Writing Anxiety and the Academic Career:
How to Break "Writer's Block"
http://www.georgeleonard.com/writing_anxiety_prof.html
Mar. 1 2004 update. Version for junior faculty and graduate students
Online revision draft of "Break Your Writer's Block."
I'm leaving page numbers and some unrevised typos in for now, though they
won't match.
Use the contact button to offer advice, spot typos and offer design tips. I'm
trying to figure out how best to lay this thing out, for clarity. Thanks for
any help!
Copyright George J. Leonard c 1989, 1997, 2002, 2004
I ask you to notice an extraordinary situation.
In modern society, we don't speak of alcoholism or even of drug abuse as a moral
failing. We don't call people fighting alcoholism "drunks." We don't
call people "junkies" or "dope fiends," we treat them as
"substance abusers." By appropriately recognizing the problem, instead
of stigmatizing it as a vice, we permit people to treat the problem and reclaim
their lives.
Yet there is still one anxiety which we avert our eyes from, or whisper about,
as if we were a bunch of Manly Victorians contemptuous of this weakness. We
still abandon people to deal with it on their own. It is considered a moral
failing by people who do not consider alcoholism or even drug addiction a moral
failing. We don't try to treat it, we just sneer at it, and let it destroy careers.
Significantly, this anxiety disorder has never received a medical name. All
its many forms are jeered at as "writer's block"-- a term about as
precise and useful as "wino" or "nut." It is revealing that
writers tortured and ruined by so-called "block" are still a permissible
subject for ridicule in popular fiction, the way staggering drunks and hallucinating
nuts once were. In one week in the year 2000, two popular movies about such
writers were playing simultaneously, "Wonder Boys" and "Finding
Forrester."
People who would speak with sympathy of every concievable anxiety disorder, find this disorder despicable or comic. The implication is that this person suffering from a crippling and perhaps career-destroying anxiety should stop being a sissy, pick themselves up by their bootstraps and get on with it?.
Writing anxiety is so common that academia has had to develop a special term,
"ABD," for people who were able to finish "All But Dissertation."
Second tier universities are filled with
humiliated people revising their dissertations for publication-- in one case
I know of, for forty years.
I work in fiction as well as in criticism. There are many folk cures which fiction
writers have quietly developed to ease this anxiety and free the writer. This
little book will apply them to the writing of criticism.
The Magnitude of the Problem: Writing Anxiety and American Universities
After twelve years and twenty three issues of a faculty magazine in a State
University, and after nursing our writers through the Asian Pacific volume,
I am probably the great expert on faculty writer's block at SFSU, at least in
the College of Humanities, and in Ethnic Studies. I can tell you that our faculty
are some of the smartest, best educated people in the world, but they donít
publish, thougG theyíre always ìworking on a book.
Letís start my correcting a common misperception: Writerís block doesnít mean
you donít write. They all write like crazy, and they research, too. Writerís
block means you never finish, so you never have to be judged. In Wonder Boys,
the blocked writer is writing a novel which is already thousands of pages long.
When asked about it later, he replies, "I didn't know how to stop."
As long as the anxiety can stop the book from appearing, and being judged, a
thousand methods may be used. Endless revision, endless research and Internet
surfing, compulsive book buying and magazine subscribing, workshop attending--
anything which stops the book is block.
Why Should an Administration Care? And What Can They Do, Anyway?
Why care?
My experience at San Francisco State University shows that by the present day--
after thirty years of Ph.D. overproduction and the buyerís market--the difference
in faculty between a first rate research institution and the second-tier university
isnít intelligence, or even an elite education. Our people now have both. Itís
simply writerís block.
A second tier university, then, is sitting on a gold mine, but it lies beneath
the surface. Yet our second tier universities, modeled on the research universities,
donít have mechanisms to dig up the gold. These universities should create special
mechanisms for breaking the facultyís writerís block, and bringing the gold
to the surface.
If the reader is an administrator, do you think Iím about to suggest you spend
more money on this problem? Every proposal that reaches you ends with ìif you
would spend some money, right?
I think youíre spending too much money! Spend less! Every year, San Francisco
State spends a fortune in release time and sabbaticals on faculty. Iíve been
Chair of Leave With Pay for the College four times, Iíve watched the money go
out.
What do you get for your money? When the money goes out without any help for
the writerís block, very little. Where are all the faculty books? Iíve gotten
the sabbatical and not so much as a phone call from the Deanís office during
the year to find out if I was working. Why not? SFSU gives me a half year off
at full pay, and nobody even makes a phone call to find out how itís going?
The follow-up afterward is entirely pro forma.
Is giving away money like that actually helping anybody? Since I later ask these
professors, ìanything for Magazine, I watch them try yet again to finish their
book, fail, submit some excuse and get waved on, like social promotion. Thereís
a strong parallel to every other situation in which well-meaning institutions
give out money without providing treatment, and the money is wasted.
And such people, waved on as if everyone knew all along they were never going
to write what they claimed and swore in a printed proposal they were going to
write, are not happy with themselves. I have watched people put years into research
on some topic only to lose their nerve at the end and skip off onto another
topic. Theyíre no fools, in fact, theyíre some of the smartest people in the
country, and they know what theyíve done and theyíre furious with themselves
about it.
There is already a position called Dean of Faculty. But since writer's block
is the sin that dare not speak its name, how can s/he provide any help with
it?
Editors know what to do. Editors are the people, par excellence, who help writers
overcome anxiety.
In all the years Iím here, have I ever had so much as a phone call from the
Dean of Faculty, ìHi, are you working on anything? Howís it going? I make calls
like that all day at Magazine, every editor in the country has to. Thatís how
I got all those colleagues to publish who never had before. Okay, itís not his
job (and that job is so poorly defined, so enormous, so clogged with bureaucratic
paperwork, I canít picture enlarging it.) Whose job is it, then? Why isnít there
a job like that? Nancy provides me for College of Humanities faculty, but a
call from me isnít like a call from Administration. Iím only carrot, not stick.
Okay, Iíll write my books anyway, but the people around me wonít. They donít.
Itís a waste of talent and money. The gold stays buried under the surface. The
second tier university has to develop new strategies to get out there and dig
the gold up.
Iím ed of as pac american where a major theme has been the culture of silence
there are race, culture and gender issues involved
the minority scholars and women face it in different ways -- special guidance
on that
What can be done to further multiculturalism, a questionnaire just asked? How
about helping those people reach national publication, in real presses. That
lights a fire in everyoneís heart, and then in their studentsí hearts in turn.
Talk about ëself esteem!í You and I remember how exciting it was to see your
profís picture in the paper on Sunday and have him call you by your first name
on Monday. We spend money publicizing the University. The best road to prestige
is a publishing faculty, nationally known. That is an obtainable goal. Not only
is it doable, I just did it. And I have no power, none. A Dean would start with
the sabbaticals, as I describe below.
Finally, if weíre going to be basing more salary on ìmerit, a goal I strongly
support, then perhaps we simply must give people new help in achieving. Letting
people know theyíll be helped, not merely judged, could relieve some of their
anxiety as we shift to this new method of compensation. Isnít some of their
resistance that voice inside that says ìI canít! built up over the years of
trying to write and failing?
(At this point I must stop to formally say that I trained there by the late
Bill Dickey, who was editor before me; and that the general concept of MAGAZINE
editor as a kind of faculty mentor, would be impossible without the release
time and moral support Nancy McDermid provides. I already discussed with Nancy
whether I should apply for Dean of Faculty and Iíve decided my present combination
of MAGAZINE and teaching is more satisfying.)
But I see the situation and I want to help-- help you help the faculty, if I
can, why not admit itís personal, not just an abstract love of SFSU.
Hereís advice, just for starters: immediately after the sabbaticals are announced,
early in the summer, the Dean of Faculty calls each person at home and congratulates
them. He or she asks one or two interested, supportive but serious questions
about the topic, and simply listens. This call is no formality. The Dean of
Faculty asks about the timetable, says that if thereís any red tape that needs
to be cut at the Library, if any letters of introduction are needed for Museum
work, anything like that. The Deanís office will help, the Dean is involved,
the Dean honestly cares that you write your book, and bring honor to yourself
and the University. Youíre not in this alone. Weíre betting money on you. Dean
says feel free to call, and Dean promises to call back.
Every editor in the country makes those calls all the time. This isnít theory,
it isnít new, itís normal editorial practice transposed to college administration.
It works. This is why magazines have editors. I know it sounds like pressure
tactics, but it isnít experienced that way. When youíre gently pressing somebody
to do something they desperately want to do, something theyíve girded up their
loins to do, sworn on a piece of paper they were going to do, theyíre grateful
to have you there. People beg me, ìIím looking for a writing coach whoíd be
Hitler and make me write, but they really mean ìwhoíd be Dumboís feather for
me. At the same time youíre pressing, youíre simultaneously creating that feeling
of caring.
Believe me, our faculty is (by 1999) as smart and well-educated as any research
faculty. The only thing that separates them from their former classmates now
teaching at Stanford and Columbia and Wisconsin is, all too often, simple writerís
block. Giving them the money without giving them the editorial treatments, as
it were, that cure it, both wastes the money and sets them up for disheartening
failure. Thatís a losing situation for everybody, since they want to finally
publish that book even more than the university wants them to. There are tried
and true methods that have helped people beat block, Iíve used them successfully
with our faculty for twelve years, and Iím happy to share them with you.
What an Editor does: a guess
nobody really knows hereís a guess
I know all the ways to do it, Iíve done worse. And I can tell you, as a fellow
sufferer, they have classic writerís block.
Yet for me they break it. And Iím no Dean, all I have is a carrot, not even
a hint of a stick. Iíve done 23 issues at Magazine, and the book. For colleagues
I break the block by showing the writer thereís a person out there-- me-- who
wants terribly to read what he or she has written. I keep my contact records:
I can show you two years of calls behind some articles for Magazine.
It can take that long, but eventually I replace the writerís internalized picture
of her reader, which has been paralyzing her, with the supportive image of myself.
A great director just said that his secret was creating an intimate supportive
atmosphere in which the actors forgot the audience and just acted for him, taking
risks for him theyíd never dared take for an audience. Thatís exactly what I
do with our faculty. Any of these people here are so smart and so educated theyíre
bound to write something decent, if they just can finish the damn thing.
BREAK WRITER'S BLOCK
I. You May Have Writer's Block--
and never know it
II. I Want You to Go Out There and Fail
III. Swear to Me You'll Write Garbage
IV. Overcoming Stage Fright: "One Person"
V. Is this the Worst Week of your Life?
Read this to get the most Bang for your Buck.
Worst Week tip #1:
Use Simple Active Verbs
Worst Week tip #2
Replace "is" every place you can
Worst Week tip #3
Have trouble writing long enough papers?
The "Flavor Word" Technique
VI. Okay, You're Busy, but do you have 5 Minutes?
Twelve easy tips to get you rolling
1. What tense to use
2. It's/its
3. Use 's more
4. Don't print it with faint "economy" settings
5. Double space (only), one inch margins top, bottom, side
6. Dictionary -- don't quote it
7. Block quotes -- I don't accept them!
8. Comma -- none before quote
9. ... three dots, how to use
10. Gratitude to professor -- cut
11. I can't mark for xeroxing
12. No covers on paper; don't staple it
VII. So you're not James Joyce. Try these No Brainers!
Cuts anybody can make in two minutes
1. Cut Backstage ("At first I thought....")
2. Cut Modesty
3. Cut Hedging
4. Cut "states" and add precise verb ("argues""jeers")
5. Half your "that's"and "whiches" can go
6. Replace "being" with "since" or "because"
7. Change "mankind" or "individual" to "people"
or "we"
8. Change second and, also or but to a period
9. Cut unintensifiers (your adverbs)
10. Cut your conclusion
VIII. Can you spare two hours? Going for B+ or higher?
The language of power:
Plain Blunt English-- simpler is stronger.
1. Spot -ing and use new verb (was going>went)
2. Tie up any fragments with : or ; or --
3. Break up marriages
4. Strings of prepositions go bumpity bumpity bump
5. Untangle any sentence five lines long
6. Replace weak cause and effect with : or --
7. Spot a -tion word and make it a verb
8. Spot a -ment word and make it a verb
IX. The Bud Vase technique:
How to use endnotes to prune your essay
X. Firewalking. Quit in despair and
reward yourself page 30
I.
YOU MAY HAVE WRITER'S BLOCK
--AND NEVER KNOW IT
Does any of the following sound like you?
Do you put a paper off to the last moment?
Do you "need" a deadline to write?
Do you do a great job on the research and the first two pages and the file cards
and then rush the last six pages out at the last minute?
Do you, as a result, end up with work half as good as you know your mind is
really capable of turning out?
Welcome to the club.
Do you ever virtuously delay writing or fail to finish?
"Perfectionism" is a great excuse to delay writing. It's secretly
fear of failure.
Before you can write, do you suddenly "need" to clean the whole garage
and do a thousand other virtuous things you hate-- so that you sit down at the
computer and discover you're "too tired" to write?
Has this ever been you:
"Anything worth doing is worth doing right! I can't write till I read that
book."
"I can't write-- I'm not inspired tonight."
"Whenever I re-read it it's never as good as I thought it was, so I don't
even want to try."
"I need to do more research!"
"I'd write but I have to return my aunt's phone call and the cat needs
food. I'd write but I'm just too nice."
THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WRITERS HAVE:
THEY DON'T WRITE.
Can you think of a bigger problem?
Writers don't write.
No amount of genius helps if you just... don't... write.
Over the years I've become a specialist in helping people break writer's block, and
it's not because I'm a genius. Itís because I have worse writer's block than you
have-- whoever you are. Yet I've written book after book. I learned how to break
my block.
You can't make up a way to sneak out of writing that I haven't used. Like a weight
problem, writer's block isn't something you get rid of, it's something you live with
and continually defeat. If I can keep breaking my block, you can break yours.
Back when I was a full time writing professor (the 70's! Good God!) I helped, in
5 years, 104 people write full first drafts of novels with these techniques. About
10 got published.
Since then I've adapted my old techniques to help countless San Francisco State Humanities
students. What I had to learn to break my block can help you too. Honest.
The entire method that follows helps you break your block. It breaks down the overwhelming
act into small, unthreatening tasks. It strips writing of some of the fear. It gives
you do-overs and chances to write badly. Most of it I didn't invent, though I did
link it up into a method for my students. Writers have been swapping tips about this
forever, it's our oldest problem.
II.
I WANT YOU TO GO OUT THERE AND FAIL
As you start, remember: the dumbest proverb in the language is "Anything worth
doing is worth doing right." Think about it. The first time you tried to catch
a ball, you dropped it. The first time you tried to kiss someone you bumped your
teeth. The first time Van Gogh picked up a brush he didn't paint a Van Gogh. Nothing
really important is done right the first time. The truth is,
ANYTHING WORTH DOING IS WORTH DOING BADLY.
So let's start. It's okay to be bad at first. That's the only road to being good.
The dividing line isn't between people who are good on their first shot and people
who aren't. You've got to fail before you succeed. Everybody fails. The dividing
line is between the people who go out there, fail and quit; and the people who get
up and keep trying.
Expect to have writer's block! Writer's block is just like stage fright, and it's
a very reasonable fear. You're not nuts if you're scared to write. When you're making
a movie, if things go wrong, you can always point at the cameraman and say, "Bob
blew it." When you're writing, there's nobody there but you, baby, and your
ego is on the line. Quit pretending to yourself you don't know that, and you've got
a chance to bring your fears up into the light and defeat them.
1. Expect to be scared. It's a reasonable reaction!
2. Set a fixed time on a fixed night when you will be sitting at your desk and you
will begin--ready or not. You will be sitting there, at that time. Alive or dead.
Don't say, "I'll start sometime this week," or it'll never happen. Pick
a place, day, and an hour--firm. If you really want a good mark, pick a day significantly
before the paper is due. I say "night" because I'm a night person. I write
by outlasting everyone and working from 10 PM to 2 in the morning. Morning people
should try waking up before the world and writing. Writers I've known are usually
working while everyone else sleeps. That cuts off temptations to jump up and socialize,
take a phone call, go shopping....
3. On the chosen night, expect a million dull things to suddenly seem fascinating
or desperately urgent half an hour before you write. You will feel a terrible urge
to go shopping, to vacuum, to clean your desk, to return your aunt's phone call.
Compared to writing, all that looks easy. You're too virtuous to just blow off the
writing and go to the Russian River. You'd know that's block. But since spending
two hours at Safeway isn't fun, you can kid yourself and say, "I wasn't copping
out, we'd have run out of cat food if I hadn't gone shopping--I have a responsibility
to Stripey ----"
Remember: If you don't know you've got writer's block, you won't know why, a half
hour before you write, it will suddenly seem so important to vacuum the garage.
4. No more research! No more perfectionism! Fight down your "I'm too tired to
do a good job tonight," "I ought to read two more books--anything worth
doing is worth doing right. I don't do things half way. Can't write without reading
those two books ---" Perfectionism is, secretly, fear of failure. What's the
biggest problem writers have? They don't write. Can you think of a bigger one than
that? Just do it! Anything worth doing is worth doing wrong.
5. As you sit down, cursing the paper, cursing me, wondering if there might be a
career for you in the fast-growing medical assistant field like they said on T.V.,
take a moment and be proud of yourself. This is notoriously difficult. You are leaving
behind the 99% of the population that can't control their time. Conquering this fear
is great practice for conquering any fear. You're becoming stronger.
6. Now the most important technique: Hemingway's "Garbage Draft" method.
Hemingway used to say, "The only thing the first draft has to be is done."
More on this in the next section.
7. When you finish, take the time to be proud of yourself. I mean it. Reward yourself.
Buy something! Dine out! Writing that first draft is a scary business, but you did
it. Revising is all a downhill run from here.
8. If you had the nerve to write significantly before the deadline forced you to
beat your stage-fright (the real reason people need deadlines), put the paper away
for a few days and try not to look at it. Get distance on it. Then, come back to
it as a stranger, with a pen in your hand, and scribble your changes on the hard
copy.
9. Don't make changes on the computer. Print out a draft and make changes in hand.
The paper preserves all versions simultaneously. Later, you'll find you often want
to keep the phrase you hit on originally, not the revision.
Again, expect to be scared, and when you beat your fears, take the time to be proud
of yourself. You'll have earned it. Learn to reward yourself.
III.
SWEAR TO ME YOU'LL WRITE GARBAGE:
the greatest single technique for breaking writer's block.
Here's the greatest single technique for breaking writer's block.
I used to make my novelists raise their hands and swear their first draft would be
garbage! I get this from Hemingway, who used to say, all the first draft is supposed
to be is done. That's tough enough. It'll beat writer's block, which is fear of finishing
and being judged. Hemingway, you'll remember, knew a lot about confronting his fear.
Sit down and deliberately try to spew out garbage. Make no attempt at good prose
on this draft. Deliberately make typos, or even blot and crumple the paper--remind
yourself that you get a do-over. Just write and write fast. This one doesn't count!
You're just going to write a certain number of pages of garbage--relax, nobody's
looking over your shoulder, this is just a warm-up, it doesn't count.
The garbage draft takes away all your perfectionist excuses. Too tired to write?
Doesn't matter, you only have to write junk. Too stressed? Doesn't matter. Just type
any crap that comes into your head. Need to do more research? Doesn't matter. You
just write. Just realized what you really should have written about? Keep going,
don't go back and start over. Realized page one sucks? It was supposed to.
Expect fear to be greatest just before you begin, and once again, just before you
finish. But it's no problem. You're trying to write garbage, and if you catch yourself
stopping to polish sentences, cut it out. Just write. You're not going to wind up
with two perfect pages and ten pages of goop hammered out frantically the night before
the paper was due.
So: spew it out-- and finish! Do not stop and start over! Once you're done you'll
know the whole shape of the thing, and be in an infinitely better position to revise.
If you write page (or chapter) 1 to 4 over and over you will burn out and never finish.
Change character names in mid sentence. Just finish.
The garbage draft answers the question, At what point should I start writing? Answer:
the second you have a beginning, middle and an end.During the garbage draft you discover
what you should have written about. If you do too much research first-- or even thinking--
you will be overwhelmed and get scared to start. Every book lists ten books you could
read. Each of them lists ten more. Relax: no one educated feels well-read. It is
inevitable. Write.
Once you've written the garbage draft, only then do you picture the "one person"
reading it. See the next section.
IV. OVERCOMING STAGE FRIGHT--
"TELL IT TO ONE PERSON"
Another way to control your fear is an old trick which everyone from singers to creative
writers depend on:
"TELL IT TO ONE PERSON" AND ONLY ONE PERSON. Singers don't sing to the
whole house. They pick out one person in the audience and sing it to them. If you
picture a faceless audience reading this, you'll get scared trying to impress them.
Just picture one person. Big second payoff: If you can find exactly the right person,
it will automatically fix many problems!
WHOM DO YOU CHOOSE?
* Don't choose your best friend. You'll be too intimate, get too slangy and chatty.
Instead, pick:
* Someone who won't take any BULL from you.
* Someone you RESPECT yet can RELAX with.
* A SKEPTICAL person who'll take nothing on faith.
* Should be a BUSY person, an IMPATIENT person.
* Found her or him? Forget everyone else!
Telling it to only one person, picturing her or him as you write and forgetting everyone
else, will have a great side effect. You'll automatically control your tone. If you
find the right person you won't dare write unsupported, hifalutin gobbledygook because
you'll be picturing the boredom on his or her knowing face.
It's hard to find that person! I always picture my first teacher, the novelist Charles
Calitri. He liked me, but loved his kids more. He was happy to see me, but he was
a busy man: you had to get to the point and hold his attention. He wasn't overly
impressed with me, like some of my (really more famous) profs. I couldn't start throwing
the bull with him, or parade the fancy jargon I'd learned. I had to make sense in
plain English-- or else. He wasn't my age, or my best friend, either, so I automatically
stopped myself from lapsing into slang or my generation's inside jokes. When you
find the right person to write to, you'll notice the improvement in your prose instantly--
even as it becomes easier to write.
Mind you, on the first draft, I didn't picture him because I was trying to write
GARBAGE. I only pictured Mr. Calitri when I revised. The Hemingway garbage draft
technique is a more important technique than this one. Don't let anything interfere
with it. Once again, anything worth doing is worth doing badly! Go out there and
WRITE GARBAGE.
STOP! DO NOT PASS GO!
WHAT FOLLOWS IS REVISION ADVICE.
SPEW OUT THE GARBAGE DRAFT,
MAKE IT AS BAD AS YOU CAN,
BUT FINISH IT.
ONLY AFTER THAT, READ THIS.
V.
BREAKING THE ICE: DO YOU HAVE 5 MINUTES?
12 EASY TIPS TO GET YOU ROLLING
YOU'VE SPEWED OUT A GARBAGE DRAFT.
Congratulations! The hard part is over-- getting started, breaking your block!
EASY STUFF:
THE WHOLE LIST SHOULD TAKE YOU FIVE MINUTES.
1. Write about things that really happened in the past tense, as you normally do:
WRITE: Dickens wrote Pickwick,
Napoleon ruled France,
Delacroix painted the "Death of Sardanapalus."
However, Write about the events which happen inside a painting or novel in the present
tense.
WRITE: In Great Expectations Pip sees the convict
In David's painting Napoleon sits calmly on the rearing horse.
That is, don't write:
In Hunt's painting, the fallen woman heard a song which reminded her of her childhood,
and she repented.
Change that to the present tense:
In Hunt's painting, the fallen woman hears a song which reminds her of her childhood,
and she repents.
REASONS: There's no reason at all. We professors say that literature and art happen
in a continual present every time someone opens the book or sees the painting. Baloney.
Other languages routinely write about literature using the past tense, and since
all American students do too unless we scold them, that must be the natural way to
do it. However, you can't fight a stupid tradition this strong.
2. Don't use it's for its.
It's = it is
its = possessive
3. Use 's much more than you would in speech.
As you revise see where you can change "The colors of the paintings that Monet
paints" to "Monet's paintings' colors." Though you can't say a phrase
like that, it works well on the page. I've no idea why.
4. Use "normal" or "best" on your printout-- not "economy."
Please! Just for my eyes' sake. Each professor has hundreds of papers to read each
semester.
5. People hand in papers with margins so wide, it looks like a newspaper column pasted
on a white sheet. Use one inch margins on bottom and sides. Double space. Use 12
pt font maximum and don't bold it.
6. Don't quote the dictionary. CUT: "In Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, "romanticism"
is defined as..." If you could just open up the dictionary whenever you needed
to settle something, why would you need to take a course? We've gone beyond the dictionaries'
brief, simple definition. It's okay to quote a dictionary in a 100- level course,
but after that professors generally expect you to read more scholarly works.
7. I no longer accept ANY block quotes. They're for amateurs. Pick the words from
the quote which give the flavor of what was said, and paraphrase all the rest. HINT:
When you learn how to just pick the flavor words, it actually takes up twice as much
space as if you dumped in block quotes. Now that sounds interesting, doesn't it?
Detailed advice on how to do it, with samples, follows later: the "flavor words"
method.
8. When you quote, ALWAYS CITE THE BOOK AND PAGE. I prefer endnotes.
Use this style the first time you cite the book:
Fernand Leger, Functions of Painting (New York: Harper, 1963) p.55; hereafter cited
FL followed by the page number.
Then, each time you cite it, don't write the whole thing out again! We don't use
Ibid. and Loc.Cit. and all that anymore. Just write,
FL, 55.
If you come from a field which does citations differently, tell me, and you can use
that style. Just be consistent.
9. You don't need to put three dots at the start of a quote, even though you left
out something before it.
DON'T WRITE: Dickens agreed that "...if I made Pip younger," Pip wouldn't
have dared."
WRITE: Dickens agreed that "if I made Pip younger," Pip wouldn't have dared.
10. Cut gratitude to the professor and cut all personal notes about how you arrived
at your new conclusions. If you must include some personal detail, put it at the
start of your first footnote. But somehow it always comes off sounding like Bill
Murray as the piano bar guy. "Hey! You're beautiful! I mean it! Get outta here
you wonderful crazy prof kind of guy, you!"
11. I can only mark you on what you write. Not what you xerox or draw. Don't do graphics
on college level papers! I don't want smiley faces, pictures and borders. We're training
you for serious, adult work. You can't get credit for photocopying either. Every
now and then someone spends an hour copying pictures from books, hands in a paper
an inch thick, and expects an A. I can only mark you on what you write.
12. Don't put covers on your work. I only have to take them off to mark them. The
slick ones slide everywhere and stick to each other. Please, folks, there really
is no substitute for writing the paper. Don't staple the work together, either. I
spread the pages out like a deck of cards when I mark, so I can suggest you move
text to a more effective position in the paper-- from page 5 to page 1, perhaps.
VI.
THE WORST WEEK OF YOUR LIFE?
READ THIS.
None of my students are lazy. State is just too hard. The lazy people were gone long
ago.
This is a school for adults, and what I do have, sometimes, are people who are under
colossal time pressure. Sometimes the Big Paper's due the week that Kaiser changes
your shift and you also have to move a parent to a new caring facility. That's the
kind of pressure my students are under. They're not sitting in the dorms watching
soaps all day.
THE MOST BANG FOR YOUR BUCK:
If you need to know which of all these revisions is the most cost effective, so to
speak-- which will make the most difference in your paper-- here's my advice. First,
work on whatever I said was the biggest problem with your last paper. Then, do
Use Simple Active Verbs
Replace "is" everywhere you can
Can't write long enough papers? Use the Flavor Words technique.
That's the most bang for your buck. Anybody who does those three at all well, is
going to get a good mark. (I said, "at all well.")
WORST WEEK TIP #1
USE SIMPLE, ACTIVE VERBS--Change passive to active
DON'T WRITE:
Catherine is desired by Heathcliff.
WRITE:
Heathcliff desires Catherine.
If you're under time pressure, here's the biggest change to make.
This in itself will cure about 1/3 of everything you do wrong. Go through your paper
and change every passive verb you can to an active.
DON'T WRITE:
Mr. Bounderby is hated by the others.
Write:
The others hate Mr. Bounderby.
Boy, that was hard, huh? For one thing, the active verb is shorter so you're already
gaining on your speed. For another thing, an active verb really is active, it hits.
DON'T WRITE:
Misery is discussed by Dickens early in the book.
WRITE:
Dickens discusses misery early in the book.
Here's the one time you add words to a sentence yet it makes the prose move faster.
Add whatever has to be done to a sentence to fit in an active verb.
DON'T WRITE:
Dickens is considered to be the finest novelist.
[Cross out the ed, leaving "consider." Now you need to add a subject:].
WRITE:
Critics consider Dickens the finest novelist.
Use simple active verbs. Cut every word you can without changing the sentence's meaning.
WORST WEEK TIP #2
Replace "IS" every chance you get.
Don't write:
Heathcliff is a tyrant to Cathy.
Write:
Heathcliff tyrannizes Cathy.
This is one of the best things you can do to your paper.
"Is" is the weakest verb in the English language because we have to use
it in half our sentences. (I just had to use it twice.) But "is" - the
state of being-- is static, weak. So change a state to an act. Sometimes all you
need is to make a verb of the word following "is."
If you can't change the verb easily, switch to a new verb.
Don't write:
Heathcliff is cruel to the others.
Write:
Heathcliff brutalizes the others.
Try especially to change "is" plus adjective plus preposition. Make an
active verb out of the adjective and cut the rest.
Change:
The earth is warmed by the sun.
To:
The sun warms the earth.
WORST WEEK TIP # 3
HAVE TROUBLE WRITING LONG ENOUGH PAPERS?
THE FLAVOR WORD TECHNIQUE
Next to using simple active verbs, here's the advice that has made the most difference
in student prose. It even helps you write longer papers with less effort. (Sounds
good?)
Dump the block quotes! Use "flavor words." It's worked so well for students
I'll no longer accept block quotes in papers. I want you to practice this skill.
Many student papers are intelligent and gracefully written but weakly argued. One
easy way to win the reader over is to subtly document the work throughout. Adding
a brief quotation here and there (or better, just a strategic word or exclamation)
casually shows off your mastery of the texts, and convinces the reader he's dealing
with an authority. The writer seems to know it all cold, seems to have all the facts
at his or her fingertips.
Let's say your garbage draft has a sentence like this:
Fernand Leger argued that the very idea of art work stopped the audience from seeing
that beauty was always around them.
You wrote that, remembering something Leger had written. Here's what you remembered,
as it appears in the book. Leger had said,
The objet d'art becomes a blindfold which prevents your noticing that the Beautiful
is everywhere; perhaps more in the arrangement of your saucepans on the white walls
of your kitchen than in the official museums.
So quote him. Great! But don't quote the whole thing! Gayle Freshman always drags
in a quote like that and dumps it in front of the writer like a kitten bringing home
a dead mouse. Jacques Barzun used to call the effect, "death in triplicate."
Gayle always writes,
Leger felt the art object stopped you seeing the beauty around you:
The object d'art becomes a blindfold which prevents your noticing that the Beautiful
is everywhere; perhaps more in the arrangement of your saucepans on the white walls
of your kitchen than in the official museums.(5)
Thus we see that Leger felt the art object stopped you seeing the beauty around you.
----'Thus we see!' Clear now? We all start out using quotes that way. I will no longer
accept block quotations in your essays. They sit inside your prose like cubes of
frozen spaghetti sauce in a badly microwaved frozen dinner. Professionals just pick
what I'll call the "flavor words" to add the original's flavor to their
own prose. Look back over the Leger quote. What sprigs could you clip from it that
would give your sentence some taste of the original? Perhaps these (underlined):
The object d'art becomes a blindfold which prevents your noticing that the Beautiful
is everywhere; perhaps more in the arrangement of your saucepans on the white walls
of your kitchen than in the official museums.
If I pluck out those, like plucking some oregano leaves, and blend them with a simple
English paraphrase or explanation of Leger's idea, I get:
Leger hates the way we've accepted the idea that art is something one finds only
in the "official museums." He believes that lie "blindfold[s]"
us to the truth, which is that "the Beautiful is everywhere." There may
be more beauty, in fact, in the way we've arranged our "saucepans" on the
"white walls" of our kitchens (Leger's very Gallic example!) than in all
the "official museums." (5)
[on footnote page:]
5. Fernand Leger, Functions of Painting, New York: Harper, 1963, p.55. [That's U.
of Chicago Press style. Underline the title or put it in italics. Other styles are
okay. ]
The revision looks much more authoritative, and it gives the audience a taste of
Leger's own vigorous prose. You get to experience him face-to-face for a second,
too--you've learned more about him--even how French he is. Who but a Frenchman would
immediately think of "saucepans" hanging on the white-washed walls of a
kitchen? (A French country kitchen no doubt, with braids of garlic next to the saucepans.)
Yet how much work did it take me simply to notice, after I'd spewed out my first
rough draft, that here was a place where quoting the guy directly would help?
The revision took more typing than the original, and it looks like a lot more work's
been done--but it sure wasn't hard to do. It only took an extra minute to type, and
there was little or no creativity involved. It's just technique.I pass it on to you.
You will also have noticed that explaining the quotation in clear English, using
the flavor words only as spice, actually takes more space than just dumping in a
quote. Now isn't that interesting? Writing the paper well, will actually fill up
the pages faster than writing the paper amateurishly!
I want you to practice using this technique because it wins conviction, it's easy
to do--and also because it shows you that some "authorities" are just people
who take the trouble to type in a quotation here and there. (William F. Buckley,
for instance.) College is supposed to teach you to coolly evaluate an argument as
well as make one.
We want your ideas, not your source's. Tell us what you think, and delicately spice
your arguments here and there with the source's flavor words.
VII.
SO YOU'RE NOT JAMES JOYCE. NO BRAINERS:
CUTS AND CHANGES
ANYBODY CAN MAKE IN TWO MINUTES
You've spewed out some garbage.
But now do you think you've got to be a genius to revise it?
Not at all.
Here are no-brainers: non-threatening, mechanical changes. Anybody-- even you-- can
make these. They'll get you started. One way to handle an overwhelming task is to
chip holes in it until the whole thing breaks apart.
Each of these takes about 2 minutes to scan your paper for. If you even have half
an hour, you can get through the first fifteen of them.
Don't try to learn or memorize these! Just spew out a garbage draft. Afterward, scan
through the paper for these, one at a time. The list starts with simple cuts, then
easy changes, finally harder changes. You decide how high a mark you need.
Why do these cuts help?
SPEED IS POWER
Even little cuts like these help because in prose, speed is power.
John D. Rosenberg once said, "A sentence is like a spring; the more you compress
it, the more power it contains." Two cans of beer in four minutes hit harder
than the same amount of beer in an hour. You have a certain amount of knowledge or
content. If you can get it into the reader in two minutes it will hit him harder
than if you take ten minutes. It's doubly important to be able to do this because
an odd thing happens; at some point style becomes content. What you've written seems
not only better written but somehow truer, smarter.
Are These Convincing Techniques Immoral?
Does that sound immoral? It's a real question. I think that power, like electricity,
is neither moral or immoral. You can use electricity to warm your kid's food, or
to electrify a political prison fence. It's moral or immoral depending on how you
use it. One of the reasons we teach you to write is to make you able to judge the
rhetoric that will be thrown at you in life. We give you the power to convince. It's
up to you to use it morally.
Cut every word you can without changing the sentence's meaning. See the dozens of
little cuts and changes which I've listed for you in the following pages.
1. CUT BACKSTAGE:
Cut all history of how you arrived at your conclusion. Find these phrases and cut
them:
- At first I thought
- But then I saw
- Finally I decided
Why cut all this? It's off the point. The subject is not you but your idea. Just
present conclusions, no backstage.
On with the show!
2. CUT MODESTY:
- I think
- In my opinion
- It seems to me
Much you really need to say in speech there is no need to say on paper. I don't know
why-- people just don't want to bother reading it. Sometimes you hear, "If you're
taking the time to write it down, we know that's your opinion, so there's no need
to tell us." Maybe. I do know the cuts work.
3. CUT HEDGING:
- For the most part
- More or less
- Somewhat
- Rather
- As it were
Don't feel that by adding hedgers every time you make an assertion the teacher won't
be able to nail you and say, "that's wrong." It slows and hurts your argument.
4. CHANGE "STATES" TO THE VERB YOU REALLY MEAN.
Never write "She states. Find the verb you really mean! "She argues, thinks,
hints, suggests, thunders, believes, sneers, proposes...."
*Take the time to find the word you mean.
5. HALF OF YOUR THAT'S AND WHICH's CAN GO
DON'T WRITE He decides that she is guilty.
WRITE He decides she is guilty.
6. REPLACE BEING with SINCE or BECAUSE
DON'T WRITE Murder, being the only way...
WRITE Since murder was the only way...
DON'T WRITE A novel being the only way Dickens could show
WRITE Because a novel was the only way Dickens could show
7. CHANGE MANKIND or INDIVIDUAL to PEOPLE or WE
DON'T WRITE
The Tao gives mankind/men/individuals two ways to attain freedom.
WRITE
The Tao gives people two ways to free themselves.
DON'T WRITE Mankind must choose
WRITE We must choose.
8. If a sentence has two "and"s, two "also"s, or two "but"s,
replace the second with a period.
DON'T WRITE
Confucius teaches that the principle virtues are "ren" and following the
"li" and he makes it clear the choice is ours.
WRITE
Confucius teaches that the principle virtues are "ren" and following the
"li." He makes it clear the choice is ours.
9. CUT UNINTENSIFIERS:
- Very - Fully
- Definitely - Wholly
- Actually - Completely
- Positively - Absolutely
- Above all - Beyond a doubt
These are not intensifiers, they are UNintensifiers. It's stronger without them.
Example: Which sounds stronger?
- Achilles is a very powerful man.
or
- Achilles is a powerful man.
(The second: it sounds final.)
- The Iliad is definitely too long.
- The Iliad is too long.
With the adverb you are straining to prove, you're frothing at the mouth. Watch this
change:
Achilles is definitely wrong.
Achilles is wrong.
Why does this change work? Profs give the reasons I've given above. The truth is,
I've no idea. When we speak, if we say something is very serious, that's stronger
than merely saying something is serious. It works the opposite on the page. Adverbs
weaken a written statement. After twenty years of watching it work, I still don't
know why.
"Definitely," by the way, seems to be the word regular people think intellectuals
use instead of "yes." In B movies scientists always answer "Definitely."
("Do you think the giant ants are a threat to mankind, Professor?" "Definitely.")
A favorite word of MTV interviewees.
10. TRY MAKING YOUR CONCLUSION YOUR NEW FIRST PARAGRAPH
Lots of people feel under pressure to provide a dramatic, flag-waving end. A full-length
book needs a conclusion since you can't clearly remember its start. Papers fifteen
pages long need no more than two sentences by way of conclusion, since we can easily
remember the start. Shorter papers need no conclusion.
Therefore,
CUT: "Constable's works are masterpieces, for they..."
"It was the genius of the Impressionists which first showed the world that..."
Cool it. Don't you get impatient when every caller on a talk show first takes a minute
to tell the host how long they've loved the show?
OR TRY THIS, THE OLDEST EDITING TRICK IN THE BOOK:
TAKE YOUR CONCLUSION AND MAKE IT YOUR NEW FIRST PARAGRAPH
Again, you don't need a conclusion! Cut your conclusion. But sometimes it helps to
go ahead and write it, then make it your first paragraph.
Let's say this was your original GARBAGE DRAFT CONCLUSION:
We have seen that although Tom and Ma Joad cannot express emotion for each other,
they do love each other. Furthermore, Tom and Ma act out their love for other people,
rather than just talking about their love. By contrast, Steinbeck's characters who
talk about love rarely act on what they say.
It's funny how if you just chop off "we have seen," that garbage draft's
conclusion sounds like a strong, provocative start for a paper:
Although Tom and Ma Joad cannot express emotion for each other, they do love each
other. Furthermore, Tom and Ma act out their love for other people, rather than just
talking about their love. By contrast, Steinbeck's characters who talk about love
rarely act on what they say.
Once you've said that, you'll have to support it--a good start for any essay.
VIII.
GOING FOR A "B+" OR HIGHER? CAN YOU SPARE TWO HOURS?
THE LANGUAGE OF POWER:
PLAIN BLUNT ENGLISH
Here are simple changes to convert your essay into Plain Blunt English. In English,
simplicity is power, and elegance.
The following changes are just as easy and mechanical as the cuts. No fears. But
they do take longer: to do all of them is about two hours' work. If you started before
the deadline, you should be able to budget one further revision session in. Here's
where you'll start hitting B+ and above. If you're under great time pressure, read
the section titled "The Worst Week of Your Life?"
1. Plain Blunt English: Simplicity is strong.
CHANGE:
Endeavor to try
strive to try
demonstrate to show
depict to show
obtain to get
primary to first
utilize to use
Shakespeare writes: "To be or not to be, that is the question."
Gayle Freshperson writes, "Existence or nonexistence is definitely the primary
aspect of the problem as it confronts the youth more or less."
Instead of: "The boy tries" Gayle Freshperson always writes "The youth
strives."
The most frustrating papers I get are those in which the writers like Gayle have
plainly done a ton of work, know the subject cold, and can't write a good, straight
sentence. Content and mastery: high. Style and form: low. The ideas can't get through
the prose.
"First to be examined is the cut and engraved glass whose value kept it at the
purchase level of the wealthy and elite."
She doesn't talk like that. Nobody talks like that except a few people in Washington.
"Up with this I will not put," Winston Churchill once wrote on a similar
message.
In person, she'd probably say,
"First let's look at cut, engraved glass--so expensive only the rich could afford
it."
Why in the world wouldn't she write that in a paper? Well, please re-read "Tell
it to one man." Picture someone you're comfortable with reading what you're
writing--and tell your ideas to them in plain, blunt English.
2. SPOT -ING WORDS AND REDO THE VERB
CHANGE: He was going
TO: He went
CHANGE: Monet is following Barbizon rules
TO: Monet follows the Barbizon rules
3. Find fragments. Attach them to the sentence before or after them with a colon,
semicolon or dash.
DON'T WRITE:
Constable paints a meadow. A scene full of life and color.
WRITE:
Constable paints a meadow-- a scene full of life and color.
Notice that fragments tend to sound overly dramatic, heavy-handed. I can't guess
why. We speak in fragments, not in sentences. A paper full of fragments, however,
starts sounding like DRAGNET:
This is the city. Los Angeles, California. Two million souls. Some of them crooks.
(Dom da domm domm.) This is a Constable. Full of life. Color. My topic. I'm a prof.
3. BREAK UP MARRIAGES:
Ever notice that certain people who are fine by themselves become boring as soon
as they get married?
Certain words that are fine by themselves become bores as soon as they get married.
For instance, "bitter" is a fine word and "attack" is a fine
word but at some point the Eyewitness News decided that every attack had to be bitter,
every defeat had to be crushing, all need was dire need, and you know what? It was
a crying shame. The words got married and they became bores-- deadly bores, of course.
There are no parts anymore: only integral parts. All ethnic neighborhoods are vibrant.
That's the main purpose of this advice, to show you the absolute necessity of becoming
aware of this grim reality.
Divorce marriages!
- Bitter attacks - Dire need- Deadly bores
- Crushing defeats - Quite easily
- Absolute necessity - Emphatically endorse
- Main purpose - Deadly silence
- Fiery passion - Unlawful crime
- Definite crime - Crying shame
- Deeply moved - Filthy rich
- Handily defeated-Total opposite AND SO ON....
If you've heard the words paired together before, maybe you shouldn't use them.
Watch out for redundancies: "true facts" (unlike the false facts?) and
"unexpected surprises." The anchorperson intones, "The candidate met
with an unexpected surprise." As opposed to the surprises he expected? You don't
have to say "the President's usual habits." If it's a habit, it's usual.
Think about it.
4. Strings of prepositions go bumpity bumpity bump.
We unconsciously "stress" prepositions when we speak: "It's in the
box on the table by the door." Bumpity bumpity bump. Avoid that annoying rhythm
by spotting strings of preps and redoing them. You'll be amazed how often we do it.
5. Scan through and untangle any sentence over five lines long.
When we talk we can help ourselves out with gestures and expressions. In written
communication, however, all I get to see are your words. So you have to be much clearer.
Untangle those long,
6. Replace weak cause-and-effect situations with punctuation.
It'll give some snap to your rhythms, too. Spot when you've used a weak cause-and-effect
connector like "being," "since," "as," "such as,"
"for instance," "i.e.," or "e.g."
Replace that flabby stuff with a dash or a colon:
Change: "He didn't go in, as workers didn't drink in that bar."
Write: "He didn't go in--workers didn't drink in that bar."
"He didn't go in: workers didn't drink in that bar."
"He didn't go in. Workers didn't drink in that bar."
Even a period worked there. Such short punchy rhythms are a welcome change from the
long rambling sentences students usually use. Quick rhythms help.
Change: "Morris manufactured many items, such as bricks, pottery, furniture,
tapestries."
Write: "Morris manufactured many items: bricks, pottery, furniture, tapestries."
Or Write: Morris manufactured many items--bricks, pottery, furniture, tapestries."
[Notice that the symbol for a dash is two lines; a hyphen gets only one.]
A dash or colon can help you cut a whole lame connector phrase:
Change: "Morris manufactured many items at Kelmscott. Among the many items were
bricks, pottery, furniture, tapestries."
The phrase "among the many items" was just a very long way of saying "for
instance," and a colon can replace it:
Write: "Morris manufactured many items at Kelmscott: bricks, pottery, furniture,
tapestries."
Here's another feeble cause-and-effect phrase:
Heathcliff leaves, which leads to Cathy's decision to marry Edgar.
Heathcliff leaves: Cathy decides to marry Edgar.
Try a jump cut. We'll make the connection.
Heathcliff leaves. Cathy marries Edgar.
To sum up: Use punctuation to cut every word you can, without changing the meaning
of the sentence or making it unclear.
7. Spot a TION word, unbury the verb in it, try to redo the sentence using that verb.
You have to know a little literary history to understand this one. TION words entered
the language after their respective verbs. First, some intellectual borrowed a verb
from Latin, such as "construct" and after a while they made up a verb to
go with it. "When are you going to construct your.... uh... construction?"
The noun often took fifty years to appear.
It was needed sometimes:
I solved the problem.
Is that your, uh... solution?
Fine, the English language needed the word solution. But using tion plus a verb is
unnecessary because a tion word is already hiding a perfectly good verb. Just unbury
it!
Find a solution -- Solve
Make an observation -- Observe
Take into consideration -- Consider
Perform an action -- Act
8. Spot a MENT WORD, UNBURY THE VERB IN IT, TRY TO REDO THE SENTENCE USING THAT VERB.
First we borrowed a verb, then we buried it under ment. Unbury:
Make a replacement -- Replace
Make a commitment -- Commit
Inflict punishment -- Punish
Make an amendment -- Amend
IX. THE "BUD VASE" TECHNIQUE
How to use endnotes to prune your essay for speed and power.
The endnotes can do a dozen small, important jobs.
a. Use the notes to reassure us you know your stuff.
If you read six books on the subject, don't be modest-- we're relieved to know we've
purchased a well-researched work. When we're on an airplane, we don't want the pilot
to come on the PA and say, "Bear with me, I've only flown this plane once or
twice." We want to believe in you. We're on your plane.
The notes are where you add, "I thank John le Carre for confirming this point
to me in his April 3, 1992 letter. You wrote the man and he himself confirmed it?
Thatís relevant information. Nowís no time for modesty. Don't worry about looking
like you're boasting. You'll discover that readers are comforted to know they're
reading something you took special pains with. They want to know they can trust what
you say.
When I was in grad school I wrote a term paper on Jean Piaget, who was then probably
the most famous psychologist alive. I got a decent mark. I had never mentioned (and
Dr. Barzun, my professor, never dreamed) that I'd gotten the first draft translated
into French, sent it to Piaget, and, amazingly, had been rewarded with an interview
about my paper. That was highly relevant information when judging the paper's arguments.
The subject himself had helped revise it. Don't make my mistake: use your footnotes
to establish how much expertise you brought to bear on this paper.
b. You're an expert, guide our future research.
Take the time to evaluate resources in the notes. Frequent phrases: "The standard
introduction to the subject is Y. Dated, but still the standard biography is Z."
List websites for us to visit, but be sure to evaluate them.
c. Most of all: the note as ìbud vase.
You just can't bear to leave out your brilliant comment on X, your skewering of Y,
your witticism about Z, even though you know they're off the point and people are
losing the thread of your argument?
To give yourself the strength to prune the essay, turn the endnotes (better than
footnotes) into bud vases filled with what you clipped out. You'll get the strength
to cut ruthlessly, since you'll know nothing will be wasted.
Use the endnotes to prune the essay into a beautiful shape, while wasting none of
the flowers. The notes preserve them all.
One frequent situation: you wish to avoid, or ignore a famous argument about the
topic.Itíll stop your essay dead, and drag you into a boring technical rebuttal.
You know you can show that Duchamp didnít come up with John Cageís ideas first, but
itís going to take you six pages, ruin the flow, and make you look negative and peevish.
Yet half the art world still confuses Duchamp with Cage and if you donít take the
time people will think you dodged the issue.
Don't dodge! Do a full rebuttal, but do it in a long endnote.
In the endnotes itís enough to show youíre aware of counter-arguments, but donít
believe them, without even bothering to summarize them. Just cite the book that states
them best, and dismiss it. "For a 1960's Marxist view, see A. Bernstein's ....
Foucault brings up this topic in X and Y, but his premises are so different from
my own, I can't address his arguments in this paper." Youíve shown youíre aware
of the oppositionís arguments, but unconvinced; not writing in ignorance of them.
X. Firewalking. Quit in Disgust and Reward Yourself.
*Read this when you're nearing the end of a long project.
This next part is meant for people finishing long projects, term papers, dissertations,
books, novels.
Unless you know that nobody ever feels theyíve finished a novel or essay, you'll
be unprepared for how you feel at the end. Awful. You'll be tired, exhausted, the
idea will be stale. You'll want to take more time, an Incomplete-- best of all, quit
school and live under an assumed name. Maybe no-one will ever discover you tried
to write this awful thing. You'll be so aware of all the books you didn't read you'll
be terrified to hand the paper in. They'll drag you through the streets with a sign
around your neck.
Relax. You won. Not only is anything worth doing worth doing wrong, anything worth
doing is impossible to do perfectly. You can wash a car perfectly or color code your
closet perfectly. You can't raise a kid perfectly or write a book perfectly.
They had to tear War and Peace away from Tolstoi after five drafts. Fitzgerald rewrote
Tender is the Night once too many times and ìoverwrote it. Youíve heard all those
stories of the Great Author finally throwing his book in the fire rather than publish
it and his friends fishing it out just in time. He wasnít faking. Heíd told that
joke so many times he could no longer believe the readers wouldnít pelt him with
eggs when they heard it. Every book heíd read as research had ten books in its bibliography,
and each of them, when he found it, had another ten books.
Be prepared for the exhaustion and worry at the end or you may never turn the paper
in. Youíd be amazed how many people write novels and never mail them to a single
publisher. ìJust one more draft. Just hand your paper in.
What's the greatest problem writers have? They don't write. What's the SECOND greatest?
They can't STOP WRITING and mail the thing in. You'd be amazed how many people have
a finished book in their drawer, but are simply too frightened to mail it in and
be judged. Instead they say, "One more draft!" "I have to read that
new article first!"
Writer's block peaks just before starting a book, and just before ending it. You
know perfectly well that if you keep writing and researching you can postpone being
judged.
Stop writing. You won.
Firewalking.
Some of the "motivational" speakers, like Tony Roberts, have people walk
across a bed of coals. The people learn they can get up their courage and do something
they thought they'd never have the guts to do.
Firewalking? Walking over live coals is pattycake compared to breaking writer's block.
In fact, I've had ex-marines tell me writing a novel was harder than boot camp. In
boot camp you had a drill sergeant standing over you screaming. You were all alone
with the novel, in the middle of the night.
When you break your writer's block-- and you will, these methods work-- I hope you'll
be as proud of yourself as I am of you already. Just by staying in this course and
trying to firewalk through your block, you've left behind the ninety five percent
of the population who never get the guts to try. Be proud of yourself. You've even
left behind most of the people you know who call themselves "writers" yet
never write a thing, poor souls. You're doing something notoriously difficult. That
means you can do other difficult things.Even if you decide writingís not for you,
youíll have gained a lot from this exercise.Youíve learned techniques for tackling
large, intimidating tasks. You've increased your self-discipline. That's no small
thing. Be proud of yourself.
If I were to write a "Seven Habits of Highly Successful Writers" book,
it would go
Number 1. They WRITE.
Number 2. They STOP writing. They mail it in and fail.
Number 3. They keep trying after the first failures.
Number 4. Eventually they get better.
So let's start the clock running toward your inevitable victory.
Do you have a story, a theory, or an idea? Do you have a beginning, middle and an
end? Thatís all you need! No more research, no more thought-- for all the reasons
Iíve given. Youíre ready to go.
Life gets very simple now.
You fix a time you will be sitting at the computer ready to spew out garbage.
You acknowledge you have writers block and lots of things are going to seem mysteriously
important to do instead.
You remind yourself you promised me you are only going to write garbage that day.
You sit down at the time appointed and just start typing the worst garbage you can.
You don not look back. You get new ideas for page one by the time you are on page
three and you dont turn back. It is not supposed to be good. You just keep going.
And you win. After a certain number of days the garbage draft is done. It sucks,
but now you have a dozen clear ideas how it could be better. You have a whole workbook
with advice on how to revise your prose. Revising isnt a tenth as scary as creating
that first draft out of nothing. It is all downhill from here. Congratulations.
On the page below (print this last page out) write down the hour and the day this
week you will be sitting at the computer. If you think it will help, sign your name
below it. Make it a promise to yourself.
As soon as you do that, your writing life will become very simple. You do not have
to think about another thing. Just be there when you promised to. Relax and forget
it till then.
You're on your way.