How to Write
Part 1.
1.
Surround yourself with peculiar items. Peculiarity is tonic to the great writer. Collect torn corners of notebooks and sellotape dispensers. Look for double ended glue sticks. Line up wine corks and bottle tops as absolutions. Sort your staedtler pencils into piles according to their gradient. Fill your desk with oversized brandy glasses, “how to” books (how to play the HARMONICA – Ian Kearey), crocheted hats and red sparkling hard candy lip gloss. Cultivate interesting stains, do not wipe away the coffee ring. Perhaps you will find the secret to the universe inside it. Perhaps it will offer you characters and situations and inspirations for Your Latest Novel. Perhaps you will find yourself licking it at 3am for caffeine energies, and burst into a new flurry of words and genius.
2.
Listen to electronica. There is no other genre. Remember – if babies were raised on electronica their brains would develop to accommodate genius faster. The electronic is the antithesis to the organic analogue thought process. Unexpected killer bird computer game noises will jolt you from apathetic clichés. When the casiotone kicks in your brain will expload new phrases. Do not allow yourself to be tugged and cajoled through prettiness and shiny words by your choice of track. If it causes a painful abrasion to your skull: so much the better. We are not here to reiterate, to spell out, to clarify. We are not here to fill in the gaps in the cacophonic symphony, shaded gradients at borders, easy listening journeys. Allow your words to be the detuned midi chorus, the agitated offbeat synth penetration. Break from your 4/4 rhythm. Utilise alarm clock noises, scissor snip back beats, bags of broken glass and electronic frogs. Do not be normal. This is not the right time.
3.
Be high. Smoke drugs and inhale music. Snort great lines of genius literature as you lie in bed at night with the Russians. (Never read anything in bed, except the Russians. Prop yourself up on pillows with Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy and set aside the small hours for Penguin Classics. Do not cheapen your bedtime experience with Jilly Cooper or Mills and Boon. Do not tarnish the hazy middle ground between varying consciousnesses with sociological journals and periodical back issues). “Be you drunken ceaselessly,” said Baudelaire. Respect this. Worship your heroes endlessly and believe, always, in Greek mythology. Do not allow your plants to die, but insist they too live in interesting extremity. Do not water for weeks, allow them to see the entrance to the tunnel, gasping and choking for moisture in the air. Then flood them, watch their newly resuscitated pleasure in existence. Subsist on a diet of blue and black foods only. Become a Scientologist, a romantic, a tramp, a libertine. Pick a vice to be your good companion, and never, ever, neglect it. Nurture addictions, they are your bread and butter. Believe in the healing power of alcohol. Remember: you are not Napoleon.
1.
Surround yourself with peculiar items. Peculiarity is tonic to the great writer. Collect torn corners of notebooks and sellotape dispensers. Look for double ended glue sticks. Line up wine corks and bottle tops as absolutions. Sort your staedtler pencils into piles according to their gradient. Fill your desk with oversized brandy glasses, “how to” books (how to play the HARMONICA – Ian Kearey), crocheted hats and red sparkling hard candy lip gloss. Cultivate interesting stains, do not wipe away the coffee ring. Perhaps you will find the secret to the universe inside it. Perhaps it will offer you characters and situations and inspirations for Your Latest Novel. Perhaps you will find yourself licking it at 3am for caffeine energies, and burst into a new flurry of words and genius.
2.
Listen to electronica. There is no other genre. Remember – if babies were raised on electronica their brains would develop to accommodate genius faster. The electronic is the antithesis to the organic analogue thought process. Unexpected killer bird computer game noises will jolt you from apathetic clichés. When the casiotone kicks in your brain will expload new phrases. Do not allow yourself to be tugged and cajoled through prettiness and shiny words by your choice of track. If it causes a painful abrasion to your skull: so much the better. We are not here to reiterate, to spell out, to clarify. We are not here to fill in the gaps in the cacophonic symphony, shaded gradients at borders, easy listening journeys. Allow your words to be the detuned midi chorus, the agitated offbeat synth penetration. Break from your 4/4 rhythm. Utilise alarm clock noises, scissor snip back beats, bags of broken glass and electronic frogs. Do not be normal. This is not the right time.
3.
Be high. Smoke drugs and inhale music. Snort great lines of genius literature as you lie in bed at night with the Russians. (Never read anything in bed, except the Russians. Prop yourself up on pillows with Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy and set aside the small hours for Penguin Classics. Do not cheapen your bedtime experience with Jilly Cooper or Mills and Boon. Do not tarnish the hazy middle ground between varying consciousnesses with sociological journals and periodical back issues). “Be you drunken ceaselessly,” said Baudelaire. Respect this. Worship your heroes endlessly and believe, always, in Greek mythology. Do not allow your plants to die, but insist they too live in interesting extremity. Do not water for weeks, allow them to see the entrance to the tunnel, gasping and choking for moisture in the air. Then flood them, watch their newly resuscitated pleasure in existence. Subsist on a diet of blue and black foods only. Become a Scientologist, a romantic, a tramp, a libertine. Pick a vice to be your good companion, and never, ever, neglect it. Nurture addictions, they are your bread and butter. Believe in the healing power of alcohol. Remember: you are not Napoleon.
posted by Jane at 11:50 am
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