This week’s entry in the Sunday series, Learn to Write, maybe the most important entry in the entire series.

At least I think so.

Personally, I believe that any subject that involves creativity is a very had subject to teach and learn. Sure, we can study the mechanics of how to hold a brush to master certain strokes, or we can be taught about the convention of certain genrés, but learning exactly what it is that spurs an artist/creator on to express their inner self in ways that they do is tough.

Teaching  how to write is just like the old saw, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Writers are born at the soul, and they won’t come out to play unless they truly want to.

Sure, we can produce a passage, a story, or a book and our teachers may direct us with editorial corrections, but most teachers cannot fathom what it was that we saw which caused us to write that piece.

We have to cry, love, laugh, ache, care, and be moved to really write.

No educator can teach us how we feel those snapshots in our heart. But, the really good teacher can show us how to find those photos.

Writing Down the Bones

I have been a part of numerous workshops and have read several books about writing, but only one person has taught me where I need to begin as a writer. That beginning step lays deep in my essence and I need to keep going back there to write what I really feel and see.

Natalie Goldberg gave us Writing Down the Bones in 1986, and the book has long since been accepted by writers around the world as a bible of sorts. I discovered the book last year after reading excerpts from it in several blog posts. I have since read the book three times and often pick it up to read a chapter or two.

There is a really cool exercise in the book where we are told to take ten nouns and write them on the left half of a sheet of paper. The we are to fold the paper along its length and write down t15 verbs associated with any occupation.

When we unfold the paper we then marry nouns to verbs for some extremely interesting combinations. Combinations that most certainly will spark the old creative wheel.

Writing Down the Bones is written in such a way that it makes a solid read through as well as a book where each chapter has its own legs. Every chapter is a lesson; not just a lesson about writing, but a lesson about writing through living.

That is where the goldmine is.

Natalie teaches us that we all want to be, and can be, writers. We can be damn good ones too, if we learn to look deep inside of ourselves and dredge the muck that makes up our vision.

Push yourself beyond when you think you are done with what you have to say. Go a little further. Sometimes when you think you are done, it’s just the edge of the beginning. Probably that’s why we decide we are done. It’d  getting too  scary. We are touching down on something real. It is beyond the point of when you think you are done that something strong comes out.

We are taught how Natalie’s journey in Buddhism has helped her writing. Her meditation is the flow of ink. She translates that journey as the number one lesson she offers; just write.

Writing practice is essential. Golberg tells us to write for a set period of time each day. During those sessions we are to just write, no editing, no thinking ahead,  just push the emotionally charged inked words for ten minutes and put it away.

When I look back through my notebooks, I often scowl at some of the turds I wrote in practice, but I will occasionally find a golden nugget that I can use somewhere. But, what I like more than anything is the way my writing is becoming energized. I am freer with my words.

The practice is stripping away the layers of crap I have laid down to hide the murk.

This book, Writing Down the Bones,  is the one book that has had the most impact on me as I try to be a writer.  The book has also opened my eyes about life as much as any other book has.

© 2010, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

Years ago I started writing Flash Fiction for just the sheer enjoyment of writing, and now it has turned into a full blown addiction. I can't quit the horse, man! Another dirty little secret about me is my ability to write all kinds of web content. SEO content, articles, blog posts, manifests; you name it, I'll write it. Looking for some help? My gun hangs at r.alex.crabtree@gmail.com

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Tags: Learn To Write, natalie goldberg, teacher, Writing, writing down the bones

This entry was posted on June 27, 2010 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Featured, Learn To Write, Series, Writing Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.