Sh*tty First Drafts

I’m learning the fruit of my creative effort often ripens instantly. I’ll sit down and get thousands of words, but then a week later, working with the same discipline, will have nothing. But my job is not to make the words come. Who am I to make the words come? My job is no different than a farmer. I till the land. I fertilize the soil. I plant the seeds. Unlike the farmer, though, I am surprised when the green shoots sprout in the spring. I think perhaps it is magic, and it will never happen for me again. But the farmer knows if he tills the land, and is blessed enough to get rain, the harvest will come. Don Miller via DonMillerIs.com

—

Author Anne Lamott encourages what she calls “shitty first drafts.” Sometimes you just have to write. You don’t feel it. You don’t think you’re producing anything worthwhile. But it doesn’t matter all that much. You just need to write.

I’m there right now. As a writing and journalism double major, I spend most of my life writing. I write commercial scripts. I write essays. I write memoirs. I write nonfiction, fiction, creative nonfiction. I write news articles. I write emails.

Sometimes I can’t keep myself going. My writing seems so very forced. For the most part, that’s okay. I’ve learned that for newswriting, there’s a formula that I can follow. My stories on online registration or a student’s creative writing prize may not be interesting, but they’re written correctly. Sometimes my scriptwriting rough drafts truly are shitty.

I like Don Miller’s metaphor. Writing is like farming. It’s habitual, first of all. You don’t get plants without the process of tilling, planting, watering. Sometimes you don’t get anything. Sometimes you get lush vegetation.

So right now, when I could care less about writing, I will write. I will finish this blog post. I will finish the essay I’ve hardly started. I’ll keep thinking about the memoir piece I’m starting.

Lauren

—
Scriptwriting Archive:
Broken-down Poetry, and what it means
The strenuous marriage of writing
Poetry as Therapy, pt. II
Imagination

February 21, 2011  Leave a comment

Why I hate when you smoke, a poem

How I hate when you smoke

Revised with a new title and everything. A special thanks to Mary Brown.


On the rare occasion I want to
stand outside with you
while you hold and light, inhale and exhale in puffs    puffs     puffs,
I stand close to you.
I breathe out slow, like you do.
I pretend the cold air’s my secondhand smoke,
while I inhale yours. 

I’d never smoke.
D.A.R.E. taught me a thing or two about the tar, the nicotine
that addicts you, traps you. I wouldn’t even
dare try to light one. (You’ve seen me with one of those things.
I nearly burn my finger off letting
the butane out of its yellow, plastic trap.)
So most of the time I stay inside
while you find a friend to smoke with.

You ask me what’s wrong.
You think it’s the cigarette itself.
“I only smoke one a day, maybe less.”
I tell you I don’t care, and mean it.
Those surgeon general jokes I make are only meant for laughs.
Because the truth is I think smoking’s hot.
You’re like Gatsby.

It’s the way you hold it,
the way your big hand handles something so small –
so delicate, so intimate.
Put to your mouth like a kiss.

February 19, 2011  Leave a comment

Imagination

This weekend my friend Caitie and I went to see The Decemberists perform in Chicago. The Decemberists is one of my favorite bands, particularly because of lead singer/songwriter Colin Meloy’s imaginative writing.

I think Colin was probably like me as a child: instead of paying attention in class, he stared out the window and wrote stories in his head. An imagination like his has to develop over time. There’s no way he became the writer he is now without having a childlike imagination, since being a child.

Not familiar with The Decemberists? You have no idea what I’m talking about? Well. Let’s look at lyrics from “A Cautionary Tale.”

There’s a place your mother goes
When everybody else is soundly sleeping
Through the lights of Beacon Street
And if you listen you can hear her weeping
She’s weeping because the gentlemen are calling
And the snow is softly falling on her petticoats
And she’s standing in the harbor
And she’s waiting for the sailors in the jolly boat
See how they approach?

With dirty hands and trousers torn
They grapple until she’s safe within their keeping
A gag is placed between her lips
To keep her sorry tongue from any speaking, or screaming
And they row her out to packets
Where the sailor’s sorry racket calls for maidenhead
And she’s scarce above the gunwales
When her clothes fall to a bundle
And she’s laid in bed on the upper deck

And so she goes from ship to ship
Her ankles clasped, her arms so rudely pinioned
Until at last she’s satisfied
The lot of the marina’s teaming minions
And their opinions
And they tell her not to say a thing
To cousin, kindred, kith, or kin, or she’ll end up dead
And they throw her thirty dollars and return her to the harbor
Where she goes to bed, and this is how you’re fed

So be kind to your mother
Though she may seem an awful bother
And the next time she tries to feed you collard greens
Remember what she does when you’re asleep

This is one of the band’s most bizarre songs lyrically, and for that reason, one of my favorites. I love the twist ending. You kind of forget the narrator’s addressing someone’s child, but you’re reminded again at the end.

Whenever I hear this song, I imagine a kid eating dinner with wide-eyed shock, perhaps dropping his fork at the last beat of the song.

I think the key to being a good writer is having a broad imagination. No matter how good your mechanics are, if you can’t think of an interesting idea or storyline, no one cares what you have to say. (Ah, I mean, in creative writing, not technical writing.)

—

Scriptwriting Archive:
Broken-down Poetry, and what it means
The strenuous marriage of writing
Poetry as Therapy, pt. II

February 7, 2011  1 Comment

Losing, a poem

Losing
Sometimes I think I’m a sadist.
                I want change, even if
                                it means losing blood
                                                                                or sanity,
                even if it means
                taking my things back and
                                                leaving or
                telling you how I really feel—
                because that’s how I really feel
                (right now, anyway)—and leaving—leaving—
                                leaving.

—

Emily Dickinson is known for using dashes in her poetry. I like Poe’s use better. I’ve been spending some time with Poe (with his poetry, not his ghost…), which is how this poem came into being.

February 2, 2011  Leave a comment

Poetry as Therapy pt. II

Thursday I was upset about something (or, many somethings) while I was at Nathan’s house. After some crying and some huffing and gruffing, I did what I always need to do when I’m upset: I wrote.
I laid down on Nate’s couch with my laptop on my stomach and started typing. Nate asked me what I was doing – I quickly hid the screen from him.
“Don’t read it,” I said.
“Are you writing angsty poetry?”
“Yeaahh.”
—
Writing is therapeutic — especially poetry. I write poetry when I’m upset or particularly emotional (good or bad).

Going back to my MacDonald quote about poetry being the utterances of men’s thoughts, I think poetry is one of the best ways to express emotion. That is, if writing’s your thing.

Back in high school, when my friend Austin had some anger issues, I told him to write it out. Instead of lashing out at people, he should write in a journal. It served him well.

Poetry and writing is therapeutic to me, but for artists, painting is. For musicians, playing is. Whenever Nathan’s in a bad mood, I make him play his guitar.

—

This post is meant to be a reminder — mainly to myself. Instead of ranting, instead of venting to everyone I know, I need to write my feelings down. My journal is an awfully good listener.

—
Scriptwriting Archive:
Broken-down Poetry, and what it means
The strenuous marriage of writing

January 29, 2011  Leave a comment

Poetry as Therapy pt. I

I’m working on a blog post for Scriptwriting about poetry as a form of therapy, which will go up this weekend, but for right now I thought I’d post an example of that. I hate that Dr. King and IWU students are reading this on their RSS feeds, because of the content of the following poem. (Consider this your warning.) But, remember that first and foremost this is my blog, not my IWU-affiliated Scriptwriting blog. If it offends–sorry. Maybe if you get offended easily, you should stop reading: HERE.

—

Questions
god, is this how it works—
you’ll speak to me only if
I’m a youth-pastor-to-be,
with a microphone and
microscopic wit, whose words
are amplified even larger
than yours?
Do I have to have
a faux hawk and f—ing
skinny jeans and a
Wesleyan theology
to carol your name
like angels?
Do you even listen
to skanks who sell their
self-esteem for sex
or addicts who always,
always, always, always
give in?
Doesn’t it seem like you’re
spending too much time
with those who are good
at looking good
but not with those who
aren’t?
Aren’t you impressed
by how well I’m
recovering,
though I’m not
(even kind of, even sort of,
really) repenting?
Aren’t you tired
of being deaf
and mute?
Aren’t you sick
of being so
aloof?

January 29, 2011  Leave a comment

The strenuous marriage of writing

“Being a writer is a strenuous marriage between careful observation and just as carefully imagining the truths you haven’t had the opportunity to see. The rest is the necessary, strict toiling with the language; for me this means writing and rewriting the sentences until they sound as spontaneous as good conversation.” – John Irving, emphasis mine

I read this in my creative nonfiction class Friday as a preface to a memoir by John Irving. Immediately it reminded me of scriptwriting and the importance of writing conversationally.

The first half of Irving’s quotation is referring to fiction or creative nonfiction: you tell the truth, but let your imagination play a role. (In creative nonfiction, unlike fiction, you can’t use your imagination without first prefacing it. You don’t lie.)

In scriptwriting, I see this “strenuous marriage” — even only a few weeks into my scriptwriting course.

The radio spot writer wants to tell facts: WHAT is the product? WHERE can I buy it? HOW is this product special? WHY is it worth buying? etc.

But at the same time, it’s done in a creative way:

PERSON 1: Man, oh, man. It’s gone — it’s all gone!
PERSON 2: What is–
PERSON 1: Quick! Someone call 9-1-1!
SFX: DIAL TONE
OPERATOR: 9-1-1, what’s your emergency?
PERSON 2: Jimmy, Jimmy. What’s happening? What should I tell them?
PERSON 1: Someone ate all my Doritos!

For me, I favor one partner or the other in this marriage of sorts. I’m noticing that for this class, I’m favoring the Facts and ignoring Creativity. The danger of this is endless: I could write a boring spot; I could write something that’s supposed to be funny; but falls flat, I could overwhelm people with facts.

The opposite is just as true: If I focus too closely on creativity, I may forget to add important facts, like WHAT the product even is.

As for the second part of the quote, about writing something as “spontaneous as good conversation,” I can’t help but think of scriptwriting. That means stripping writing from very “Englishy” language. That means I don’t write sentences like:

Though my love for Doritos is vast, I only have fifty cents — not enough to buy a bag.

You write the way people talk. How do people talk? Well, go back to the beginning of the quote again. You figure it out through observation. When I’m writing dialogue for short stories, there’s always one character who has an overuse of the word well, because that’s what I do.

An excerpt:

Then he likes you?

Not exactly.

You just said the rest was history, like it’s the end of the story. So it’s not?

Well, that was a month ago. So much has happened.

Like what?

The date.

You went on a date with him?

Sort of.

Tell me!

It was nothing. We just watched a movie at his apartment.

Alone?

Well, yeah alone. It was a date … I think.

I write wells in only because when I was writing this piece, I was saying the dialogue outloud. (I even cut out some of them, because it was a little too over the top. Good writing doesn’t mean you add in speech flaws for effect. Apparently I say well too much.)

Thanks, John, for the insights.
I don’t know about the rest of you, my dear Scriptwriting class, but it’s a lot easier to talk about something (writing) when you have something to base it on, i.e. a quotation.

Just a thought.

(Now I’m hungry for Doritos.)

—

Scriptwriting archive:
Broken-down Poetry, and what it means

January 23, 2011  Leave a comment

God, relationships, and an overuse of the word ‘suck’

Alright. Well. Here’s the deal:

My favorite image of God is that of the Great Romancer – my husband. As a romantic, I have viewed Him this way even as a young girl. But, as we all know, relationships are tough. They even suck at times.

Friendships suck. Boyfriend-girlfriend relationships suck. Marriages suck. They’re hard sometimes, and they really, really suck.

Anyway, I was thinking about God as my Husband today, and it kind of pissed me off.

I’m coming out of this really low spiritual valley. Translation: I’ve felt far from God; I’ve felt far from the Church; I’ve felt like I’ve been asleep the whole time. I’m finally getting back to where I know I should be. I let God off the couch; I’m letting him back in bed. But I feel like it’s not enough.

Why? Well, a relationship is never one-sided. Sometimes I feel like my relationships with others are easier than my relationship with God because with them, I can tell if they’re putting in effort. I can see them trying. I can see someone keep his mouth shut when he usually yells. I can see her clean up her side of the room.

But God? Geez, I can’t tell if He’s even trying.

I pray to Him. I read about Him. I sing to Him. I tell Him everything I’m feeling — and still nothing. God, do you even hear me?

I feel like I’m holding up my end of the deal, but He is not.

I say, “God, I think we need to work through this.” And what is He doing? He says He agrees, but does nothing.

It’s funny because yesterday at church I filled out a spiritual inventory. It’s supposed to tell me how I’m doing spiritually. I keep thinking about my results. It sure looks like I’m a Christian. It sure looks like I’m doing all the right things. But it’s going to say that I’m not doing enough. It’s going to say that I’m acting like a baby Christian all over again.

I read my Bible. I pray. I fast. I go to church.

That inventory is going to say that I’m doing alright, but I need to tithe and help out at the church. It’s going to tell me that my faith isn’t very deep — it’s surface level — and they’re going to invite me to go deeper. They’re going to tell me to get into a small group or find a mentor or go through some membership class.

They’re going to think of me as a little kid, someone who hasn’t seen the rough side of faith — as if this is the first faith crisis I’ve seen.

Well, it isn’t.

I’ve been “married” to God for some time now. We’ve had some good times and some bad times. We aren’t newlyweds. We’re not in the honeymoon phase.

I’m doing everything I know how to do to get out of this phase.
But still it feels like God’s not holding up His end of the deal.

O Lord, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.
You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.
You know everything I do.
You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, Lord.
Ps. 139:1-4, NLT

January 17, 2011  Leave a comment

Broken-down Poetry, and what it means

Hello, my new readers.
Welcome to Broken-down Poetry.

For those of you who frequent my blog, you’re probably wondering what’s with the intro. Duh, I’m at Broken-down Poetry.

Well, here’s what’s up: Today and for weeks to follow, I am blogging for a class, Media Scriptwriting. We’re required to blog about writing weekly. Well, I do a lot of that anyway, so I thought I’d go ahead and keep with Broken-down Poetry instead of creating a new blog. (Plus, BDP needs more readers!)

So. Welcome.

—

So what is Broken-down Poetry?

First and foremost, it’s a blog I started my senior year of high school over at WordPress.com. (Funny story: I moved from WordPress to Blogspot because I thought Blogspot was cooler. Most professional bloggers are doing the opposite.)

I named the blog from a quote by George MacDonald, a 19th Century clergyman/writer. He said that “poetry is the highest form of the utterance of men’s thoughts. … Prose is but broken-down poetry.”

I knew in twelfth grade that I was a prose writer – I didn’t write any of that poetry crap. I fell in love with MacDonald’s words because I knew that what I wrote came from my heart, but it was broken into easily digestible pieces.

Okay, what do I mean by that?

I mean that I am not a flowery writer. You know who’s a flowery, detail-oriented writer? Jane Austen. So is Nathaniel Hawthorne. And so is another Nathaniel, my boyfriend, who is probably reading this and is probably not very happy with me. (Heh. Flowery in a good way, Babe.)

I am a clear-cut, let’s-get-rid-of-these-stupid-adjectives writer. I delete word; I don’t add them. I don’t waste my time describing a scene to you. I say: here’s the scene. Imagine it yourself.

When I started writing poetry earlier this school year, I noticed that even then I was eliminating words. I was breaking down poetry into smaller bites of poetry.

If you look around my blog, you’ll see that everything is short. The posts may be long, but paragraphs short. My poems are typically 5-8 syllables a line.

So what’s this mean to you? Nothing, I guess. I just find it interesting…. I find it interesting how my writing style fits my personality. I’m the one telling people to hurry up – let’s go! I’m the one who goes from one task to the other without slowing down. I can’t sit through movies because I’m too antsy.

I write the way I feel – rushed. Let’s not belabor this.

I like that media scriptwriting is all about writing within time constraints. Oh, I can do that. You say 30 seconds, and you got it. I can tell a whole story in a few seconds if I want. (Okay, I imagine it’s going to be a lot harder than that.)

But truthfully, I’m excited. Finally I can worry about keeping things short than adding words to meet some stupid page requirement.

Win!

January 16, 2011  Leave a comment

I love you.

I call this a prose poem. 
I also call it an apology.
—
I love you.
Okay, now say it with more feeling.
I love you?
Better, but with more passion this time.
I love you?
Close, but it’s missing something. Say my name.
I love you, Caitlyn.
Say it slower though, like you mean it.
I loooovvee yooo—
Not that slow!
I…love…you…Caitlyn.
Better, but it’s still not right. Hmm. Call me something else—call me “babe.”
I love you, Babe.
Try “baby.”
I love you, Baby.
Maybe it’s what you’re wearing. Can you put something else on?
[In a hat.] I love you.
Now you look ridiculous. Say it to me over dinner tonight.
[Over dinner tonight.] I love you.
What if you were holding a ring?
[Holding a ring.] I love you.
God, that’s still not right. Someone get this guy a baby!
[With a child.] I love you.
Hmm. Take me on vacation; tell me then.
[Clinking glasses.] I love you.
Now say it while you kiss me!

Mm mmuvf mooph.

Are you trying at all?
I LOVE YOU!
You don’t have to shout it! Geez.
. . .  
You don’t love me at all, do you?
Bitch.

January 5, 2011  Leave a comment

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