The Write Way - Part 1

About a half dozen people have asked me about how I write. I'm flattered that they would care and I'd never really thought about the process very much. So, I took a few days to organize a rather-incomplete outline on the subject. I hope it can give at least a small idea. Someone wondered if I ever get writer's block (which I will address in “general statements”). A mother wanted advice about writing methods for her teenage daughter who (according to mom) has a similar writing style to mine (what I will refer to as “method and technique”). Another person wondered about how I argue for a position and why that is so important to me (what I will refer to as “argument and debate” in the following posts). So, I've written four posts that hope will address these things as I see them. I will attempt to integrate the very concepts I present IN to the writing of these posts. As you might expect from me I don't mind taking this opportunity to also inject my own philosophies into the discussion.

GENERAL STATEMENTS

CAVEAT

Please keep in mind that I'm not an English teacher and what I'm saying in these posts is only my way of handling writing. It most certainly is not the “right” way, because there is no “right” way (hence the spelling of the title). Also, even though I'm trying to sound authoritatively instructive, please take my “you should”s with a pinch of sea salt.

WRITER'S BLOCK—DON'T WORRY

First let me say that there was only one time in my life that I had writer's block. It was around 1993. To this day I have no idea why this happened. It was extremely frustrating and – in my typically anxious and melodramatic way – it made me question whether my ability to write words was gone forever. I wasn't writing prose at the time, only songs. The people who I looked to for support at the time were not particularly helpful or sympathetic. My ignorant and conservative parents said things like, “Well, maybe this means that you need to look for another career.” But my girlfriend, at the time – to her credit – encouraged me to focus on what was still left—music.

Nothing especially significant had happened that year to cause such paucity. I was still able to record an ambient (instrumental) album (that would end up being “Monsters of Light”). Thankfully, something about re-focusing all my energy on another form of expression did the trick for me. And, because of this, I was all the more inspired when the words started to return the following year; probably to the disappointment of my parents.

* * * * * * A Side Note to Parents Out There* * * * * * *

For godsakes don't crush the creative desires of your children! Ever! It is this kind of error that separates the generations and erects things like Berlin Walls and Guantanamo Razor Fences. Don't selfishly take advantage of their temporary inability to do what they truly love just to satisfy your own misguided ideas of what you want them to do. This paternalistic, anti-intellectual, over-bearing, manipulative and progress-killing attitude of the older generations over the younger ones who are still developing that has set up the process that has been burying the Light in this world. Marshall McLuhan (an underrated philosopher of the 20^th Century) called this kind of backward-looking, bad advice, “Trying to drive forward by using only the rear-view mirror.”

For too many years happiness has been sacrificed for hyper-practicality and – most-unfortunately – for the obsessive, but destructively-retarded misconception that security is only available to the money-junkies of the world. Sadly, many of the mods, beatniks and hippies who re-discovered this fact, after it was submerged in post-romanticism, ended up being the ones to do a 180 degree turn in the 1980's; re-building the shameful golden calf of materialism, while hypocritically insisting that MY generation worship it.

And so now OUR children (their grandchildren) claw at the walls of a baby-boomed, debt-based, consumerist, thing-fetish, earth-raping, culturally restrictive set of flimsy, falling-down economic and social systems that have only served the selfish interests of these boomers. They were willing to loot the future from their children and grandchildren to the point where they back up their junky's need for the morphine-of-money, with deadly menace of military and law-enforcement muscle. It is encouraging though to see that even with all the satanic confusion and hypocrisy that my generation was subjected to by our parents, we (who were once called, “Generation X”) have not lost what we found to be genuine and helpful about history's lessons. And I think we will be the FIRST generation since Eden to allow our children to find the happiness that God intended for those children, even if we have to tear down every wall and razor fence that our parents build to suppress it.

In all fairness, let me say that my greatest heroes were also part of that boomer generation. They were the ten percent or so that carried the Light through the years of the Reaganomics, oil-wars and neoconism of the last thirty years. And now their clear, open-mindedness and moral integrity have allowed them to pass their idealism on to us in full-force. My generation has been starving for it. And I believe WE will use it conquer the future.

* * * * * End of Side Note* * * * * * *

With the easing of my writer's block, it was as if my subconscious had built-up its reserves enough to supply the rest of my life to come. Thus, I cannot give a lot of advice about writer's block, except to say that if you feel you have something to say and you love writing, but a sandy dam has blocked the river from its normal flow, do other creative things... This will be like kneeling down and running one finger-trail from the wet side to the dry. Over time a small tickle of water will follow this trail over the top of that sandy barrier, slowly wearing it away, until the block can no longer withstand the pressure building up behind it. There is a reason for everything, and it is likely that your temporary block is the sign that your well is being filled with cleaner water than it started with. Be patient and the words will flow again.

WRITING EFFECTIVELY

Aside from being able to speak well, being able to write well is arguably the most valuable tool (and sometimes-weapon for self defense) that any individual has to influence the world around them.

Know yourself first. Who are you and how do you want people to perceive you? Get to know yourself, and you will get to know your writing. Every aspiring writer must figure out a system for her/himself that fits into the her/his thought process, while integrating a personal style that other people can really identify with. Your readers WILL draw conclusions (whether founded or unfounded) about who you are from the way you express yourself. Lord knows! And the residual impressions about yourself that you leave with your readers can last a very, VERY long time.

Next, decide what the context of your subject is. Carefully judge the atmosphere of the arena in which the presentation or discussion is taking place. Is it a concert hall constructed for entertainment and filled with a crowd of adoring fans? Is it a lecture hall filled with an academic audience who has shown up to peer-review your theories and philosophies? Or, is it a debating hall filled with a semi-hostile, divided and partially-undecided group of highly-charged arguers, assembled to compete for dominance over a controversial subject? Try to tailor your words to your readership, in accordance with your objective and based upon your venue.

For entertainment, use the professional stance of the well-executed performance and the brightly colored light show to set an emotive background. For demonstrations of theory and presentations of philosophy, use a well-measured, logical and unemotional style that plays upon people's natural sense of reason and their desire to integrate SOME of your concepts with what they have used intrinsically to build concepts of their own. And I will cover debate in great depth – a little later on, since I really consider it to be my forté.

[Please check in for the next post.]