to this first lecture in Creative Writing 100, Creative Writing 200, 300, and time permitting, Creative Writing 100 repeated!
The beauty of these printed lectures is that if you need to go to the bathroom, you don’t have to raise your hand. You may certainly hold up your hand if you wish to relieve tension or exhibit a manicure without risk of drawing extra homework. But what you do in the privacy of your own home, or indeed anyone else’s home, won’t affect your grade, particularly as you won’t be given a grade unless you pay an additional fee on completion of the course.
First, though, what is creative writing? How do you distinguish it from, say, your grocery shopping list? The answer is you can’t. In fact, your first assignment in this course will be to turn in a creative grocery shopping list that reveals shades of character, as well as some truly deplorable eating habits.
Second, you need to distinguish between creativity and creationism. Creationism is the belief in Adam and Eve and going to hell with Charles Darwin. But creativity derives from a creator who doesn’t believe in the apple except as a brand of computer.
Third, creative writing is the second-most satisfying thing you can do lying down. In fact, creative writing is like sex, it being a mental orgasm that is passionate even though the result is stillborn.
This doesn’t mean you can ignore your physical condition, assuming your Muse is also overweight. Actually, this course requires you to do twenty push-ups before every lecture. Why? Because publishers won’t even consider your work unless you are in good enough shape to survive the book promotion tour. Some publishers now require that your manuscript be accompanied by a complete medical report, signed by three different doctors, along with a recent photo of the author holding up his chin without undue effort.
This explains why poets like Lord Byron (bad leg) and John Milton (clinically blind) could never get published today. Oscar Wilde might encounter less of the trouble he bought as a gay wit, but he would balk at having to get up at five in the morning in a strange town to appear on a radio talk show hosted by a sadist who secretly hates books.
Yes, it does help if you own your own aircraft, but not much.
Now, besides having it in the legs, how strong is your motivation?
Have you defined in your own mind if you are too shy to talk about why you want to engage in creative writing? If it’s just because you think you look more meaningful in a houndstooth jacket or shapeless sweater, or it’s against your religion to engage in more lucrative work, your motivation may lack substance.
Here is the key: it’s not enough to want to write. You must need to write as a supplement to breathing. You should see writer’s block as the worst kind of constipation.
The valid writer is possessed by writing. Of all his possessions, this will probably prove to be the least valuable. No matter. It’s a must.
When the Muse orders “Jump!” You just say “How high?”
Never mind about cheating on your spouse or tax return; when you really need to feel guilty is when you have done no writing in the day.
This is why, of all the natural disasters the world assaults us with, none is as cataclysmic as the computer crash. Or a pencil sharpener refusing to have intercourse.
Such frustration is particularly traumatic for the female author for whom writing is surrogate motherhood. The book has a gestation period comparable to that of an ordinary baby. Both, at birth, are put in a wrapper and displayed fondly to the public. And instead of reading to her child, she reads from it to her creative-writing class, or any other living object with ears to hear.
Besides divine afflatus, what other gear do you need in order to become the next Margaret Atwood or Stephen King or even the author of a raging letter to the editor of the publication that rejected your poem?
First, you need to have access to a word processor. Is it realistic to hope that you can process your words yourself, with God’s guidance or a helpful secretary who really needs the money? Alas, no way. The ugly fact is that to be a writer today you must have a meaningful relationship with a computer. Nobody knows how William Shakespeare was able to get along without it and still have a sex life. Apparently, he had to write everything in longhand.
I sense eyebrows being raised. Well, class, longhand is, or was, a form of handwriting. Handwriting is what you do if you endorse a cheque. Still unclear? Then let’s just say that writing longhand not only takes more time than typing but reveals more about the writer’s own character than a graphologist would feel comfortable reporting.
The hazard of handwriting was first recognized by Omar Khayyám:
The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
Why? Because Omar couldn’t use the delete key! He may not have even owned a computer. If he didn’t, it was surely false economy. That’s why all members of this class are urged to make whatever sacrifice of lifestyle — food, drink, clothes, child support, cheesecake — necessary for you to be able to afford to buy this sine qua non: the PC.
And a printer. (Why should we deny ourselves the thrill of seeing our work in print, just because it’s not yet ready?)
Note: self-publication will be dealt with, severely, in a later section. If your computer is indisposed, it is normal to make a rough copy in pencil. For those of you unfamiliar with this writing instrument: a pencil is a lead-bearing device normally held between the fingers when not being chewed during creative ecstasy. The tip of the pencil makes physical contact with paper, creating arousal more sensuous than that provided by the PC.
In moments of divine afflatus, however, the pencil lead may break (coitus interruptus). Hence the need for a pencil sharpener, a rotary instrument that happily provides relief from the tension of composition, as well as a quantity of sawdust that can be used to mulch potted plants.
It may come as a shock to the novice writer to learn that his computer doesn’t know everything. Even that god almighty, the Internet, may lack verbal skills acquired only by Webster or Oxford. Yes, you need a dictionary. If you have no other book on your shelf, this is the first to replace the framed photo of your lover. Your computer may catch misspellings, regardless of whether you want it to or not, but is hapless when it comes to the shades of meaning you need to set your work apart from an ordinary ferry schedule.
There is a world of difference between denotation and connotation, and you will need a dictionary to find out what it is.
Other vital material:
1. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.
