Best Bits: Writing Down the Bones / Meilleurs passages : Écrire coûte que coûte

Le français suit l’anglais. By/par Jennifer Hollington.



That's the great value of art – making the ordinary extraordinary.

Natalie Goldberg



Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within is another great book for aspiring writers and storytellers. This one is written by poet Natalie Goldberg, and her prose is alive with images. An example:



It is important to separate the creator and the editor or internal censor when you practice writing, so that the creator has free space to breathe, explore, and express.... That voice knows that the term boring will stop you dead in your tracks, so you'll hear yourself saying that a lot about your writing. Hear "You are boring" as distant white laundry flapping in the breeze. Eventually it will dry up and someone miles away will fold it and take it in. Meanwhile you will continue to write.



My challenge in writing is less about the inner editor or censor, though she is always there. It’s more about the resistance Goldberg attributes to a wish to avoid work and concentration. Clearly, writing takes both.



It also takes having something to say. Too often, though, we feel that we don’t have anything interesting to say. But Goldberg reminds her readers that “A writer's job is to make the ordinary come alive, to awaken ourselves to the specialness of simply being.”



The same day I wrote this post in my balcony “café,” I was watching the neighbourhood cats and writing about them in my journal. Here’s one of the descriptions that resulted, my daughter’s favourite: “My cat, Karma, has just jumped up onto the second café chair to lick the cheese that remains on my plate after my pizza. Her tags clink on the plate. She is licking off every morsel.”



Writing Tips

”We learn writing by doing it. That simple,” says Goldberg. So try practising by following these tips:



The basic unit of writing practice is the timed exercise. You may time yourself for ten minutes, twenty minutes, or an hour....

1. 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.)

2. Don't cross out. (That is editing as you write. Even if you write something you didn't mean to write, leave it.)

3. Don't worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar. (Don't even care about staying within the margins and lines on the page.)

4. Lose control.

5. Don't think. Don't get logical.

6. 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.)



She recommends that we not set out with a specific destination in mind, like writing a poem or novel, but simply give ourselves permission to write “the worst junk in the world.”



If that’s how to write, then the question of what to write remains. Here are a few of Goldberg’s suggestions:



Tell about the quality of light coming in through your window.



Begin with "I remember." Write lots of small memories. If you fall into one large memory, write that. Just keep going.... If you get stuck, just repeat the phrase "I remember" again and keep going.



Write in different places.... Write what is going on around you.



Visualize a place that you really love, be there, see the details. Now write about it.... What colors are there, sounds, smells? When someone else reads it, she should know how you love it, not by your saying you love it, but by your handling of the details.



Write about:...

· the most frightened you've ever been...

· reading and books that have changed your life.



Take a poetry book. Open to any page, grab a line, write it down, and continue from there.... Every time you get stuck, just rewrite your first line and keep going.



There’s plenty more great advice in the book and in my Best Bits of selected quotes, like this one:



Basically, if you want to become a good writer, you need to do three things. Read a lot, listen well and deeply, and write a lot and don't think too much. Just enter the heat of words and sounds and colored sensations and keep your pen moving across the page.



Thanks to Deb for telling us about the book in her comment on Best Bits: Juicy Pens Thirsty Paper and, more importantly, for lending it to me. It was a pleasure to read and to share with Café Jen readers. As always, I would appreciate your take.



Related Posts:

· Best Bits: The Courage to Write

· Best Bits: Juicy Pens Thirsty Paper

· Best Bits: If You Want to Write