Write This Way

After a long day in the DWP, I climb into my white Audi, my head bursting with a myriad of thoughts. I select my favorite Counting Crows CD and cram it into the hungry mouth of the CD player. Homeward bound. As I listen to Adam Duritz singing just to me, a thought pokes me: why not make the poem that I'm working on an allegory, a rich parable? So, I take the trusty pink note pad resting on the dashboard, and I scribble, "Poem, PARABLE, Allegory, reference to Adam and Eve." Are those thought processes an example of what writing is?

Pretty soon I amble next to a BMW convertible Z3, and the man in the driver's seat resembles Russell Crowe. OW, Crowe! I try not to notice how Z3's windblown hair caresses his left eye, and I focus on the soothing sounds drifting from my CD player:

won't somebody save me please, can't find nobody home�All of these quiet battered voices wait for the hunger to come, we got little revolvers and such stupid choices.. I wish you were inside of me. We couldn't all be cowboys, some us are clowns. Some of us are dancers on the midway, we roam from town to town. I hope that everybody can find a little flame. Me? I say my prayers and light myself on fire and walk out on the wire once again. I'll wait for you while she slips in something comfortable, I'll miss you while I'm slipping in between but if you wrap yourself in daffodils I'll wrap myself in pain and if you're the queen of California, I'm the kind of the rain�

And when Z3 leaves me in my own dust, I'm left thinking, are the lyrics this poet residing inside my CD player writes a form of writing?

When I get home, I pull the piece of poetry out that I've been working on in class. I reread it. I read Rick's comments. I grab a banana and head up to the computer to add a couple of stanzas. I remember the notes I made to myself in the car about turning this piece into a prurient garden of Adam and Eve. I start again. I start in the middle. I rip up pieces of paper. I delete. I read. I reread. I type. Is this, too, considered writing?

The answer is yes to all of the above. Writing is much more than taking notes in science class, composing a five paragraph essay in Freshman Composition, and reading the writings of any published author that line the bookshelves of libraries. Writing is a process, and that process includes thoughts that haven't found their way to paper yet, lyrics that dance in your head long after the music is silent, and the process of writing, rewriting, revising, thinking about what works, and even the act of letting go of what doesn't work.

Many people assume that there are writing genies who blink their eyes and perfect manuscripts appear. That all of those books that have magically appeared on bookshelves appear because writers who have written them have read some magic manual that tells them exactly how to write. This is where the teacher magically steps in. She must dispel the myth by helping her students learn that there is a process, and they, in turn, must experiment and play with that process to learn what works for them.

What exactly is that process? Why, if I had the answer, then I would own the only magical manual written. There are countless books written that try to teach the art of writing. And this paper may suggest just another secret to perfecting that art. But that, however, is not my goal. My goal is to suggest that writing is a process, and I don't have the magic answer as to how to write the perfect poem, song, or book. I know what works for me: to treat writing as a process that begins with a thought. That thought then, is transferred onto paper. And after I walk away for awhile, I return, and I reread what I've written. And then the fun begins: revision. I poke. I prod. I write, and then I rewrite. And, finally, when I feel that it's the closest thing to being finished that I'll ever produce, I have a piece of writing that I have created. That I can't stop reading. That I love. That makes me laugh or cry. And I am proud.

Hey, writing is a process. Whoever said that the first time that John Elway put on his Bronco uniform that he was magically transformed into a perfect football player? And those potters who design planters and such, was the first clay pot that they ever sat at the potter's wheel and potted the perfect pot? So, the next time anyone entertains the thought that writing happens to all good people magically, remember the genie who nestles silently in your own mind and drift off to sleep and dram about the Russell Crowes and Adam Duritzes who dance in your sleep. Pleasant dreams!