Sheesh. After talking about lean writing, verbose writing, soundbite writing, warrant writing, personal writing . . . what to do . . . I wish I was just at the beach where I could think better . . .
Then I saw what I was doing and had a memory. (The class sighs. Dr. PD has a memory. Again.)
I was stuck. Chapter Three of my dissertation had my butt in a sling. Really. Nada. Books piled on the floor, some of which that had become make-shift coffee tables, were crunching in on me. I think they call this writer's block. I tried everything: wine, t.v., calling my bff and running it all down again, re-reading, screaming, pacing, and railing at the sky that I should have gone into another major. My dear friend and mentor, Frank Walters, ran into me in Haley Center and saw that we were quite near a fundamental breakdown and out of mercy sat me down somewhere on a bench. After the wailing and teeth grinding subsided a bit, he offered his well-earned, academic-type advice:
Write crap. (Language cleaned up here for formality purposes.)
Not out of self defense, not as a last ditch effort, but very much ON PURPOSE. Aggressive crap writing. Take that.
Right, I'm with you. An English prof saying write poo? Seriously? What I would have given to have heard that all along.
And so I did. I wrote a load of ka-ka. Laughing all the way. Somewhere along page twelve, I had an idea. My muse grabbed my brain and went: Have you thought of this? Brilliant. Yes. I couldn't stop. And it wasn't ka-ka.
Here's the thing: I had forgotten it was a joy ride, screams and all, and had made it straight up work. Now. That's not what we are in it for, is it? Turns out, I can revise crap and make it gold once the muse starts singing. (P.S. That chapter is still my favorite.)
You ever notice how that paper with all the angst and sweat that you thought was crap got an A? You ever notice how that one that was perfect got a B?
We've talked about risk taking. Yeah, yeah. Gotta stay in the parameters of the assignment, research the field, cite correctly . . . but once you get that, you got it. Sometimes, the risk is worth it. (Says the girl who included The Da Vinci Code in her dissertation.) But wait: isn't this the same as our daily, grinding lives? Lesse--don't speed, don't drink too much, go to class, don't be late for work, brush your hair . . .
Where is the muse here? Does she get to sing off of paper or are we all a bit too pansy to try that out? I'm thinking here that really being awake, really throwing it out there in our lives (even though it may start out as crap) could lead to our favorite chapter, the love of our lives, the job that makes it all worth it, a lesson of unfathomable proportions. Can we revise crap? As long as it's not in print yet, I think so, and that print is pretty much the tombstone, yes?
I wrote this purposefully forgetting rules of grammar and propriety (except for not saying the word shit, which I just gave in on) in order to get something out. I know where the edit button is. Sometimes you just gotta say . . .
