Today is a ‘complete waffle day’. A day to intentionally write meaningless, useless, off-the-cuff post just for the sake of it. If you don’t want to waste your time reading it, I understand. You can stop right now. But if you want to go on a journey to find out where it will take me, you are welcome. Keep reading.
Idea of this post came from Austin Kleon’s Book Keep Going:
“Another trick: When nothing’s fun anymore, try to make the worst thing you can. The ugliest drawing. The crummiest poem. The most obnoxious song. Making intentionally bad art is a ton of fun.”
Today is my day to write the worst post. Aimless writing, without any subject matter. Reminds me of the days when I would wake up five in the morning, open the 750Words (a website based on a writing exercise introduced by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way) site and stare at the blank screen. I was supposed to write 750 words in forty minutes before getting ready for work. Nothing would come to mind. Absolutely nothing. The dread of the blank page, new writes call it.
Then, out of complete frustration, I would type a few words, something like, I feel like sh*t… when will I have something to say… And off I would go, on and on, pouring out my frustration, filling the page with useless, meaningless writing.
Soon the blank page of 750Words became my friend. I could write anything on it and next day it would disappear. I could go back to them if I wanted and salvage if there was anything worth salvaging, usually there was none, so I didn’t bother. That was my akin to what Kurt Vonnegut wrote in a letter to a group of high school students assigning them this homework:
Write a poem and don’t show it to anybody. Tear it up into little pieces and throw them into the trash can. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow. That was the whole purpose of making art: Practicing an art no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.
From Keep Going by Austin Kleon
Vonnegut would suggest his daughter Nanette that she should make a piece of art and burn it” as a spiritual exercise. “There is something cathartic about burning your work,” writes Austin, “Artist John Baldessari, disgusted by his previous work, had it all cremated and put in a ceremonial urn.”
I need a ceremonial urn too, to keep all my old journals and notebooks, may be to be cremated with me. At the moment I am not ready to burn my old notebooks and journals. However shitty they are, they are part of me. Each page reminds me of the day I lived. Daily writing is so addictive, the day you don’t write feels like the day not lived.
Somewhere along the line I developed the habit of dating each time I put pen to paper. Now I have started a project to put all those writings – some on pieces of paper, some on computer, some on the backside of to-do lists – and compile them in chronological order. It is taking time, too much time, because it takes me back to the memory lane. Many writers can’t bear to read their old journal, I enjoy mine, laughing at absurdity of my thoughts, fears and plans. That is all I have in them, my thoughts, fears and plans.
The biggest dilemma new writers have is what to write, as I have observed at various writing workshops, particularly if given the freedom to write anything. They stare at the blank page and wonder for hours. But give them a topic and they write pages and pages. I am an exact opposite. Give me a topic and I freeze. I need to do research, analyze, evaluate, form my opinion and then figure out how I am going to structure my response. But give me the freedom to write anything and I can waffle for hours. That could be due to training on 750Words or it could be due to fact that after twenty years of writing practice I still don’t have anything to say.
I pause to check my word score. It is exactly 747 words. Three more words and I am done for today’s writing. Then I will put it the ‘ceremonial urn’ to be burned with me.
I don’t keep a diary but I do keep notebooks with ideas, story suggestions, titles, clipping sand other paraphernalia that could pop up in my writing. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Notebooks are interesting to read. It’s full of his ideas and observations. It’s a pantry for writing. It’s good to flip through your own notebooks every now and then to confirm that you do have interesting and clever ideas and tropes. The danger is that you can read and then close the notebook without turning the trip into a completed story, whether that story is worth developing or fit for burning. Writing is tough. Facing the writing implement is only the beginning. Putting words together that flow and connect and engage a reader and are true to your voice as an author, is demanding and can make you despair and stop writing. Making notes is one thing; writing is another.
Writers have different approaches to writing. Some treat it like a work day and write from 9 to 5. Others close the blinds so they don’t know what time it is, start writing and don’t finish until all the ideas in their fingers and brain are depleted. They start fresh the next time. Others write as long as they can but stop short of exhausting they ideas in their head; they leave a hint of an idea where the story will move the next time they write. That way, they always have a starting point rather than facing a blank page the next day.
If, at the end of the day, what you have written is only suitable for burning, there is another waffle you can resort to, waffles (although I prefer pancakes) with a dollop of butter, slathered in maple syrup and served with fresh. blueberries. I don’t mean a cook book. I mean a yummy plays of pancakes or waffles to soothe you tummy. Maybe even stimulate your creative juices.
Hi Stefan,
Thank you for your thoughtful comments which add a lot of value to the post. One of the things I was trying to demonstrate with that post was that writing with the aim of burning at the end of the day is very powerful tool to bring the real truth and emotion out of you. Something we all should do regularly. Although I don’t feel the need to burn anything which has any emotion in it, doesn’t matter how much confronting. They say good writers tend to become fearless overtime.
Regards
Neera
Oops, sorry about the grammaticals in the last post. You know what I mean.