Writing Down The Bones: Freeing The Writer Within Read Free

for you
I owe you two bucks.
     
How you doin’?
     
Fine. When I get it
I’ll bring it up to you. 1
    You can find many prescription-pad-size poems in his collected works.
    Sometimes, instead of writing in a notebook, you might want to directly type out your thoughts. Writing is physical and is affected by the equipment you use. In typing, your fingers hit keys and the result is block, black letters: a different aspect of yourself may come out. I have found that when I am writing something emotional, I must write it the first time directly with hand on paper. Handwriting is more connected to the movement of the heart. Yet, when I tell stories, I go straight to the typewriter.
    Another thing you can try is speaking into a tape recorder and feeling how it is to directly record your voice speaking your thoughts. Or you might use it for convenience’ sake: you might be working on the hem of a dress and you begin to think how it was with your ex-husband and you want to write about it. Your hands are busy sewing; you can talk about it into a recorder.
    I have not worked very much with a computer, but I can imagine using a Macintosh, where the keyboard can be put on my lap, closing my eyes and just typing away. The computer automatically returns the carriage. The device is called “wraparound.” You can rap nonstop. You don’t have to worry about the typewriter ringing a little bell at the end of a line.
    Experiment. Even try writing in a big drawing pad. It is true that the inside world creates the outside world, but the outside world and our tools also affect the way we form our thoughts. Try skywriting.
    Choose your tools carefully, but not so carefully that you get uptight or spend more time at the stationery store than at your writing table.

 
    First Thoughts
     
    T HE BASIC UNIT of writing practice is the timed exercise. You may time yourself for ten minutes, twenty minutes, or an hour. It’s up to you. At the beginning you may want to start small and after a week increase your time, or you may want to dive in for an hour the first time. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that whatever amount of time you choose for that session, you must commit yourself to it and for that full period:
     
    Keep your hand moving . (Don’t pause to reread the line you have just written. That’s stalling and trying to get control of what you’re saying.)
     
Don’t cross out . (That is editing as you write. Even if you write something you didn’t mean to write, leave it.)
     
Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar . (Don’t even care about staying within the margins and lines on the page.)
     
Lose control .
     
Don’t think. Don’t get logical .
     
Go for the jugular . (If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.)
     
    These are the rules. It is important to adhere to them because the aim is to burn through to first thoughts, to the place where energy is unobstructed by social politeness or the internal censor, to the place where you are writing what your mind actually sees and feels, not what it thinks it should see or feel. It’s a great opportunity to capture the oddities of your mind. Explore the rugged edge of thought. Like grating a carrot, give the paper the colorful coleslaw of your consciousness.
    First thoughts have tremendous energy. It is the way the mind first flashes on something. The internal censor usually squelches them, so we live in the realm of second and third thoughts, thoughts on thought, twice and three times removed from the direct connection of the first fresh flash. For instance, the phrase “I cut the daisy from my throat” shot through my mind. Now my second thought, carefully tutored in 1 + 1 = 2 logic, in politeness, fear, and embarrassment at the natural, would say, “That’s ridiculous. You sound suicidal. Don’t show yourself cutting your throat. Someone will think you are crazy.” And instead, if we