A Yen for Writing

There is advice for writers, and then there are the essays of Ray Bradbury as set out in Zen in the Art of Writing.

Written across three decades and published in 1994, they are at once whimsical and deadly serious - full of, as he puts it, the Zest and Gusto with which every writer should approach her work.  Without zest and gusto, the writer/artist/composer is only half alive - whether the passion of the moment is love or anger, admiration or indignation, by hurling that passion at the page with zest and gusto, the writer will produce something real.

There are shelves in bookshops that groan under the weight of tomes advising the writer on the roads to success, the techniques for perfection, and the rules for marketing the finished product.  Go to the 808s on the library shelf and the same books can be borrowed at no cost.  Each of them is, in the end, the opinion of a writer or editor or literary agent.  Much of the advice they contain may be useful - but only if you have been able to summon up the anger or the joy that will give you the strength - the "Zest and Gusto" - needed to hurl the mingled contents of your memory and imagination at the page.

Bradbury's essays inspire me and make me envious - all at the same moment.  I have written, in fits and starts - for much of my life.  There were short stories and long ones, plays, screen plays, letters, diaries and journals (both personal and official), small town newspapers, business reports, official reports of various sorts, and publicity pieces for local events and organisations  There was plenty to write about, but timidity intervened too often.  I had heard about the Tall Poppy Syndrome, and wanted to keep my head.  My passion did not overpower my sense of self-preservation nearly often enough for my writing to progress to the point of publication.

The passion was there - I could be as angry or as joyful as the next man, but that old fashioned virtue of Restraint held me back.  There is a virtue in holding your counsel close, listening and watching - but there comes a time when you have to hurl back at the world all the words, the sights, the sounds, the joy, and the agony, that you have taken from it.  A time to set it out in a form that suits you, that pleases you, that says it your way - or else let it turn to dust in the silence and darkness, and die with you.

Bradbury uses his essays to offer advice on how to write, but more importantly, he offers lived experience on how and why he wrote and lived, and he does so with passion and humour.  He shows, not tells, why passion and humour are crucial to writing, to art, and to life, and he shows that whatever the art you wish to practice, it is worth practicing - never minding what anyone else thinks of it, but only minding what you yourself have to say.

And he shows that the only way to do something well is to do it - again and again and again - that an author must work until work ceases to be work and becomes relaxation.  Sounds odd, but I am beginning to understand what he means.  It is a philosophy that applies equally to any human endeavour - the athlete, the archer, the painter, the seamstress, the singer, the soldier - all will work (or a better word might be practice) again and again, aiming always to do better now than before.

Inspiration is always waiting in the wings but can do nothing for us until we begin to work.

Strangely enough, the advice at the end of the book seems to be contradicting the advice at the beginning - but it is not. By working, no matter what, we find that the zest and gusto, the passion and enthusiasm, have been there waiting for us to start.  The Muse will not write for us, but will offer us help if we are willing to pick up our pen and start tossing words at the page.  It is a circular process, the more we work, the easier it gets, the easier it gets, the more we want to work - and it stops being "working at a craft" and begins to be practicing our art.

Writing under Pressure

Sounds serious, doesn't it?  Yet writing under pressure is what we submit to at writing group when the moderator of the day offers us a prompt to work to, and gives us a time span to work in.  Often it is as long as twenty minutes, but can be as little as ten.  At first thought that seems harsh, but it turns out to be fun.  Everyone at the table is operating under the same conditions, and we all know that the judgements offered will be constructive ones, given with the intention of building up, not tearing down.

The time pressure and prompt constraints force me to abandon the conscious, and often neurotic, self-imposed quality controls that can see me sitting, pen poised or keyboard silent, trying vainly to find worthy words to use, while sinking into what feels like permanent writers block.  My internal procrastinator comes to the fore at such times, offering all sorts of reasons why I should give up, and a vast array of distractions to help me do so.

Instead, the pressure helps me begin, and I write whatever comes to mind - at first, racing the clock to fill part of the page, but soon becoming lost in the developing story and characters.  Is it possible to establish a plot or develop a character in as little as twenty minutes?

As unlikely as it may feel, the answer is often yes.  The time and subject constraints make it easier - the range of options has been narrowed - fewer choices must be made - the ink begins to flow, the words stretch across the page, and I surprise myself.  Sometimes the story is obviously linked to personal experience, but there are unexpected moments, when I sit back at the end of the allotted time, scratch my head, and ask myself "where did that come from?"

Those are the fun moments, when the constraints imposed by the exercise actually set the imagination free.  The writing marathon we had in March included a music driven exercise.  We had only the amount of time during which the music was playing, plus the few seconds it took the moderator to change the CD and select the next track, to write.  Below is what that music dragged out of me......

Track 1.

The darkness is falling across the forests; the shadows are stretching into the farmland.  Smoke is layered above the village and the farmsteads, and little candle light reaches past the tightly closed shutters.

But, at the edge of the forest, sparks fly up into the night and the light of the bonfires flickers and dances across the bright colours of the circled gypsy wagons.  As the birds fall silent, and a distant wolf howls, a lone singer raises her voice.  The encampment falls silent as she sings of the great deeds of their ancestors, the notes soaring skywards with the sparks.

Track 2.

The fiddler steps forward as the singer ends her song and bows her head.  He picks out a tune – at first poignant, but soon lively, and the first of the dancers rise to circle the fire.

Tr 3.

Late in the night, when the little ones are all abed, or asleep in loving arms, a piper joins the fiddler, and voices softly blend, remembering the land that once was their home.  A quiet, measured beat reminds them of the armies that drove them out, and of all they have lost.

Another prompt, with only ten minutes to work in, produced this....

"After a week, he wanted to..."

....be safely back at his desk, in his quiet office.  He could get on with his work, undisturbed by anything other than the weekly faculty meeting and the two hour lectures he was obliged to give, each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Another wave of raucous, shattering sound battered his brain, and someone jostled him in the small of the back.

"Are you alright, Wilfred?"

"Fine dear, just fine.  Someone bumped me, that's all" he said to his wife.  She snuggled closer, and started jiggling even faster than she had been.  Wilfred tried to make his feet move in time with Mariel's but he could find no reference point to work from.  Mariel's jiggling did not match the movements of the crowd around them, and, as for the so-called music, there was no clue contained within its mad noise to guide his steps.

"Oh, darling Wilfred, thank you so much for bringing me.  I've always wanted to do something like this.  It's so wonderful" Mariel said, as she jiggled up on tip toes and kissed him.

Wilfred smiled – well, he hoped it looked like a smile; it was feeling like a grimace from the inside.  All around them, people were laughing, smiling, and swaying or leaping about.  He'd heard people describing the wonders and pleasures of such an adventure, and wondered at their sanity.

He wondered no longer.  If, as the wise man said, Hell is other people, the nethermost basement of hell must be located aboard a Pacific Party Lines cruise ship.

I hope there is no such company as Pacific Party Lines (Google didn't show me one), and, if there is, the reference is entirely co-incidental, as I have never been on such a cruise.  Obviously, my subconscious doesn't particularly want me to, either.

Would I have written either of the above pieces if I had sat down to my desk with pen, blank paper, and equally blank mind?  Probably not - neither topic would have come to mind out of thin air.  Joy, anger, amazement, irritation, love, lust, longing, fear, or hope, can all provide the constraints or narrowing of purpose that our imagination needs when writing - I am not sure that serenity or complacency could ever do the same - but pressure, whether self-imposed, or external can kick start me when the internal procrastinator is gaining control.  

As Ray Bradbury said in a 1973 essay entitled "The Joy of Writing" - "Only this:  if you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer."  For me, at least, if the zest and gusto seem absent, some sort of self imposed pressure can take me to a place where, if nothing else surfaces but anger or resentment, well, that can be harnessed.  Before long, my pet peeve or recent irritation will be flowing onto the page with plenty of gusto, and my zest for writng will have returned.