting ready--showering, shaving, etc.--because I'm more or less talking to myself the whole time, usually about pretty random stuff that I don't even remember ten minutes later but that must have been somehow "on my mind." But I never wake up with an idea that I think I need to write down. Or, really, even an idea that I don't think I need to write down. If I wake up, it's either (occasionally) a dream that woke me or (more often) a middle-aged bladder. But not ideas. I just sleep.
I agree with you, Peter, about letting the subject stew a bit before getting the words down. But what I've found to be even more helpful, and something I learned during my journalism days, was to build in time before the deadline (granted, this was not always possible) and just let the piece sit, undisturbed for as long as possible. Come back even an hour later & it's amazing the improvements the mind will have made all on its own.
Absolutely, Rosanne. I just finished teaching in an honors program where our students have to write fairly challenging synthetic papers every weekend, pulling together lots of material--not only texts, but also art and music. They get the new question Thursday morning and the papers are due by midnight Saturday. They're normally able to begin working in earnest after lunch on Friday. I always tell them they should aim to have their paper drafter by supper on Saturday, but that they should *not* turn it in yet. Instead, eat supper, take a walk or do whatever they want for an hour, and then come back and re-read it once more when they still have a couple of hours left to make changes. As you wrote, letting it sit for even just an hour can make a real difference.
Every once in a while, one of them even takes my advice!
When I worked with kids (a nonprofit I started to help kids write better and teachers teach writing better) I always pounced when kids said they were uncreative or had nothing they wanted to say or no stories they wanted to tell. I didn't tell them they were wrong, I just tried to help them see that they were wrong by tricking them into writing cool stuff.
So just because you don't jot down ideas that come to you in the hairbrained world of dreams, just because you take a long time to "wake up" does not mean you are uncreative. I happen to believe that we are all creative and have not, so far, been proven wrong.
Here's another thought: When I first set about the idea of writing a novel, I did most of my writing after dinner. I always fancied myself as a 'night person.' ... One morning, 25,000 words into the first draft, I came down one morning, made coffee and read what I'd written. Gads. Dreck. All of it. Boring as watching paint dry. So I deleted it. And I started getting up when I had to pee... usually 4ish ... and staying up. I made coffee, went to my computer, read what I'd written the day before, and continued... Which made me realize, 'Holy Shit, I'm a MORNING person.'
And what I found was that it was easy to recollect all that my brain was doing while NOT writing the afternoon and evening before (and perhaps during sleep, who knows?) in thinking about what I was working on -- details, conflicts, progression of plot, etc.
And, yes, I did get into the habit of jotting little things that came to me or dictating ideas, but it was mostly a process of discovering when I wrote best and having confidence that I would remember the most important observations in my non-writing time.
thanks for your honesty. it got me going and i appreciate that.
Thanks, Geoffrey! Kudos to you for your valuable nonprofit work. And thanks for sharing your own individual story. It's a great illustration of how we all need to find our own individual routines that work for us. -- Peter
Thanks for responding, Peter. Yes, I think we writers forget George's words, ie there is no wrong way to do things, we should choose what is right for us.
But I also think we should be open to ideas about others' methods or, at least, that our methods or process may be flawed. For five years, when I was writing my novel, I awoke at about 4 4:30 each morning, wrote until noon or 1 p.m. or sometimes to five. It was glorious for me. My characters came alive and I found a way to focus that I had never done before.
And I think that's what made the book good enough to secure an agent (though I still await a response from the publishers' she sent it to.)
Ah, tongue half in cheek, Rob. Just feeling so inadequate compared to all these creative types who manage to keep writing their stories even while sleeping! ; )
I am ashamed today because I, stuck and needing to create six new pages to share with my writing group, asked Co Pilot for help. And worst of all, it did help. I lost my Co Pilot virginity and probably for nothing. I'm curious to see if they can tell the pages are not in my voice. (I hope they can.) Gah, save me from myself. (PS: All notes I write myself at night are nonsense the next day---all of them.)
I have not (yet) made that leap. I appreciate your honesty and also note your sense of guilt. I think that's important: to what extent do you use the tool to help you write in your own voice.
I would be curious to know whether your writing group DID notice the change in style.
Thanks again for your comment. I always appreciate when people are speaking truth.
Yes, Hooray for them, they did note conventional plot elements had been added—-I told them before they wasted too much of their precious time thinking about it. I think maybe I’ll drop prose and return to my first, ambiguous love, poetry….a place where a suggestion triggers the reader’s imaginative powers too.
It heartens me that they noticed, even before you let the cat out of the bag. ...
Some poetry notes that popped into my brain:
While in New Mexico this past week, I went to an amazing bookstore (https://www.collectedworksbookstore.com) where dg nanouk okpik (a Pulitzer Prize winning poet) opened the evenings poetry readings. she is a remarkable poet, and I heartily recommend her work.
When asked how she begins her poetry, she said she starts with one word. She thinks about that word and lets it lead her to more words and before she knows it she has a 100 words. Then she condenses, cuts, shrinks and then expands again, then cuts it down and then expands it again, repeating this process until she feels she is done.
She showed me her notebooks which was filled with random words and then, in spaces to the right of the words were scribbled poems, which she then moved to another page and began crossing out words and then the next page had the new version with more words and then were crossed out, and then the shortened one on the next page, and so on.
I thought that was cool.
I also appreciated that she read poems from her notebook, not from her most recent book 'blood snow' which won the Pulitzer. She said she had gone past those poems now, was onto new ideas.
Another wonderful poet who I know well is Kerrin McCadden (https://www.kerrinmccadden.com) ... she starts a lot of her poems (except for her recent book 'American Wake' which is narrative) by choosing two words that are seeming opposites, a combination that is unexpected (for example (mine, not hers) hot ice) and then she finds another set of words that are opposites but somehow relate.... she then crafts lines around them.
I am always fascinated with how people begin their pieces. And George Saunders' meanderings about ideas is in line with this.
I've overheard some hilarious conversations in the coffee shop on the square (plaza, the central one) in Santa Fe. I think I missed the book shop, but if I return, I won't. Anyway, thanks for your comments.
It put words on the page---the way it was going today, that was epic. Of course, I had to "correct" it and so that got me started---a little bit anyway. Thanks for the comment.
Who's to say that if you didn't note down the middle-of-the-night idea and so forgot it, that what finally does come to you isn't better, or more usable or viable? If we believe that the subconscious is always at work, then we can surmise it served up the nighttime idea and is still working away and will deliver a development when you need or can use it. Might not be a straight line from the night idea to the idea that gets used, but without the first the second might not be possible.
No one can say, of course, where those thoughts come from when we write. And I have often looked back on my notes from "night" or "random" thought I have had, ideas or sentences that I thought so important, and realized, occasionally, that those ideas had morphed since I jotted them down and had become something important and that I had written about it, or had used that idea in some way.
When that has happened, I have found it quite reassuring -- that my brain is still functioning.
And who's to say that those late-night thoughts aren't totally and completely useless?
Thanks for telling us about Old Fox Books in Annapolis. I happened to be there last week, stopped in, told them I was there to buy a book in support of their work on the banned books, and found a book about writing by John McPhee.
One of my favourite ways to write is just to leave a notebook and a pencil open on the kitchen counter or the duvet and jot down phrases and short paragraphs as I go about my day (or, occasionally, night). Because I'm not "really writing" as the words accumulate, I'm often more able to sidestep my internal editor, keep her from rushing in too soon. Pieces written, or even just started this way have more energy, are more surprising, looser, free-er, more fun.
This is interesting: I'm often more able to sidestep my internal editor, keep her from rushing in too soon.
Because that's what it's all about, isn't it? Finding a way to keep our critical thinking from hamstringing us, from not seeing the value of 'just going with it' and seeing where the idea takes us, freeing ourselves of that internal editing and judging that goes on.
So happy to read the news about the resistance forming at Old Fox Books! That is inspiration.
As for inspiration in the night, or at many other inconvenient times (I work in a kitchen, and frequently think of things when a timer is going off and my hands are full), I have leaned into the trusting it will come back later camp. Not that I never dash off a note in hopes of catching something before it whispers off, but mostly I accept that many ideas are fleeting. Mostly, capturing ideas only seems truly possible when I show up to my actual available writing time.
That said, sometimes I despair a bit when writing time arrives and I suddenly feel blank, like what was it I was thinking of in the kitchen again? That felt so urgent, but the timer was going off? So, that's where some notes are nice, maybe to job the memory or at least fill in that voided feeling. But also: in absence of notes, I like to start by drawing. Like total doodles, nothing planned, nothing intended. Usually, if I noodle a bit like that and my brain starts churning on this other small act of creativity, I might get a wisp of the thought back. Or a new thought instead! Maybe a better one.
The best ideas I ever get are when I stand up from the chair and go downstairs after two hours in front of the screen wrestling with recalcitrant ideas/sentences/paragraphs/characters. Once I'm out of the office and don't "have to" produce the right thing, then it comes to me.
True to form, this post appeared at 3:00 am, when I was stirred awake, flooded with ideas. I wish I had written this question, because it’s brilliant, and because it encompasses my own struggles exactly. Mostly my experience accords with that of Prof. Saunders; almost exactly, I’d say, so there is not much more to add in that area.
[quote]
Me? I feel like I have to roll over and get it into notes or it's gone forever. I'm not a professional writer, still it can be quite irritating being nudged by the muse, as if the story is stalking me, invading my life, my mind, at any moment. Sometimes that is thrilling, when it is going well. But I can imagine a dark turn where the writer is literally consumed by his story, sleep deprived.
[end quote]
This has to do with writerly and general life training. The human, the human being, is a wonderful thing, and mysterious. Surely it’s here for something more than ‘eat, drink, and be merry,’ or fighting spring mosquitos in the night over a glowing rectangle. The question is, what? How can one, can I, not waste my time, waste others’ time?
The body—human complex—is made for training. You know that, if you’ve ever tried to make a change—say, a nasty habit (get rid of it, not just gloss it over), or simply an improvement, as you see it—how your own systems, your habit, resists you. It could even be something from childhood, ‘printed’ or ‘engraved,’ and it locks you into it, forever, if one does (and there the spell-correction wrote ‘dies’—also telling) not know better. The point here is that writing is the same, whatever you introduce, whatever you ‘print,’ ‘brand’ yourself with (‘branding’, ha) continues on, with or without you, whether you like it or not, whether you want it or not.
Not to pontificate (overly pontificate), however. It’s reality. That ‘stalking me, invading my life, my mind, at any moment’ is really kind of like a lack of training or understanding of how the system works… Having printed oneself with the desire to write a good story, and maybe not having set or established proper, or at least reasonable, times for the complex to ‘deliver,’ it’s shooting off, firing away, at all times. It doesn’t care about the timings. Maybe Prof. Saunders has this going on, say, while on stage with Ms. Treisman in LA; probably not… The lack of training, or of knowledge about how it works, is what previously caused people, artists, to go a little nuts… a lot of drinking, drugs, and worse.
These things have been demonstrated, too, scientifically. Cells have memory; the blood, ‘thicker than water,’ can cause one to… do things one, at the point, in one’s right mind, would not normally do. One is, then, actually—sometimes painfully—‘consumed by his story,’ as this week’s Questioner may be experiencing.
**
Thoughts also, if one waits for them, will often come around again. They’re not lost. If you go back to your writing, one month, two months, three months ago, you’ll see the same pattern or insight, if it is a ‘keeper’ (as a friend says); it’s often something in you calling out for something, either a hunger or something of a higher order… Really, it gets exciting, gripping, whether at 3:00 am or 5:00 pm, working, honing, refining.
One other thing: the current sleep pattern, 8 hours straight, is a brainchild of the Industrial Revolution, right? Nighttime previously was productive, a time of engagement, not worry about losing sleep… maybe there is something to learn in this.
One more thing: part of the training, to have the system deliver when you want it to, and not slapdash, is kind of Buddhist—at least if the prayer flags are any indication, the five colors, properly balanced, will lead to a more natural, consistent creativity, although the wacko way has its place, too. Safely, however, with care. Prof. Saunders may have more to say on this.
If i have an idea (I mean a new idea--like a germ for a story), I have to use it right then. If I write it down for later, it's lost to me. Those notes I keep on my phone or in my notebook--they're fun to look back on, but generally useless (to me). Walter Mosley wrote about this, and his words sum up my experience exactly:
"You write down a few sentences in your journal and sigh. This exhalation is not exhaustion but anticipation at the prospect of a wonderful tale exposing a notion that you still only partly understand.
A day goes by. Another passes. At the end of the next week you find yourself in the same chair, at the same hour when you wrote about the homeless man previously. You open the journal to see what you’d written. You remember everything perfectly, but the life has somehow drained out of it. The words have no art to them; you no longer remember the smell. The idea seems weak, it has dissipated, like smoke.
This is the first important lesson that the writer must learn. Writing a novel is gathering smoke. It’s an excursion into the ether of ideas. There’s no time to waste. You must work with that idea as well as you can, jotting down notes and dialogue."
Yes, it may have been Steven King who wrote: ‘Notebooks are a good way of crystallizing bad ideas.’ Everyone is different. Out of context (noted in today’s post) and the process, some perceptions are of little use to some artists. Others live by their notebooks, or their sticky notes. Each is unique, like the fingerprint.
love that line from Stephen King. And yes, we are all unique--thank God!
" Writing a novel is gathering smoke." Quite so Mary.
Is same true of writing Short Stories, aka Shorter Form Fictions?
While you may well, knowing you as I have come to do, answer I'd be interested in any other - indeed why not all - Story Clubbers points of view in response to this query.
I hope other Clubbers weigh in for you, Rob, but my answer to your question is Yes. But that's only me. I know that George sometimes works on stories he started years ago. And others most likely do the same. For me, if I don't "stay in the room," with a story, I just lose that smoke Mosley writes about. And once that smoke is gone, it's usually gone for good. (Again--this is just me.)
"Sure can't brand a steer with a cold iron."
Kinda' thing?
right!
Love this: " Writing a novel is gathering smoke." I appreciate your bringing in the observations of Mosley. And I appreciate your honesty that your jottings are, often, "generally useless."
I feel that, too, a kind of "what in the world was I thinking?"
Be well,
gg
Thanks so much, Geoffrey. Sometimes I feel like I am just tumbling forward through space, and a lot of things get left behind--including those jottings that I didn't use when they came to me. Goodbye old jottings! Thankfully, new ones always arrive and if I can capture them, then I can use them.
Yes, I can understand that sensation. I love the expression, 'tumbling forward.' Sometime I feel, too, that I'm bumbling forward.
Thanks for responding.
Be well,
gg
After forgetting several brilliant 3 am ideas that I was sure I would remember, I bought a pen with a small red light on it so I could write stuff down without getting out of bed or waking my husband. I clipped the pen-light to a small writing pad and left it on my night table within easy reach. Since then, night-time ideas have ceased.
This is hysterical. Love it.
Ha!
I love this.
So why do you think that happened?
gg
The muse does not want to be corraled.
Ahhh... the force within.
Love that thought. I really do. The rebellious nature of the writer inside us who really does want free rein and just wants to keep going, without restriction, without being "corralled." Thanks for this thought -- and the response.
Be well,
gg
The rebellious nature of the writer! I love it! Two forces both at work, so different in temperament, both essential. Cowboy and steer? Fly fisherman and trout?
I love these questions and the answers. I can no longer roll over. I used to hate using my phone to write but after having a child I am so grateful to be able to rapid fire something. I’ve lost too many ideas in part time sleep!
I appreciate your discipline. A childhood friend -- a painter and writer -- used to have a small notebook and pencil on a shelf in his headboard and would, upon awakening, immediately jot down a dream, and would later flesh it out with words or art. He once showed me some of the paintings he thought unfit for public view that came from those jottings. To me, they WERE worth sharing to the public. But they were wildly different than his other paintings' style which fascinated me and made me think about how we often "edit" or channel our craziest ideas in ways that, perhaps, we shouldn't.
How many ideas, harnessing phone to write, have you not 'lost' Jane?
They’re all dreams now Rob Edwards!
wondering (non-presumptiously) how many of those phone-ideas have came to fruition?
A lot! There are lots of poems in there and scenes for a movie I’m working on. The best ones are when I don’t remember writing them!
More power to ya!
How many of those are completed…. Well… working on two films half way through one and in the starting stages of another. The other day I saw the rest of the movie and rushed to write it down on a piece of paper. Then tucked the paper down somewhere and can’t find it. It made me very grateful for the electronic hand thing.
I don't remember where I first heard or read this. I'm sure it was in some writing instruction book. Anyway, the quote goes something like this: If God gives you an idea and you don't write it down, She gives it to somebody else.
Elizabeth Gilbert talks about this happening to her ( & Ann Patchett) in Big Magic. Worth looking up to read if this idea interests you.
Wonderful thought. I think another old saw works for me "sleep on it," that is, give the idea some time and then come back to it and often, in writing fiction, coming back to it makes me see the idea -- regardless of who gave it to me or how it arrived -- is not particularly fruitful.
Puts me in mind of a Crock Market, on a Bank Holiday Monday, at The Fair, on The Common...
"What am I bid? Sold to the lady to my left. Sorry to those who, thinking, didn't get close to blinking a bid!"...
"Next up? Oh my! A dinner service to die for... Wedgwood, Blue Italian, Microwave Safe... £50 quid... whose going to start the bidding... £55 quid... £70 quid... at £80 quid to my right... 🔨 Going, 🔨🔨 Going, 🔨🔨🔨 Gone... SOLD to the gent on my right!"
Love "Custer in the Bardo" here's what happened to me last night:
5/1/25
"Its a sin to say 'things worked out'
Its a venial sin to say 'for the better'"
I woke at 3am with these words in my mind. I thought they had meaning so I wrote them down rather than turn over and go back to sleep. I'm not a Catholic, I didn't know the stages of sin, I thought venial was worse, (Sounds worse). Why am I even thinking these things? I learned that venial put you half-on, half-off, God's Venn diagram where as mortal put you totally outside. So after research I changed the quote.
"Its a venial sin to say, things worked out
Its a mortal sin to say, for the better"
Still, the next day it didn't make much sense to me. I'm one who would tend to say things turned out ok, even for the better. What could be wrong with that? How could that put me outside of God for God's sake?
Lao Tsu says:
in whatever you do
when you follow the Way be one with the Way
when you succeed be one with success
when you fail be one with failure
be one with success for the Way succeeds too
be one with failure for the Way fails too
I can't be one only with success. To skip over the damage done, the lives changed, the hurt compounded upon those creatures for whom it didn't work out is to leave the Way, is to sin, is to put yourself outside of God's Venn diagram.
That's how I think now of the random words I wrote down at 3am.
Then I turned over and went back to sleep.
I copied your musings onto a Google doc, avoiding the admonition to myself that I really don't ponder a thought copied digitally, somehow using my hand to copy word by word illuminates the thought and holds it dear. I'm reading Carl Jung's book Answer to Job, where Jung points out what a megalomaniac God is and a sadist in his choice to inflict horrors onto Job. Jung asks the question, is God "good" or both good and evil. I recommend the book for believers and non-believers.
Custer's last struggle
Far as I've always known
Was a struggle in some gutter
For a suck on a wet, cigarette, butt...
I'm such a Luddite, so hopelessly low-tech, that it would never occur to me to talk into my phone without there being another person at the other end. Or, if I'm on hold, at least the promise of one. Index cards! That's what I use. And whatever pen or pencil is handy, and there's always, always one handy as are the index cards. These are my tools. A flash of something could come at any time & it's my job to capture whatever my mind hands over. Judging it comes later. If something occurs to me in the dead of night I've become adept enough at scribbling in the dark that I can at least make out what I wrote in the morning. Making sense of it might be something else altogether. Sometimes the message on the card has some urgency to it & can be used right away. When this happens I get a very strong sensation in my solar plexus, a signal not to delay but to sit right down & expand on the idea, take it as far as possible, otherwise it vaporizes. This doesn't happen often enough, but when it does it's heaven. All the other cards I throw in a pile. When the pile is big enough, I go through it. A lot of the stuff is crap. Some of the stuff is pretty good & eventually comes in handy. Then there's the vast majority of cards that seem promising but which I've not been able to make into something. These I throw back into the pile in hopes that the next time I draw it some idea might spark. Here are a few examples: 1.) The sea of forgetfulness; 2.) It's never going to end, she said through her teeth. 3.) On 9/14/16 a human heart was found in a Ziploc bag on a street in Washington, DC. 4.) "That's what I'm talking about, Brother Man. I got two of everything. I say, I got two of everything, Brother Man!" 5.) Alvin Slippers, the hoodlum, is painfully in love with Mrs. Lapyear.
Rosanne, I have a lot of confidence in the kinetic act of pen in hand to paper. In fact I think there are studies correlating memory to the action of the hand. I don't even allow devices to be used in my classes (talk about a Luddite) -- and I teach Grad students. And they protest --- but then, not. (For me it's in the interest of creating esprit de corps among the students which is less likely when each is glued to a laptop) --- They report how much more they remember by taking notes with pen and paper --- they fall in love with having all their notes bound in a moleskin notebook.
And while I'm at it, I love Alvin and Mrs. Lapyear!
Yes, there's lots of evidence to support that in many ways writing by hand is a physical/mental activity. See especially Lynda Barry, the comics artist, for more on this & for her fascinating take on the importance of making by hand. As she'd so delightfully say in class, while jiggling her hands over her head, "In the digital age, don't forget to use your digits!"
I’m so happy to have the reference to Lynda Barry, Rosanne— I don’t know her work. I’ll definitely dig (hands again!) into it.
To start, check out "What It Is", a sort of wonderfully crazy compendium of creativity & making by hand & writing. She has other titles, but this might be her best known. Also, check out You Tube for talks she's given especially about the importance of working by hand & for some how-to's that are just plain wacky fun. She's at UWMadison teaching art to kids & to grad students in the sciences. Like George, she also received a "genius grant" a few years ago. She did much to loosen me up & also to confirm what I'd often suspected but couldn't quite put my finger on.
I don't write fiction but I too am often awake at 3 a.m. composing some message. Typically when I try to wait to put pen to paper my mind won't let go and I'm forced to write the message sent by my psyche/dream. Thanks to all for sharing. I'll check out Lynda Barry
Her work/insight sounds wonderful. She'll be on my summer reading list, for sure.
Gail, I had to re-teach myself to write with pen and paper this last year. It was a slow process! I'm so used to my computer keyboard. I'd really and truly forgotten how to form the letters on the page! Now I write by hand in a notebook every day and i love it.
I love this, Mary— what a terrific confession— somehow seems like seed for a great character.
I’m pretty attached to my keyboard, too. — But I love notebooks, and rarely (maybe at the gym) will I go without.
I thought about you this morning, Mary, when I had the occasion to screen again a lovely short film made by friend and colleague, Julia Solomonoff. I think you might enjoy it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZh9EwjlRl0&t=6s
Oh, that was so lovely! I loved it. I loved her daughter's part--that must have been so fun and amazing to make this film with her. She is so right about handwriting--my mother's is so palpable to me, even now, years after her death. Coincidentally, I read through some old journals of mine last night. It seems I've been struggling with the same issues FOREVER. Sigh. I also loved that your friend advises us to MOVE. I always tell people to go outside. That can often solve a lot of problems. Thanks so much for thinking of me!
I'm so glad her film brought delight. Yes, reading through old journals is one sure act of SOBERING UP. Every summer I say, well, I'll go through a few to see if there's anything to seed creative work --- And FOREVER is still FOREVER.
Whoa: "On 9/14/16 a human heart was found in a Ziploc bag on a street in Washington, DC." ... now this is one that would be fun to explore. Have you thought of writing the next sentence?
I have a friend who is a short story writer (several have made The New Yorker) who says he starts all his stories with a single random sentence that pops into his brain. Then he writes the second sentence which relates to the first, the third relates to the second, etc., and after a while the story begins to take shape.
It's difficult to do. I've tried it with him. What is interesting to me is that when I was working with kids, I had him lead writing sessions both in person and online and the kids had a much easier time with this -- with letting go and just writing -- than we adults.
Which is what interests me most, as a former journalist, about writing fiction -- ways to let go of that conscious, critical-thinking part of my brain and just go.
One time it happened to me was a typo I made while writing a story that was to be put on stage. I was thinking about the horse (long story that I won't bore you with) and instead of writing "it" or "she" (it was a mare), I wrote "he" and I just kept going and created a whole new (and mysterious) character that I never truly explained. People loved it. And the character became a central figure in my novel which arose from my staged writings.
cheers.
gg
What you suggest is one of several ways that I work & though nothing's made the NYer (yet) most of the stories that have resulted have found homes in good journals. Generally, not always but often, I find that the sentences that are the least fantastic prove to be the most promising. Which may or may not be why human-heart-in-a-Ziploc-bag remains on an index card.
I'm so glad your works have made it into some good mags. Reaching the NYer is, of course, a nice goal but very hard to attain. It's readers we want, that's all.
Where can I find your work?
gg
Thanks for asking, GG. Try Vestal Review, online issue 59, for "Lore".
For print, see "Quinn & Son" in New Letters, winter/spring 2023. The Threepenny Review, where some stories have appeared previously, will also carry another new story in the fall issue. These stories are all part of a collection. Other stories unrelated are elsewhere online & in print.
Rosanne --- I am LOVING Lynda Barry. Thank you for introducing me to her.
And here, for you, a lovely short film (on this topic) made by my friend and colleague, Julia Solomonoff that I think you may like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZh9EwjlRl0&t=6s
Gail, Glad to hear you're enjoying Lynda Barry. And thanks for the link to your friend Julia's film, which was lovely & thought-provoking. "What do we lose when we lose our own handwriting?" is an excellent question that she asks, the answer to which involves losing part of our very selves, I think, by way of being able to express that self. It's shocking to me that kids don't learn script anymore. Everybody can type, or at least learn to, but handwriting is unique in the way typing simply is not and can't be, which is part of the point of typing: efficiency over uniqueness. And as the film also posits, "Thinking happens in movement", and what is writing by hand, or making anything by hand, if not movement? And I love "Garabato", the name of the city as also meaning "to doodle". I will from now on no longer be doodling but garabatoing!
I catch it in a Notes app — it might be good, it might be bad, that judgement is for later. But if the muse won’t shut up, it is literally the only way I can get back to sleep!
I use JustPressRecord App ... $5, easy to use, gives you a nice transcript.
Someone else here mentioned that it was difficult for her to dictate since normally she'd be speaking with someone else in the phone. I can appreciate that. Also, I can appreciate that speaking something is much different than typing or writing by hand.
I used the app quite a bit while I was writing my novel -- when I was hiking, or doing something else or was driving and something would pop into my brain about a character, or a conflict I was trying to resolve, or a way to get two characters from point A to point B. It was extremely helpful.
So thanks for the reminder. I haven't really used it for general ideas.
Interesting. Did you know the Notes app has a speech to text function? I just use that when I have longer thoughts or if I’m driving
You know, when I read that, I wondered. That's a new thing. I already have the other app, but will try doing it on Notes as well.
I got the JustPressRecord on the advice of a blind woman I was working with in an online writing group. She said she used it to write. She also told me that she was getting her PhD in computer linguists and was working on AI that would provide more accurate voice to text and text to voice for people with sight disabilities.
At the time arthritis in my hands was kicking up so I actually tried using it to write -- not jottings or notes, but actual writing of stories and essays and parts of my novel.
I found it incredibly difficult and, eventually, went back to typing (and taking ibuprofen). Speaking writing, if you will, is just such a different process. Far more dramatic than going from handwriting to typing, or typewriter to computer.
Anyways, long response, but thanks for letting me know about Notes. I will try it.
Be well. Keep on writin'
geoff
I'm really leaning into the idea of the feeling and flavor of my WIP, as a way to decide which of all the scraps I've written belong in it and which do not. I started a little paragraph about the way I want it to feel, which only makes sense to me: how I feel about things like the discontinued Lenox Temperware pattern called Dew Drops, the wedding invitation for two high school classmates who married right out of high school, the smell of the old dirt in my grandmother's North Carolina home, the way the light shines into a certain house in my neighborhood at dusk, the idea of passenger trains through small west Texas towns in the 1940s. Every time I read this paragraph of feelings, I get more fully grounded in my story. Thank you, George, for this post, and for sharing the idea about the flavor and feeling of a story.
Thanks for this comment. Which amplifies, or offers a practical method, for what George is talking about. It is so difficult, isn't it, to get the character's feelings into the story and what you are talking about really are metaphors, similes even. Each of your lines DO connote feelings and, of course, a story so I might disagree with your statement "which only makes sense to me."
gg
I definitely agree that the unconscious continues to work on something when one isn't actively thinking about it. I often tell students that they can help themselves on papers by putting in a bit of thinking time early, to begin organizing their ideas, because if they do, when they actually sit down to write, they are likely to discover that they have a better idea of what they want to say that they'd realized. Because the brain will have been working on it all that time.
Nevertheless, I wonder if I'm the only one here who just doesn't face the issue described by this questioner. When I go to bed, I sleep. Now, I generally work too late into the evening and get up reasonably early, so I'm almost always more tired than I should be, which I'm sure has something to do with it. And I do think my brain is mulling over things during the night, because when I do get up, I'm quite slow getting ready--showering, shaving, etc.--because I'm more or less talking to myself the whole time, usually about pretty random stuff that I don't even remember ten minutes later but that must have been somehow "on my mind." But I never wake up with an idea that I think I need to write down. Or, really, even an idea that I don't think I need to write down. If I wake up, it's either (occasionally) a dream that woke me or (more often) a middle-aged bladder. But not ideas. I just sleep.
I guess I am just disappointingly uncreative!
I agree with you, Peter, about letting the subject stew a bit before getting the words down. But what I've found to be even more helpful, and something I learned during my journalism days, was to build in time before the deadline (granted, this was not always possible) and just let the piece sit, undisturbed for as long as possible. Come back even an hour later & it's amazing the improvements the mind will have made all on its own.
Absolutely, Rosanne. I just finished teaching in an honors program where our students have to write fairly challenging synthetic papers every weekend, pulling together lots of material--not only texts, but also art and music. They get the new question Thursday morning and the papers are due by midnight Saturday. They're normally able to begin working in earnest after lunch on Friday. I always tell them they should aim to have their paper drafter by supper on Saturday, but that they should *not* turn it in yet. Instead, eat supper, take a walk or do whatever they want for an hour, and then come back and re-read it once more when they still have a couple of hours left to make changes. As you wrote, letting it sit for even just an hour can make a real difference.
Every once in a while, one of them even takes my advice!
When I worked with kids (a nonprofit I started to help kids write better and teachers teach writing better) I always pounced when kids said they were uncreative or had nothing they wanted to say or no stories they wanted to tell. I didn't tell them they were wrong, I just tried to help them see that they were wrong by tricking them into writing cool stuff.
So just because you don't jot down ideas that come to you in the hairbrained world of dreams, just because you take a long time to "wake up" does not mean you are uncreative. I happen to believe that we are all creative and have not, so far, been proven wrong.
Here's another thought: When I first set about the idea of writing a novel, I did most of my writing after dinner. I always fancied myself as a 'night person.' ... One morning, 25,000 words into the first draft, I came down one morning, made coffee and read what I'd written. Gads. Dreck. All of it. Boring as watching paint dry. So I deleted it. And I started getting up when I had to pee... usually 4ish ... and staying up. I made coffee, went to my computer, read what I'd written the day before, and continued... Which made me realize, 'Holy Shit, I'm a MORNING person.'
And what I found was that it was easy to recollect all that my brain was doing while NOT writing the afternoon and evening before (and perhaps during sleep, who knows?) in thinking about what I was working on -- details, conflicts, progression of plot, etc.
And, yes, I did get into the habit of jotting little things that came to me or dictating ideas, but it was mostly a process of discovering when I wrote best and having confidence that I would remember the most important observations in my non-writing time.
thanks for your honesty. it got me going and i appreciate that.
best,
gg
Thanks, Geoffrey! Kudos to you for your valuable nonprofit work. And thanks for sharing your own individual story. It's a great illustration of how we all need to find our own individual routines that work for us. -- Peter
Thanks for responding, Peter. Yes, I think we writers forget George's words, ie there is no wrong way to do things, we should choose what is right for us.
But I also think we should be open to ideas about others' methods or, at least, that our methods or process may be flawed. For five years, when I was writing my novel, I awoke at about 4 4:30 each morning, wrote until noon or 1 p.m. or sometimes to five. It was glorious for me. My characters came alive and I found a way to focus that I had never done before.
And I think that's what made the book good enough to secure an agent (though I still await a response from the publishers' she sent it to.)
Be well,
gg
Seriously Peter? You manage to make time to shower? 😲
Picking up, on the drift of your gist, on your closing line, care to better define. "disappointingly uncreative?"
🤔
Ah, tongue half in cheek, Rob. Just feeling so inadequate compared to all these creative types who manage to keep writing their stories even while sleeping! ; )
I am ashamed today because I, stuck and needing to create six new pages to share with my writing group, asked Co Pilot for help. And worst of all, it did help. I lost my Co Pilot virginity and probably for nothing. I'm curious to see if they can tell the pages are not in my voice. (I hope they can.) Gah, save me from myself. (PS: All notes I write myself at night are nonsense the next day---all of them.)
I have not (yet) made that leap. I appreciate your honesty and also note your sense of guilt. I think that's important: to what extent do you use the tool to help you write in your own voice.
I would be curious to know whether your writing group DID notice the change in style.
Thanks again for your comment. I always appreciate when people are speaking truth.
gg
Yes, Hooray for them, they did note conventional plot elements had been added—-I told them before they wasted too much of their precious time thinking about it. I think maybe I’ll drop prose and return to my first, ambiguous love, poetry….a place where a suggestion triggers the reader’s imaginative powers too.
It heartens me that they noticed, even before you let the cat out of the bag. ...
Some poetry notes that popped into my brain:
While in New Mexico this past week, I went to an amazing bookstore (https://www.collectedworksbookstore.com) where dg nanouk okpik (a Pulitzer Prize winning poet) opened the evenings poetry readings. she is a remarkable poet, and I heartily recommend her work.
When asked how she begins her poetry, she said she starts with one word. She thinks about that word and lets it lead her to more words and before she knows it she has a 100 words. Then she condenses, cuts, shrinks and then expands again, then cuts it down and then expands it again, repeating this process until she feels she is done.
She showed me her notebooks which was filled with random words and then, in spaces to the right of the words were scribbled poems, which she then moved to another page and began crossing out words and then the next page had the new version with more words and then were crossed out, and then the shortened one on the next page, and so on.
I thought that was cool.
I also appreciated that she read poems from her notebook, not from her most recent book 'blood snow' which won the Pulitzer. She said she had gone past those poems now, was onto new ideas.
Another wonderful poet who I know well is Kerrin McCadden (https://www.kerrinmccadden.com) ... she starts a lot of her poems (except for her recent book 'American Wake' which is narrative) by choosing two words that are seeming opposites, a combination that is unexpected (for example (mine, not hers) hot ice) and then she finds another set of words that are opposites but somehow relate.... she then crafts lines around them.
I am always fascinated with how people begin their pieces. And George Saunders' meanderings about ideas is in line with this.
Good luck with your poetry.
best,
gg
I've overheard some hilarious conversations in the coffee shop on the square (plaza, the central one) in Santa Fe. I think I missed the book shop, but if I return, I won't. Anyway, thanks for your comments.
Honesty. Frank. Frontal. Not a minor something to be ignored; not least today given 'Crazed Trumpiana's Lying Ways'.
Good for you Laura. How did it strike you that Co Pilot was, in whatever way(s), helping you?
It put words on the page---the way it was going today, that was epic. Of course, I had to "correct" it and so that got me started---a little bit anyway. Thanks for the comment.
Who's to say that if you didn't note down the middle-of-the-night idea and so forgot it, that what finally does come to you isn't better, or more usable or viable? If we believe that the subconscious is always at work, then we can surmise it served up the nighttime idea and is still working away and will deliver a development when you need or can use it. Might not be a straight line from the night idea to the idea that gets used, but without the first the second might not be possible.
No one can say, of course, where those thoughts come from when we write. And I have often looked back on my notes from "night" or "random" thought I have had, ideas or sentences that I thought so important, and realized, occasionally, that those ideas had morphed since I jotted them down and had become something important and that I had written about it, or had used that idea in some way.
When that has happened, I have found it quite reassuring -- that my brain is still functioning.
And who's to say that those late-night thoughts aren't totally and completely useless?
Thanks for telling us about Old Fox Books in Annapolis. I happened to be there last week, stopped in, told them I was there to buy a book in support of their work on the banned books, and found a book about writing by John McPhee.
Oh, that's great, Thomas!
Banned Books?
Book Banning Blaggards'
Brutal Back to Basics!
*
Realisation?
Really isn't such a thing
Really bad publicity: Nah!
*
McPhee vs Trump?
Mega 'No-Holds-Barred'
Maxi McPhee / Pivots / Dumps Trump!
*
Ends!
One of my favourite ways to write is just to leave a notebook and a pencil open on the kitchen counter or the duvet and jot down phrases and short paragraphs as I go about my day (or, occasionally, night). Because I'm not "really writing" as the words accumulate, I'm often more able to sidestep my internal editor, keep her from rushing in too soon. Pieces written, or even just started this way have more energy, are more surprising, looser, free-er, more fun.
This is interesting: I'm often more able to sidestep my internal editor, keep her from rushing in too soon.
Because that's what it's all about, isn't it? Finding a way to keep our critical thinking from hamstringing us, from not seeing the value of 'just going with it' and seeing where the idea takes us, freeing ourselves of that internal editing and judging that goes on.
thanks for this.
best,
gg
I love this (and always looking to take the pressure off my writing. This sounds very playful and free.
So happy to read the news about the resistance forming at Old Fox Books! That is inspiration.
As for inspiration in the night, or at many other inconvenient times (I work in a kitchen, and frequently think of things when a timer is going off and my hands are full), I have leaned into the trusting it will come back later camp. Not that I never dash off a note in hopes of catching something before it whispers off, but mostly I accept that many ideas are fleeting. Mostly, capturing ideas only seems truly possible when I show up to my actual available writing time.
That said, sometimes I despair a bit when writing time arrives and I suddenly feel blank, like what was it I was thinking of in the kitchen again? That felt so urgent, but the timer was going off? So, that's where some notes are nice, maybe to job the memory or at least fill in that voided feeling. But also: in absence of notes, I like to start by drawing. Like total doodles, nothing planned, nothing intended. Usually, if I noodle a bit like that and my brain starts churning on this other small act of creativity, I might get a wisp of the thought back. Or a new thought instead! Maybe a better one.
The best ideas I ever get are when I stand up from the chair and go downstairs after two hours in front of the screen wrestling with recalcitrant ideas/sentences/paragraphs/characters. Once I'm out of the office and don't "have to" produce the right thing, then it comes to me.
True to form, this post appeared at 3:00 am, when I was stirred awake, flooded with ideas. I wish I had written this question, because it’s brilliant, and because it encompasses my own struggles exactly. Mostly my experience accords with that of Prof. Saunders; almost exactly, I’d say, so there is not much more to add in that area.
[quote]
Me? I feel like I have to roll over and get it into notes or it's gone forever. I'm not a professional writer, still it can be quite irritating being nudged by the muse, as if the story is stalking me, invading my life, my mind, at any moment. Sometimes that is thrilling, when it is going well. But I can imagine a dark turn where the writer is literally consumed by his story, sleep deprived.
[end quote]
This has to do with writerly and general life training. The human, the human being, is a wonderful thing, and mysterious. Surely it’s here for something more than ‘eat, drink, and be merry,’ or fighting spring mosquitos in the night over a glowing rectangle. The question is, what? How can one, can I, not waste my time, waste others’ time?
The body—human complex—is made for training. You know that, if you’ve ever tried to make a change—say, a nasty habit (get rid of it, not just gloss it over), or simply an improvement, as you see it—how your own systems, your habit, resists you. It could even be something from childhood, ‘printed’ or ‘engraved,’ and it locks you into it, forever, if one does (and there the spell-correction wrote ‘dies’—also telling) not know better. The point here is that writing is the same, whatever you introduce, whatever you ‘print,’ ‘brand’ yourself with (‘branding’, ha) continues on, with or without you, whether you like it or not, whether you want it or not.
Not to pontificate (overly pontificate), however. It’s reality. That ‘stalking me, invading my life, my mind, at any moment’ is really kind of like a lack of training or understanding of how the system works… Having printed oneself with the desire to write a good story, and maybe not having set or established proper, or at least reasonable, times for the complex to ‘deliver,’ it’s shooting off, firing away, at all times. It doesn’t care about the timings. Maybe Prof. Saunders has this going on, say, while on stage with Ms. Treisman in LA; probably not… The lack of training, or of knowledge about how it works, is what previously caused people, artists, to go a little nuts… a lot of drinking, drugs, and worse.
These things have been demonstrated, too, scientifically. Cells have memory; the blood, ‘thicker than water,’ can cause one to… do things one, at the point, in one’s right mind, would not normally do. One is, then, actually—sometimes painfully—‘consumed by his story,’ as this week’s Questioner may be experiencing.
**
Thoughts also, if one waits for them, will often come around again. They’re not lost. If you go back to your writing, one month, two months, three months ago, you’ll see the same pattern or insight, if it is a ‘keeper’ (as a friend says); it’s often something in you calling out for something, either a hunger or something of a higher order… Really, it gets exciting, gripping, whether at 3:00 am or 5:00 pm, working, honing, refining.
One other thing: the current sleep pattern, 8 hours straight, is a brainchild of the Industrial Revolution, right? Nighttime previously was productive, a time of engagement, not worry about losing sleep… maybe there is something to learn in this.
One more thing: part of the training, to have the system deliver when you want it to, and not slapdash, is kind of Buddhist—at least if the prayer flags are any indication, the five colors, properly balanced, will lead to a more natural, consistent creativity, although the wacko way has its place, too. Safely, however, with care. Prof. Saunders may have more to say on this.
Brilliant, brilliant prompt.