HOW TO WRITE, WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT

How to write seems self-explanatory.

Why bother is the real question.

My Grandma on my Mom’s side passed this pearl of wisdom along:

“Smart people talk about ideas, normal people talk about places, dumb people talk about other people.”

With that mind, who are the big gossips in your group?

Who’s the one who tells on everyone else?

If it’s you, congratulations. Now you have something to write about.

But how?

If you write about your group, you’ll soon not have a group.

If your group for gossip is also your family, you’ll be alienating two groups with one pen.

Then what? Here’s what: just don’t do it.

I love the story about Thomas Wolfe in his hometown. 

He wrote a book about the place and the characters.

The townspeople knew who he was writing about and didn’t like it.

When he didn’t include them in his next book, they complained about being left out.

 

When you write about people you know, you may find you don’t know them as well as you thought.

And you’ll never know them any better once they ditch you.

Which means more time to write?

 

Why Bother With The Writing

Sitting down to a familiar keyboard in a familiar setting is one of the unsung calming moments of any day.

Call it writer heaven.

You have intent, you have purpose, you have will power.

There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end in sight.

You’ve got an idea of what you want to write, a good setting, and a cast of characters.

Everything is at your whim and fancy to do with as you please.

It’s your movie and you’re all set to roll film.

And . . . Action.

You are ready to go.

And . . . Action.

ACTION?

What’s going on over there?

More reading? More research? More preparation?

Listen, you don’t need to print the Internet to show your purpose.

Don’t do that.

Your job is adding to the literature of your field of interest so someone else can print the internet.

But it’s a huge field, so immense it would fill a space greater than the seven volumes of Proust’s “In Search Of Lost Time.”

What would Marcel do?

 

It’s hard to name this feeling; it has to be taken in as an inchoate event at the threshold of one’s perceptions.

It’s not a coalition of distributable facts, but an essence, felt, to be translated within oneself into coherent meanings by oneself alone.

For me, as a poet, a hundred years after Proust’s death, it is one of the truest definitions of writing.

Proust describes it as “that reality which it is very easy for us to die without ever having known and which is, quite simply, our life.”

 

Have you read Proust? Would you recommend his work?

Seven volumes for one novel seems long.

Even Thomas Wolfe thinks it’s long.

When it’s your life we’re talking about, our lives, it’s not long enough.

 

In Search Of Lost Time

Richard Farina was married to Joan Baez’ sister Mimi, and together they released two beautiful albums with lovely song written by Richard.

This book is about his life as a sort of rebel in the early days of the «hippie revolution» of the 60’s.

You could see it as an self-biography.

 

You could write your own self-biography, an autobiography.

Or a memoir, which is biographical over a shorter time frame, which doesn’t include first breath to current breath.

Inhale. Exhale.

You could write a personal blog and be a personal blogger.

Do you need permission? No.

But, just in case you do, you may proceed.

What is your biggest roadblock?

If you think you’re too boring to matter, you are the wrong judge.

Get your work on paper, on the screen, for others to read.

Let them tell you how much you suck.

 

PS: You’re not as lame as you think you are.

 

PSS: If you are, we’ll let you know.