Dear Diary: How You were Born

I guess for most people Henry David Thoreau is best known for the book he wrote about his time living on Walden Pond, called funnily enough Walden. And I suppose most people would have no idea that all or pretty much all his writings, lectures and so on came from his Journal. Note the capital: he himself called it The Journal. I recently read a very cool book called The Book of Concord: Thoreau’s Life as a Writer, which is an examination of, yes you guessed it, his life as a writer. What made it extra interesting was the way the author (William Howarth) used The Journal as his way into Thoreau’s writing and life.
  As fascinating as this book is, I don’t want to talk about it today. I want to tell you about one of the things that popped out of the book for me: the reason Thoreau started keeping The Journal in the first place. It seems that one of his neighbours in Concord was Ralph Waldo Emerson (imagine that if you can ... wow is the word that comes to mind). Anyway, one day Emerson says to Thoreau, ‘What are you doing? Do you keep a journal?’ Now, it seems that up until this moment, Thoreau had been running around telling everyone he was a writer and examining nature and the life of the town. All that writerly kind of stuff. But he hadn’t been keeping a journal.
  So, he answered Emerson by beginning The Journal. And, as I said, all his writing from then on came right out of that journal. Sometimes, believe it or not, he literally tore pages or passages out and stuck them together to form the final manuscripts. Now, that is called having supreme confidence in what your own work.
  Anyway, after I read that it got me thinking about my own journal and how I came to begin it. As I sit typing this, I can see my journal on its shelves. There are 69 separate volumes, mostly school type notebooks, some exotic ones from travels in India and a few odd looking volumes. Hard to believe I’m now on volume number 70. This is my personal journal; my writer’s journals are another matter. Just like to make that distinction, though of course for a writer there is bound to be a lot of crossover isn’t there?
  In late 1980, I returned to Australia after a few months in New Zealand during which I experienced a traumatic break up. Hanging around at my parents’ house and feeling like a ‘wet week in a thunderstorm’ (if you get my meaning), my mother out of the blue one day said, ‘Why don’t you start keeping a diary?’
  Of course you don’t know my mother, but you can believe me when I say that this is most definitely not the kind of thing I would have ever guessed she’d even think about much less suggest to her son as a way of for him to deal with his grief. But, just like Thoreau after his chat with Emerson, I went right out without delay, bought a school exercise book, and began my diary (I often interchange the terms diary and journal). And I’m still at it, as I’ve said.
  And you know what? Looking at my Journal now, I feel a sense of pride in myself. I may not have (yet) written a best seller, or penned a poem that has won competitions, or even been able to make a decent living from my passion for writing. But what I can say is this: I have consistently for thirty years (almost) now kept a record of my life. Sometimes it’s been an extremely detailed account and written every day; other times there have been gaps with just scant little notes to record my doings, thoughts and so on. But, at least it is there. I have a profound sense of achievement when I think of my journal. Maybe I need to adopt the capital like Thoreau: My Journal.
  My final word must be then, thanks Mum. I know I thanked you when you were alive, but it can’t hurt to announce my thanks to the world (as much of it as reads this blog anyway) can it?

Let's Get Back to Kerouac: #8 Belief & Technique for Modern Prose

Yes folks, it's time to get back to Kerouac and his writing tips. All you legions and hordes of readers of my riveting blog will recall that a while ago (when was it?) I set out to write up a commentary on the a list by Kerouac called Belief & Technique for Modern Prose List of Essentials. My plan at that stage was to do one a day-and I kept that up for a week. Alas, I found it too much for some reason at that point. I think probably I was wanting to think of other things (not to mention my need to rid myself of the compulsion and rigidity when it comes to aims, goals and things I set out to do).
So, here we go again. This time it will be more of an occasional revisiting of the list. Well, I expect we will eventually reach the end: there are only 30 items in the list. But they are pretty wild items, and really get you thinking about writing, and your role and place as a writer. For the tiny minority of blog readers who haven't seen my commentaries thus far, please feel free to go back and read the Introduction, which is followed, of course, by posts which include my commentaries on the items I've covered up till now. Now, here we go folks.

Write what you want bottomless from the bottom of your
mind.

Now, don't say you always write what you want: who does in reality? Well I guess there are some people who just write what they like for themselves for fun kind of thing. Then there are the obsessive journal keepers (cest moi!) whose meanderings will never be viewed by another. Of course, for my part, I plan on leaving mine to some library: must be somewhere a library which collects the journals of people other than the famous ones.
But, for most of us, writing is about having it read. After all, isn't that what writing is about? A vehicle to communicate ideas, stories and other stuff to a wider audience? And few, very few of us can claim that all that we've written is exactly what we have wanted to write without exception. After all, even writers gotta eat, right?
What Kerouac is saying is just write what you want. That's it. Forget eating. Forget the requirements, restrictions and other freedom killing dictates of the world and its money making minions. See? Simple. No crap. Just write. Like I'm doing here I guess (gee how lucky can you readers get? Should be charging you for this stuff!)
Bottomless? I guess this one's self-explanatory, you think? Not sure it is now I think about it. The first 'bottomless' I think could translate to something like, let it all hang out, just write without limits imposed by, well, anything. The second one refers to the writer's (that's me, maybe you too?) mind. Dig deep, try to get your internal censors out of the way, at least for the first draft type stages, you dig?
But it isn't only about the ridding of our own censors and even inhibitions when it comes to allowing our fingers to fly their own ways. It's about digging deep in terms of finding what is there. Long forgotten memories, old ideas, snippets (cool word: snippets) of conversations or of people's faces from the past that rise to the surface from time to time without warning and with no explanation. All these things reside at the bottom of the storage box in our heads.
You can dig deep as in a kind of proactive exercise where you go hunting for stuff. Or you can simply grab hold of the odd things that you see poking up asking for attention from that bottomless pit (I mean that in the nicest possible way of course). How do you put yourself into the right place to be picking up this stuff, seeing as it's buried pretty deep in that pit?
Of course we all know and have heard many times about taking notice of our dreams, writing them down etc. This is a great way to pick up on stuff that is trying to rise above that bottomless place. Then there is the old 'walk on the beach/in the forest/around the lake/wherever' method of getting the whole system open to creative input and it sure can jolt up that bottom dwelling stuff like memories, old visions, and all.
How's this for an idea? Get a friend or someone to write you an opening line. Doesn't matter if it's of the 'Dark and stormy night' variety: the key is to have it written down for you. Then you sit in front of a blank piece of paper, or a blank document in Word, type the line and don't stop. That's right: don't stop, don't 'think' with your conscious mind or whatever you call it. Just type (or write if you're using paper. Blimey, imagine that? paper!).
Many writers have stories that have come out of such an exercise. I wrote one that got a distinction in a course i was on that started with NOTHING but the line, 'This day had been a long time coming'. Nice story too. Quirky and it brought up memories of a friend from school who'd had a hard time, thought life would be over by 21, so he was going to kill himself. (he didn't: he ended up moving states and joining the Socialist Party. Which some might say is a suicide of a kind).
And there must be lots of other ways to either actively access this bottomless place in our minds, or to have ourselves made receptive to what might rise from the surface. The key is to realise there is a bottomless place that can be used for our writing.
Write what you want, from the bottom of yourself and without limitations. You may not be able to use the resultant words to sell to a publisher (though of course you might be able to), but you will have helped yourself unleash (I was going to type untether. I think I like them both, those words) that part of yourself where creativity, truth, honesty and freedom live.

Kerouac's No. 1 is my No. 1. Read it and weep for joy

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

How often have those of us who've taken creative writing classes heard the advice, 'have fun with your writing', or 'write about the things you like/enjoy/care about', or 'if you don't enjoy writing, don't do it'. Or many other similar pieces of advice.

But, how many of us actually take this advice on board? Sure some of us may end up writing about things we like, we may actually enjoy writing sometimes (or maybe often if we're lucky). But when you think about it, when you're totally honest with yourself (and I include myself here), how many of us can say that these ideas truly represent our motivations, our reasons for getting to our desk or keyboard and actually writing? I might be wrong, but I reckon there are very few writers who can truly say they in it for the fun, enjoyment, joy, whatever.

We all have different reasons to write. Money, for those of us who have to eat is a biggie. So is the drive to see our names or our words in print. A desire to be free of the constraints of a boss is another reason some of us choose to be writers (of the freelance variety I mean). Of course there are the many many very often brilliant writers who define themselves as 'amateurs'. They are the ones who will tell you they are in it for the joy of writing, for fun, for interest, an so on.

But, even with them, it's hard to say that joy plays that big a part. Again, it is often (in my experience with writing groups, classes, etc) the desire to see one's name and work in print, a competitive spirit, that provide the drive to write.

Not many of us, I suspect would just sit at the keyboard whip out 'wild typewritten pages' just for the joy of it. We're too busy worrying about grammar, or who will buy the piece we're working on, or will i t win the competition, or will so and so like it. On and on go our inhibitors to joy filled, wild abandoned typewritten pages.

By the way, I am typing this on my laptop, which is literally on my lap as I sit in my living room. I wonder what Kerouac would have done with a laptop. Talk about the tool for wild typewritten 'pages'. When he sat down to write On the Road he typed onto a scroll of paper; this is well known of course and the scroll edition is truly a wonderful, wild read. But he didn't just grab a telex role like I always assumed and use that. He actually taped many pieces of paper together to form the scroll. He actually prepared himself for the typing and writing stint that was to come: he didn't want to be interrupted by having to change the paper in the typewriter. How fortunate we are that we don't even have to think about such things: we can type till we want to stop and then some.

Gathered around him as he wrote On the Road, Kerouac had his many notebooks, filled over the years as he went about his life and adventures. He himself said these, along with memory, were key sources for the material that went into the novel, as well as his other books of course.

These 'secret notebooks', what were they? Were they diaries? I think he did keep a diary, at least at some point: I've seen quotes from it. But mostly these notebooks were filled with his observations, names, dates, all sorts of stuff he recorded along the road. The secret part is interesting. Kerouac used to say he would 'sketch' a scene or event in words, on the spot or soon afterwards.

I guess there were many reasons why these notebooks were secret: whipping out a notebook and pen could easily become a real downer as one goes about getting one's kicks, I think. Also, if you keep a notebook or diary, you know yourself that they can interfere with the actual living of the life one wants to record in those pages.

But I think for Kerouac, secret has another meaning here. These notebooks were just for himself. Who knows what they contain? Other than the above mentioned observations that is. Fantasies, secret heart reflections, you name it. It's probably all there.

He says, with this first 'technique', that if you are to write, really write, you need to do it at least sometimes just for yourself, nobody else, and for no other reason than because it is for you. And for joy too of course. How hard this is! We always think everything we do has to have a purpose, a goal. We think of something that is done for no other reason than to please ourselves is frivolous, selfish, self-indulgent, a waste of time that could be better utilised doing something else.

Well, I for one am totally sick of always having to have a reason for every little thing I do! I think it is really appropriate that this technique is number 1 on Kerouac's list: it is a number one top notch, very groovy, and right on piece of advice.

Everyone who reads this (assuming anyone at all does read it) has the tool at their fingertips to indulge is some wild typing (by the way, I read an article that says a huge percentage of computer users can't actually type 'properly'. I did a night school course many years ago and can say it is one of the very best things I have done in my life, if you know what I mean. Now I touch type 40 or 50 words a minute and think of it as a miracle. Do it yourself and you'll see what I mean.

Get a notebook, if you don't already have one. And if you do have one start using it with abandon; keep it secret, as in from others as well as in terms of what you put in it being just for you. Some call this a writer's or artist's journal or diary. Doesn't matter what you call it. Just go for it.

I'm going to do it anyway. Never been that uninhibited with my writing, even in my personal journal I've been keeping for 30 odd years (imagine that?). Thanks to the blogger who put up Kerouac's techniques and Kerouac himself (I have a hell of a lot to thank that dude for), I now have a tool and the incentive to really let go, be myself, go wild with my typing. Who knows what will eventuate? Who can say what gifts I will receive by opening up, letting go, being free.

That's it for today. Can't wait to think about technique number 2 and share some of my thoughts on it tomorrow. Until then, good writing!