Friday, August 19, 2011

Any Dogmatic Approach to Writing is a Lie

Dogma; some people use it like a cane during old age. Me? I'm more of a "what works for you may not necessarily work for me" kinda guy. My father called me the Crapshoot King last night, reasoning correctly that I tend to just do things at my own pace and the proper events transpire like some kind of effortless midas touch even though there is a great deal of effort behind everything I do.

I took a "Teaching Creative Writing" class this last Spring. It was good and informative and I had to teach two classes (one on poetry, one on a David Foster Wallace non-fiction piece) and also run a workshop on a student's piece. I may never get comfortable with the idea of lecturing or speaking in front of a group of people in a formal setting, but the class taught me a great deal. What it did not teach me, however, was something I felt I knew going into it - there is no one way to write.

There have been many styles over the years: romanticism, transcendalism, surreal, etc, and within those particular styles there is a kind of form or structure (or lack thereof) that places them firmly in the genre or discipline. But ultimately, no one way is the right one, only the one that you choose for yourself. Some people prefer the more traditional forms of storytelling (exposition, character dialogue, mental soliloquies, end), but in the last few years I've moved my writing further and further to the strange side of things, which has helped me as an individual stand out. You would certainly be able to tell my writing from other people, which is what the whole process of writing should entail. Tell the story that YOU want to tell, not the one you think people want.

I've known people over the years who, after having some highly interesting and engaging pieces get ripped apart in workshop, completely scrap the project in favor of something safer or more readily accessible. I can't even begin to tell you how sad this makes me. A piece with such promise gets lost in the shuffle in exchange for something we've all read a hundred times before simply to appease the masses. We as readers (and writers) should expect more from other writers. Even if a piece is confusing and maybe a little heavy-handed, if the idea is solid and interesting, we should foster it and help make it less confusing and less pedantic. Don't we all just want to read some interesting texts? I'd rather be engaged than bored to tears.

This year has been pretty terrible, in comparison to the last 3, for my writing. I wasn't pumping out nearly the amount of pages I had the year before or the year before that. I was stuck and needed to change up my writing habits somehow. I stopped writing on my bed and moved to the kitchen table. When that didn't work, I tried wine, then moved on to vodka. When that didn't work, I knew there was something wrong. No amount of conversation in the workshops was helping to propel my own drive to put words to page.

I realized I was distracted.

In order to help alleviate the distractions, I had my best friend back home in Kansas City lock me out of my Facebook account for a month. This helped a bit, but not completely. Then I remembered that I wrote most of my second book at his place during the latest part of the evening when it was quiet. I started training my body to go to bed at 7pm, would wake up at 2am and write until I went to work at 7am. It sounds like a ridiculous timetable, but it was efficient and productive.

Saying there is no dogmatic approach to writing is, in a way, it's own dogma. But if you're running into issues, ask other writers how they go about solving the problem. It may take you several outside-the-box solutions to find one that fits. Or maybe you'll find that three solutions together form a delicious unity of productivity. Regardless, you should be writing more and that is the truth.

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