Books On Writing

I'm of two minds when it comes to writing books: I love them but they kind of keep me from writing. Weird, eh?

I've read William Zinsser, Strunk & White, Anne Lamott, Annie Dillard, Ken Macrorie, Peter Elbow, Stephen King, Natalie Goldberg, Austin Kleon, and more.

I went to college to learn how to be a writing teacher, taking a bunch of English classes mostly about how to read. Then I did graduate school in English which almost killed my ability and desire to write. Crazy how that works.

Now, looking to move on from public school teaching toward being more of a writer, it felt time to read Welcome To The Writer's Life and it was. Paulette Perhach has give me more to think about concerning the career of writing than I expected from the book. Her advice is good, practical, and well written. I even did many of the exercises in the book (I usually skip over such things) and at least one of them felt not just useful but transformational. If you're looking to become a writer, one who makes at least some of a living through writing words, then read it.

All that said, I'm glad to be done with it. The only thing that stops me from writing more than depression is a book about writing (or, God help me, graduate school). I get many of my ideas and motivation from the things I read — memoirs and essays especially — but when I read a book on writing, I go too slowly and can't focus on anything else. The book makes my head spin and hurt a little because I think of what I might be doing, what I should be doing, what I haven't done yet. All that thinking crowds out most of what leads me to writing. I should be able to control it, but I haven't mastered that yet. I can read a book like this once in a while but then need to go in other directions so I can return to writing.

The tough thing is there's another book about writing on my shelf: Jane Friedman's The Business Of Being A Writer. It will have to wait. I've got Dani Shapiro's Devotion in the batter's box and the umpire is motioning the pitcher to go ahead and throw. Then there's Jaron Lanier's Dawn Of The New Everything, Morris Gleitzman's Now, Philip Glass's Words Without Music: A Memoir, and — well you get the idea.

I'd ask is there anything than reading?, but I know the answer. The race is pretty damn close, but writing, man, that's everything.

Book Project In The School

At school I'm asking kids to think of the book they would write. I sketched out the project in four parts:

• Chapter Titles (6, 8, or 10)
• Chapter Descriptions (1, 2, 3, or more sentences)
• A Blurb (1, 2, 3, or more paragraphs)
• 3rd Person Author Bio (2, 5, 10, or more sentences)

"Yo, I ain't writing no whole book," one kid said in the first class. Another, her arms crossed and head shaking back and forth so her braids whacked against the chair, asked, "Mister, is you saying we gots to write a book?" They figured I would say yes but I described how books usually take years to write and we don't want to be together that long. (Stephen King writes more than two books a year, an alarming pace, but only because he's Stephen Freaking King.) I told the kids, "we're just writing about the books we would write if we were to write a book. We're making a plan to get an idea of what it might look like to be a writer and to see what we can do." There was a forty-sixty mix of relief and suspicion. That's better than my usual batting average.

"That said," I told them, "if you decide to write a chapter after we're done, no problem. I'll move onto the next project but you might blow me off to write your chapter."

This appeals to them, the idea of blowing me off and doing what they want to do. Only one or two will choose to take the thing as far as a chapter. Some won't even make it through the outlining project described above. Most will finish the project to some degree or another and move on with me to whatever comes next. (I should really think about that and figure something out.) I accept that this is how it works at this school and I get better results with acceptance than with vinegar. Or something like that.

This project appeals to me because I would love to blow off school and write a book. Best case scenario I would keep getting paid and have healthcare but write the whole day through. It's a lovely dream, one that grows more and more attractive as I become more and more burned out and feeling like I just can't face the classroom anymore. The other day a kid spat on a teacher. Another kid threatened another teacher. They'll both likely be back to school next week. Anything goes.

I could write a book about that... Instead I typed this as my students watched the television to which I had hooked my Chromebook:

I try to be a student in the class and as much as I can. I'm composing this paragraph in class while some students watch. These students don't know how to begin, don't know what to do with the blank page. They're good people (who are reading these words as I type them so I kind of have to say that) but they can't see the point of writing or maybe have had such bad experiences with writing in school that they are blocked. (Shit, yeah, one just said.) I say, "begin with whatever is happening." One said, "nothing's happening." I said, "well, there's this book idea thing. Let's start there and see where it goes."

Just writing like I'm doing might not help us with the book outline (or maybe it might) but it will get us writing. The first key to writing is to write, not to think. All the thinking and worrying and planning can come later. We need to get words on the page. It doesn't matter much what those words are (though if you could refrain from swearing or threatening I might be able to get a good night's sleep for once). We just need to feel the rhythm of writing and let it carry us.

It has carried me here, to the place in which I most want to be. The book outline I'm doing for our project is about how to be a writer in the schools and make more students into writers. Who knows, maybe it might turn into a real book proposal and from there maybe into a book. I've still got teaching to do and a paycheck to earn. I'll find the time to write early mornings before school, brief bursts in class, over lunch, and in the afternoons and evenings at home. That might not be enough to write a book but it might be. I might as well find out.

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Fun fact about the pictured assignment atop this entry: Notice the copyright symbol? Management passed a rule that anything teachers produce at school belongs to the school. They own my ass for 7-1/4 hours over 183 days a year for the time being, but that's all they get. My ideas remain my own. But you should feel free to use it as you like.

Do Less, Extremely Well

I listened to an episode of Hurry Slowly on which Jocelyn K. Glei discussed efficiency and creativity, saying they have nothing in common and might stand in opposition. I get what she was saying even as I apply efficiencies to my creative work. Creativity can't be ridden into submission and turned out like widgets. It is a process of going deeply. Efficiencies are mostly about getting stuff done while creative work is about exploring what's there. It's the difference between doing good work and just getting things done.

I need to listen again (inefficient!) because what seemed clear has become muddled. I'm thinking about the paper on which I drafted this in my Morning Pages, the post-it notes stuck to my desk, the ways in which I keep my phone and planner near at hand but closed. These are refinements to the system I use to do good work each morning. Each of them makes me more efficient at getting to the work and leave more room for me to go deeply and be thoughtful. The ideas on the post-its get me to the starting line, no need to warm up. The phone plays music but I'm not checking weather, news, or email. The planner is there for offloading ideas but closed so as not to distract. And the page on which I drafted this has just the right line height, margins, and convenient space for date and page numbers. All of it is designed to get me efficiently into the act of writing.

I refine things for more efficiency but still get what the podcaster is saying. My streamlining is all about getting myself to the creative act and staying there. These efficiencies allow me to devote focus, energy, and time to writing but there isn't any real efficiency applied to the writing of my three pages which takes however long it takes (though I'm pretty speedy and am drafting without revision). I'm not interested in getting my pages done any faster. I'm not interested really in getting them done. I'm devoted to doing Morning Pages. I want more and more of that writing. Why would I rush through writing when there are few things I would rather do? I box my job down to the contract hours, draft my newsletter throughout the week, and do what I can to minimize anxiety because those things all get in the way of writing and I can't have that.

At my day job I'm asked (told) to do more, more, more. I'm to go faster and stretch myself thinner. Be efficient to do more for the organization! There is far too much for me to do because of the shortcomings in the system. I didn't create that system and I would change it were I in management but I'm not so I don't get too worked up about things going undone. There's only so much I can do and besides, working like that gets in the way of teaching well, writing, reading, being healthy, and finding contentment. Screw that.

There's an email waiting for me at the job saying that a whole bunch of kids haven't yet taken a silly reading test. I'm sure that's true. I'm also sure there are too many kids and too many demands on my limited energy. Something has to give. The test is important to management but I would have to really try in order to care less.

Thinking of these things in bed I wrote a post-it reminding myself to, do less and do it extremely well. I added a note the next morning saying do extremely well at choosing to do less. Be deliberate in choices that frame and clear space for good work. Prepare well and refine the processes supporting that work. Choose carefully. There are only so many hours in each day and who knows how many days left in this wondrous life.

The only efficiencies with which I'm concerned are those that allow me to go deeper into the work of creating and farther into the life I want to be living.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

—Naomi Shihab Nye, The Art Of Disappearing

Other Writers & This One

I've been listening to other writers. Listening is something I need to work on anyway and it might as well be to other writers. Not knowing as many writers in person as I would like (not yet anyway), I played an old podcast with David Sax who wrote the wonderful The Revenge Of Analog . He talked about some of the ways in which he works and how he feels about writing.

An illuminating moment came in part two of the episode when he described how some writers just love the act of writing but for him it's much more that he loves gathering the information, doing reporting and research, and then, well, what else is he going to do but write it? Once he gets going with the actual writing the process works for him, but he's not the type who says, oh boy, I'm just going to write for the hell of it!

That's my line and people tire of hearing me say it.

Students at school can't get how I enjoy banging away at a keyboard for twenty minutes, an hour, or the entire morning and into the afternoon. "You don't even have an idea you're working on," they say. I tell them that I'll have an idea once I get writing. Then I turn to the keyboard or pick up my pen and go to work. The writing comes to me through the writing. That's just how I write. Well, it's one way I write.

Lately I've been thinking, okay, so I enjoy the act of writing, but what do I have to say? It's a good question but the answer in my case comes not from deciding too much before I write but is a result instead of hitting the keys, pushing the pen, and seeing what happens. Still, I'm often asked what kind of a writer I want to be. It's a good question and I ought to have an answer.

Mostly, I want to be an essayist in the mold of E.B. White, Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, and others who write what they see, hear, and experience in the world. Sure, Berry writes mostly about conservation and the natural world, but his essays range all over the place. Their one unifying quality is that they are all Wendell Berry essays. There's a feel and texture to these people's work that just pulls people along. It sure as hell has worked on me for thirty years even if I can't exactly nail it down. Who needs it nailed down?

I mean, what does David Sedaris write about? Whatever it might be it's great and I can't get enough. I've paid good money almost half a dozen times to hear him read his stuff in person. He's an essayist and I follow him like he's a rock star and I'm a groupie.

My thinking about writing is this: it comes down to finding what each of us has to say and either saying it or turning away from it to watch Entertainment Tonight. Maybe there are shades between those extremes of light and dark. Whatever the case, I'm figuring things out slowly. Pretty much one word at a time. My own words and the words of every good writer I can listen to and whose pages I can turn.