On the joy of writing

So far I’ve been averaging 1000 words a day on book 2 and am also finally putting together my poetry collection, one damn poem at a time.

On top of that, I recently started attending and running a poetry workshop before my bi-monthly open mic at Peel Street Poetry.

If one thing has been made clear from the workshops, its that I do actually love writing poetry. I find it fun, getting random prompts and a few minutes to write a poem. For me, its like playing. I play with words, with sounds, meaning and narrative and I feel oddly free when I do it. And it had me thinking, what about prose? Why not have that same degree of enjoyment when writing some stories?

I do enjoy storytelling. Hell, most of my best poems have narratives in them. From a dude on acid meeting God, to an unemployed guy taking an alien on a tour of Hong Kong. They have beginnings, middles, endings, the whole shebang. But I don’t get the same playful joy out of prose writing compared to poetry.

I think it comes down to freedom. With poetry, I can do ludicrous things. I can pun all day long, fuck with grammar, whilst doing a bit rhyme and rhythm in between.

But if you can reach that ‘play’ area, that mode where you’re experimenting and having fun, it might not exactly be what some people call ‘the zone’ but its a damn bit closer.

So what does it take to play? I tried to break it down.

One: Freedom. The belief that you can experiment, that forced absence of that overly harsh internal editor constantly reading over your shoulder and judging what you are writing. Like a kid with a blank piece of paper or a cardboard box and an imagination, you just do what feels right. There aren’t as many rules holding you back. Experiment, play, try out new things. Don't just do what feels comfortable, but don't force yourself to try new things for the sake of it.

Two: Confidence. The idea that you are a decent enough writer, or that it doesn’t actually matter how good you are. When you’re playing there’s no demand for quality. I think that’s my biggest hurdle right now. I’m constantly trying to reach this certain level of quality or readability, even if it’s just a first draft. I have to let go of that. Write without fear.

Three: Pleasing yourself and believing you can please others. The joy of making poems for me is that I get to chuckle at my own jokes but also that I know others will enjoy it as well, I get excited to share it, not afraid to share, which I can be with prose. That fear is holding me back. I‘m worried it will suck. But so what if it does? It’s all part of the process. Accept the suck. If you can by default assume you will please others then you can focus on enjoying the piece yourself.

I tried to play more in my last writing session. And if you'd taken my blood pressure you'd have found I was calmer. I was practically serene. I followed the rules above, I was confident, tried to please myself and felt that freedom. The result was 2000 words in an hour. Maybe it wasn't a masterpiece but the raw material was there for the next stage: the redraft, the edit, the rewrite. That's a whole new process in of itself.

I wrote a poem about the joy of writing poetry once. It was fun to write.

The joy of writing

For me, words are keys, they are phrases,

Punctuation, like drumbeat pauses.

The thrum and swish of a little good or a little too much alliteration.

I play with words, they make me smile,

They make me feel like I am flying,

I can fly through the sky,

On a big pizza pie

that's amore.

Words are spells made with spelling,

Magic meanings,

You can hear them call like a trumpet,

Pull, like a midnight night club strumpet,

For me words are an instrument, I play them.

They make me happy,

Did I mention that?

I can tell when words sound bad.

Or flat.

Like that.

Or hiss, how they can kiss,

Your balls.

Tickle,

Fellate with a bob and a pause, or bloat a sentence full of meaning that’s lost by combining one, then two, and add another clause,

Slide across.

Words, words, words, they echo like footsteps,

For me, words are keys, they are phrases.

I play with words and they make me feel light.

Light has a weight to it,

In reverse,

Light has a weight to it,

It lifts,

I play with words.

Absurd.

For me, words are keys,

They open up something in my head.

Till I can end

with

a fade,

Or a sudden drop,

Without words I am dead,

I am dead,

I am dead,

With words I can stop whenever I want.