The Grasshopper #33: Writing as Therapy, Part Two

Don’t think about it too much

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

In this past Sunday’s issue I took a look at writing as therapy, but the focus was a little too much on my own experience. Not surprising since writing is an inward act when you are actually putting words to paper, or in my case, tapping them out on an iPad.

That’s one piece of what you can get from writing, the joy of constructing something from whole cloth, starting with nothing more than an idea or a scene. But like any therapy, the act of going public with your inner mind can be daunting. Even showing an early piece of writing to a friend can be nerve wracking when you are just getting started.

For some writers that fear never stops, but they keep writing and putting it out there. It’s like a more private form of public speaking, which scares the crap out of a lot of people. I enjoy public speaking but reading a story out loud to a group might make me have the jitters.

But, here’s the thing: every first time experience in life is going to present its challenges. You’re new at it, there’s an unknown to contend with, and you likely have little practice, because we really learn by making mistakes while actually doing something.

And somewhere along the line you find yourself comfortable in that once nerve wracking situation. That is one of the reasons I am a proponent of getting your writing out there in front of readers. You grow and the quality of your work grows. It gets more polished, more succinct, and you begin to feel the sound of the language.

If that seems a little out there, consider my last sentence. It has a cadence that is intentional. It uses words that are almost tactile like ‘polished’ and ‘succinct’. I don’t know about you, but for me a word like succinct is visceral- you can feel it in your mouth as you read it or write it. If you think about it, it is an unusual word.

There is a danger in falling too much in love with words. It can get pretentious to throw about obscure language and it can offput readers. But using language viscerally is a tool that all writers utilize, some well, some awkwardly. But all beginners are awkward at the beginning.

As a reader I prefer writing that has a spare quality, with a lot of space and the feeling that the writer has chosen the best phrase for the state of mind or experience they want to convey. Very often, this paring down of your writing takes place during editing and rewriting as you prune it and shape it.

So, what about that therapy thing? We are talking about personal growth as a creator here. Refining your skill by working on it, yet finding that balance between too worked over and being graceful. Pretty good lessons for anything we do in life. Balance.

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Riffing

Here’s the Google definition of riffing: to play musical riffs. "the other horns would be riffing behind him", perform a monologue or spoken improvisation on a particular subject:

"he also riffs on racism and the economy"

The piece above on therapy was a riff. I started with a theme and wrote to see where it would go. Fifteen or twenty minutes later I had something. It will get a few edits before it shows up in your inbox.

A lot of these newsletters on Substack are essentially riffs, a stream of consciousness following a topic. That’s the beauty of the format, as opposed to a more formal approach or something like a task list used to teach a skill. For me it marks a contrast with my political stuff on Medium and my fiction. I can improvise there, but it’s in a context like a real world situation in my nonfiction, or the bigger story a novel is telling.

For a former musician, riffing can be a pure pleasure, almost a self-indulgence. But you have to be careful about doing what lesser guitar players often do by overdoing it. For example, I love writing descriptive passages but they must be used sparingly and only if they propel the story forward.

You don’t have to describe a tree in detail. We know what trees are like. But you might sketch out how a character feels walking under its canopy. The exception in that example is when a tree is actually a character like in Richard Powers’ epic novel about deforestation, The Overstory. 

In that book, he literally makes trees central characters and he is masterful at it. That novel is also a masterclass in structure, but that is another topic for another issue.

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“Also, there were several times while writing this book, where I got to a certain crossroads moment, and my habit was to take the story in a certain direction—sometimes by putting the character under more duress, sometimes by conceptualizing a moment of heroism. So, I think what’s similar to meditation is that you are at least aware you’re about to do a habitual thing. Then you can kind of notice that, and pull back and say, ‘All right, well, that’s fine. But let’s look at the whole field of play. What are the other choices here?’”

George Saunders interviewed in Reader’s Digest

This quote speaks to what Saunders gets from meditation that he can apply to his writing. When we meditate, one of the goals is to observe the habits of the mind, the places it habitually goes in certain situations. This gives you the ability to decide to break those habits and try something different. If you want to keep your writing fresh and unexpected, this is a useful exercise, to try and catch yourself doing things you are used to, and change them.

While my practice is basic Zen sitting and breathing, I think any form of meditation can help you get to that place where new ideas and experiences are found. Surprising your readers is never a bad idea as long as you stay focused on the story at hand.

When I read Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land, I found his ability to juggle many layers of a story across multiple characters and time, in a non-linear fashion, a remarkable thing. It certainly required that ability to shift gears that Saunders talks about. And Doerr pulled it all together at the end, something I wasn’t sure he could pull off, but he surprised me.

And I was delighted, as a reader, by that surprise. I’m quite sure he surprised himself!

Thanks for being here, bearing with a writer exploring the strange world of making worlds. M

1126 words

It’s a cold gray day. A coffee might be nice!

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