Re-vision and Re-Writing

Several years ago, before the blog as we know it was born, I was subscribed to an enormous and extravagantly rich blog-like series of postings by a UCLA professor with what seemed to me, the unlikely name of Phil Agre (“filigree?” Delicate, twisted, convoluted ornamentation). He covered in depth an incredibly broad range of subject matter. He is one of those men so intelligent and learned, who seem to exist on a different plain. Occasionally he set his thoughts down in writing.

We don’t know what we have written, Agre claims, until we have heard it read by someone else. We should read, aloud, our own writing. That is the best way to get a sense of the rhythm of our language; in the process, we catch many typos; we become aware that this should be deleted, or that should be added; and, we get a feel for how well it might communicate.

But, Agre notes, we don’t know what we have written until we hear it read by someone else. Our writing and speaking voices are so intimately linked in our mind that we can’t hear, objectively, our own writing. When we hear another read it, we really catch those benefits mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Listening to someone else read our words commonly evokes complaints from us. No, we say, you are not reading it as it should be read; no, that is not how I mean it, and in many other ways we are annoyed by their misrepresentation of what we believe we have written. But we are wrong. We are not writing for ourselves, we are writing for an unseen and unknown public readership. We cannot follow our published work and explain it to each reader. It must speak for itself.

When someone else reads our work aloud to us, we now know, Agre concludes, what we actually have said. If they didn’t get it right, they have done us a great favor, for now we know what revision is needed.

It was John Kenneth Galbraith, if my memory hasn’t failed me, who said it is not enough to write so we can be understood. We must write so that we cannot possibly be misunderstood.

Among the best writers it is common knowledge that all good writing is rewriting, but no one has said it more cogently than Galbraith (and I know he said this). He said he was often amused by those who praised the spontaneity with which he wrote; he called it, “that note of spontaneity that creeps into my work after about the fifth rewrite.”

Our first draft should be written spontaneously, with little consideration of how it will read or sound. Anne Lamott, the wacky and completely uninhibited author of Bird by Bird, directs us to write “shitty first drafts.” The object is to get the core story, idea, or essay down in words. Only after the free and spontaneous “down-draft” has been written, does the real writing begin. Now we have material to edit, rewrite, edit and rewrite, right up to the last minute when it moves out of our control. We are ready now to be read by the public.

If Not Now, When?

Someone has said, “A writer is someone who writes.” Without clarification, this is a meaningless tautological statement, as meaningless as, “a singer is someone who sings,” or “a reader is someone who reads.” In order to qualify, how often must I write, sing, read? Most of us do these things regularly. In at least a minimalist sense, we are writers, if only check writers, singers, if only in the shower or car, and readers, if only billboards or the funny papers.

How frequently must we write, and how many words or pages must we produce before we have the right to call ourselves writers? Another of those meaningless/meaningful definitions disturbed my conscience recently: “A writer is someone who has written today.” And I know what they mean by “has written.”

I’ve been a “wannabe” writer for longer than I can remember, but have had my own reasons/excuses for writing only sporadically (once I committed myself in August to write 50,000 words by the end of the year, and did it). How long, for example, has it been since my last post to this blog? I’ve been retired for an entire year and have written little. I spotted, “a writer is someone who has written today,” then saw that old, but universally applicable slogan, “If not now, when,” and realized I had to change–that day.

Since retirement I’ve had dozens, literally, of tasks tugging at my conscience and desires. Which to do? Which to do right now? Without a plan, I’ve lived the past year catch-as-catch-can. That is, amorphously, chaotically, and thus, with a constant sense of frustration. That is, until I read the slogans mentioned in the previous paragraph. Suddenly I realized that “if not now,” meant, “never,” and within a few hours a “now” schedule struck my mind.

I had been a university professor for thirty-some years, tied to a schedule of twelve hours a week (for most of those years it was fifteen) in the classroom. It occurred to me that if I were to write on that same schedule, if I wrote twelve hours every week, I could make real progress. So, a couple of weeks ago I adopted the same schedule as our local university.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I will write from 9:00 a.m. until 11:00. Tuesday and Thursday, 8:00-11:00. All other time remains open for doing the things that married love does, and for taking care of the quotidian. If the opportunity arises (as it has this afternoon) I can write any other time, but anything besides the scheduled hours is optional. I sit me down in front of Word Perfect and allow myself nothing but either to write or sit before a blank screen. I don’t pull up the internet. I write or else am stuck with that blank screen until 11:00.

This schedule will apply during the dates of the fall and spring semester schedule. In the summer, I will do two four-week summer terms, with at least a week between Spring and Summer I, between summer terms, and between the end of the last summer term and the beginning of the fall semester. When Howard Payne University takes vacation or other days off, so will I. I’ve lived this schedule so long it is part of me. I can do this.

This scheduled writing time will be as inviolable as was scheduled class time. If I miss because of illness or other emergency reasons, or if for any reason am late, I cannot claim that time later in the day. When I was teaching and missed any part of class time, it was gone forever; it couldn’t be made up later in the day.


Now, my days are structured. And it works, for two weeks it has been working incredibly well: I am producing an average of more than a thousand words daily. They start as soon as I sit, and don’t stop until 11:00. I’ve built up such a reservoir across the years that it flows as easily and steadily as when the plug is pulled out of a full tub of water. I think it is going to take a long time to empty.

If I finish a piece earlier, I edit until 11:00. If I have no morning time for editing, I do that catch-as-catch-can later in the day.

On one hand, I’m writing this to celebrate my new world in print. On the other hand, I’m posting it to place these possibilities and options before you.

A writer is someone who has written today.
If not now, when?
If not now, it might wind up (or down) being never.
Goin’ to don’t pick no cotton.

Have you written today?

Barry Lopez

Barry Lopez writes about nature, people, and places. Lopez was on a plane crossing the Pacific, and, in the process, writing. His seatmate noticed and asked if he was a writer. One thing led to another, until the man revealed that his fifteen-year-old daughter wanted to be a writer. What advice would he give her?

Barry Lopez said: "Tell your daughter three things: 1) Tell her to read, anything that interests her; 2) Learn who she is, her convictions, values, beliefs. She must write out of her own beliefs, not those handed down, caught or taught. Until she knows herself, she will write nothing of much value; 3) Travel. Get out of town. Leave the familiar.

Every writer I have read, who writes on writing, emphasizes Lopez's first piece of advice. Writers must be readers. They also concur that a writer must write out of their own soul. It must ring true. Readers best connect with that writing that makes them feel that a real person, an actual human, is speaking to them in print. Lopez's third piece of advice is valid and appropriate, However there have been notable exceptions, writers who never left their familiar territory, Emily Dickenson, for one.

If you have interest in nature and geography, Lopez is a good place to begin number one. Read Barry Lopez, a recipient of the National Book Award for nonfiction.

Blog Worth Writing?

Someone who appreciates my other blogs, told me that this one would be useless. They judged that all readers would also be writers and already know everything I might post. This, in my judgment, presented an invalid assessment, in that I doubt that all of you are writers. Also, I suspect that some of you have only recently started writing; you just might get some use out of some posts. And who knows, no one may read it at all. If so, that is okay with me.

I will write it, and that will be good for me. I have spent almost fifty years speaking before the public, as a Christian minister and as a college teacher. In the beginning, I wanted to sound like Carlyle Marney or Curtis Vaughn. Later other models came that I attempted to follow. I hoped to pattern my speaking after them. I have no idea how long it was nor how soon that I found, in the course of regular–almost daily–public speaking, I was not following any of them. I didn’t even think of them. I was following my passion, and it shaped my style of speaking–a very distinctive style, one that was clearly mine. I had found my voice.

Although I have been writing for a few years, I didn’t have that same feel about my writing. Numerous books, articles, and writers workshops have emphasized the need to find your own writing "voice." One page of Annie Proulx’s writing is enough to recognize the author, once you are familiar with her interesting output. It takes less than a page to know you are reading Hemingway, or Patrick Voss or Anne Lamott. I have not written enough on a daily basis for my voice to show up. I suspect readers reading different things I have written would say, "This doesn’t sound like the same author as that."

One thing I intend, one purpose of writing these blogs is to develop my own, unconscious, un-self-conscious, consistent "voice." Another value of writing on writing is that it will serve as a continuing process of reviewing the things that I’ve read, heard, and learned about writing.

So this is not a pointless blog. As Lucindy Packer posted a note on her desk, saying, "Never feel useless. You can always serve as a bad example." I expect that I have learned as much, in all parts of my life, by observing bad examples as I have from good and inspiring examples.

Useless Blog?

Someone said this would be a useless blog. They judged that all readers would also be writers and already know everything I might post. This, in my judgment, posed an inaccurate assessment, in that I doubt that all of you are writers. Also, I suspect that some of you have only recently started writing; you just might get some use out of some posts. And who knows, no one may read it at all. If so, that is okay with me.

I will write it, and that will be good for me. I have spent almost fifty years speaking before the public, as a Christian minister and as a college teacher. In the beginning, I wanted to sound like Carlyle Marney or Curtis Vaughn. Later other models came that I attempted to follow. I hoped to pattern my speaking after them. I have no idea how long it was nor how soon that I found, in the course of regular–almost daily–public speaking, I was not following any of them. I didn’t even think of them. I was following my passion, and it shaped my style of speaking–a very distinctive style, one that was clearly mine. I had found my voice.

Although I have been writing for a few years, I didn’t have that same feel about my writing. Numerous books, articles, and writers workshops have emphasized the need to find your own writing "voice." One page of Annie Proulx’s writing is enough to recognize the author, once you are familiar with her interesting output. It takes less than a page to know you are reading Hemingway, or Patrick Voss or Anne Lamott. I have not written enough on a daily basis for my voice to show up. I suspect readers reading different things I have written would say, "This doesn’t sound like the same author as that."

One thing I intend, one purpose of writing these blogs is to develop my own, unconscious, un-self-conscious, consistent "voice." Another value of writing on writing is that it will serve as a continuing process of reviewing the things that I’ve read, heard, and learned about writing.

So this is not a pointless blog. As Lucindy Packer posted a note on her desk, saying, "Never feel useless. You can always serve as a bad example." I expect that I have learned as much, in all parts of my life, by observing bad examples as I have from good and inspiring examples.

ROARK ON WRITING

Writing is learning. When we put words together on paper, we discover our mind. The process of writing uncovers, and accesses not only consciousness but also the unconscious. We are surprised by what we didn’t realize we knew. In writing we explore that entire archive called memory. The act of choosing definite words, phrases, and structure calls forth the hidden. Brainstorming, free-writing exercises break through all kinds of inhibitions that repress the vast store of knowledge we have acquired but to which we had lost access.

Writing therefore, is inevitably revelatory. Our self is infallibly exposed in print. Our choice of topic, style, word tells who we are. Though we choose a rigorously objective, dispassionate approach, seeking to hide our self, we thereby demonstrate elements of our character.

Even when we have traveled other paths of learning, writing helps clarify our thoughts. It demands that we choose between linguistic options. Ideas are elusive: now we have them clearly in mind, now we can't bring them into focus--sometimes never again--unless we have preserved them in writing. Then we have them fixed and stable on a page, available for examination and reconsideration. We can safely lay them aside and pick them up at leisure. This process leads to the editing and rewriting that sharpens focus. Finally we can express exactly what we think. Writing is a form of thinking.

Writing often makes the transition from learning and thinking to artistic creation. The two major elements all definitions of art must consider are form and expression. We do not write long before we become concerned with how our words look on the page. Appearance communicates. If, in seeking to understand what we have written, we read it aloud—a wise practice—to ourselves, we often will find ways to revise and improve the sound. The sonority of words, and their rhythm or lack of it, communicates.

Once we begin rearranging our writing not just to clarify meaning, but to yield more pleasing form, we may discover that writing is fun. Writing enjoyed becomes a source of therapy, bringing a degree of healing to our troubled spirits.

Writing for our own edification is one thing, writing for publication is another. When he was a reporter for The Kansas City Star, Hemingway judged that no one should write anything for publication unless it had not been said before, or we could say it better than others had done. We should hear Hemingway. Our world—and often our mind—is already cluttered by huge heaps of literary trash, trivia, and fallacy. Unless we can improve the situation, we do well to maintain a modest silence.

On the other hand, some of us believe we have something that must be said if our life is not to have been wasted, things we dare not die without having offered as a testimony. No one else has written it, has addressed it to the proper readers, or said it clearly and persuasively. We sense that we dare not leave it unsaid.

The California longshoreman, Eric Hoffer, responded when an editor at Harper and Row asked him to expand his relatively short first manuscript, by saying that each paragraph had at least one good sentence, each page had at least one good paragraph, and each chapter had at least one good idea. Hoffer claimed that this was more than could be found in most of the books published by Harper. Perhaps if we measure up to Hoffer’s standard, we can justify seeking to publish our writing.

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