Kerouac's Belief & Technique for Modern Prose: My Commentary Begins

I heard about Kerouac's list of writing tips called Belief & Technique for Modern Prose from the search I have set up in Tweeter for anything Kerouac (being a bit of a Beat, as well as beat-lower case-tragic). The tweet led me to a blog on which the blogger had posted the list, along with a list of tips from Kurt Vonnegut. As anyone who knows Kerouac's writing would already be guessing, his are a bit crazy, a little way out there, some verging on the mystical, others on the edge of reason. I don't really know Vonnegut's writing at all, but his tips are a bit more down to earth and even more directly related to the craft of writing-at least in the sense of mundane technical skills and so on. Also he has a nice succinct list of eight, while Kerouac has 30 on his list.

As soon as I read the Kerouac list I was blown away - just as it seems many people have been judging by the comments over at that other blog. Oh, almost forgot to give you all the address. It is: www.halfdesertedstreets.com/ . And an interesting site it it too. Very inspirational and friendly too. The blog owner calls themselves a book dork. Now that is something to be proud of, don't you think? I'm happy to have that label on me too. Just have to read a bit more first!

Anyway, I had this idea I would like to comment on at least some of 'tips' Kerouac offers. Then I thought, why not do a full blown bit of a commentary on a few of them that really struck me? But I thought then (lots of thinking going on here...makes a change my friends would say!) I would take the list from start to finish and comment on each tip in turn. It occurred to me that this may be the best way to do Kerouac's list justice. After all he chose to list the tips in the order that he did; maybe he was thinking clearly when he did it and prioritised the tips, or maybe he was off his face and was just rapping and it all came out in any old crazy and irrelevant order. Who knows? Hey, maybe someone out there does know??? Wow, that would be groovy. Let me know please!!!

So, that's what I'm going to do: Starting tomorrow I am going to work through the list. What a challenge; what a way to hon0ur one of my writing heroes. (which is not the same as saying he is one of my heroes for my life; but that's another VERY BIG story for another far off day).

Number 1 on Kerouac's list says:

Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr [sic] own joy.

Isn't that wild? Oops. Not now. Tomorrow. I want to sleep on this idea and let it just sink in. I want to really dig it before I go spouting off about it.

I feel one thing about Kerouac that needs to be said here and now. I believe strongly that he always struggled very hard for the truth. Not always in the way you or I might (or would dare?), and not always in ways that actually led anywhere useful (useful being a matter of perspective of course). But the search was genuine, of that I have never had any doubt, nor have most other serious readers of his work. This is why he fits here, on this blog. Besides, he is also a great writer: any tips he has are worth at least a little thought for any writer.

It is kind of a nice fit that his work was for a time influenced by Buddhism and his interpretation of the Dharma. And he was a dreamer too, wasn't he? And many since have used his work and life to inform their own Dreaming, their own searches for truth and life.

So, tomorrow then. I thank my fellow blogger for sharing these tips with all of us. Of course I and anyone could have found (perhaps should have found them before now) this list on our own, but the fact is, I didn't. Now I have. As I wrote on my comment on that blog: VERY GROOVY.

Write the Truth. What else is there?

I'm reading Jack Kerouac's On the Road: The Original Scroll at the moment. Now, this is a very groovy book: so much of what Kerouac wrote didn't end up in the published version of the novel. The names are real (a whole lot less confusing for sure) and there are many scenes, different sentence structures, lots of stuff, that make it a whole new and exciting experience to read.

Anyway, one of the features of this book are the essays in front of the novel itself. They are by all sorts of Kerouac scholars, literary types etc, and they give some interesting new perspectives on this very famous, very cool and life-changing novel (as well as others by Kerouac such as The Dharma Bums, Big Sur and others). In one of the essays there is a quote from Kerouac's diary or from a letter he wrote (I forget which):

"There is nothing to do but write the truth. There is no other reason to write."

That's what he said, and to me it seems a pretty succinct way of putting my own writing philosophy (well, a part of my writing philosophy at least).

Kerouac's quote says two things. First, writing the truth is the only thing to do. And, second, writing the truth is the only reason to write. The conclusion one could draw from this is that all of his writing was true, or the truth. Of course, as we know, Kerouac wrote novels (among other things: his poetry is pretty wild also) about his own and his friends' adventures and lives as part of what became known as the Beat Generation of the late 1940s and 1950s. And, as one who has read the biographies, I know that what he wrote in his novels wasn't always factual: he made stuff up, invented characters and events and so on. Just like any novelist does.

You notice I said his writing wasn't always factual. That's not to say he wasn't writing the truth. Another of Kerouac's quotes (again I have no idea of the exact source, sorry) says, "The truth is the way consciousness really digs everything that happens." In other words the truth is in the eyes of the beholder. Anyone who has read Kerouac will tell you that he always went for the essence of whatever was going on; he was very intense, always open and looking for the heart of the matter - and the people, places and goings on he was involved with.

Now, if that essence of heart of the matter stuff had to be dressed up or disguised for whatever reason, then it was okay as long as it, to quote from another quote (the author of which I have long since forgotten. I collect quotes but often lose the bits of paper I wrote them on), "serves some notion of truth''.

There is obviously room for manipulation here isn't there? What if I as a writer tell you that what I've written is true, and I lead you to believe that this ''true'' means factual? It's easy to do and it's done all the time (no need for me to point out the litany of literary hoaxes from over the years that gets trotted out in discussions of this sort). And, the manipulation may not necessarily be deliberate: I could by innocent omission give the impression that what I've written is fact. Again, it's been done.

What it boils down to for me is pretty much what I refer to in the description at the top of this blog: we are all searching for truth, artists perhaps more than most people. but the only truth we can ever know is that which comes from our own exploration of ourselves and the world. It doesn't matter how we dress it up or in what terms we define it or whatever; all that matters is that it is our truth. And that we are honest with ourselves too. If we are honest with ourselves, then we are by default being honest with our readers (if we are lucky enough to have readers that is). As writers, as artists, that's all that is required of us. Like Kerouac says, let your own unique consciousness really dig exactly what happens.
Thanks!