Copyright © 2002, 1999 by Michael Segers, All rights reserved
Brought to you by Peanut.org
I had gotten so bogged down in all the mess surrounding the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle that I felt I had to inflict… I mean, share my findings. From my rovin’ around the Internet, it seemed that nobody, left, right, or in between, had much good to say, and I was getting cranky myself. Then, a friend sent me an e-mail saying she wanted to do some writing and asked if I had any suggestions on how to get started.
Bless her! You have been spared reading, as I have been spared writing, an article on the WTO. So, park your placards at the door, and let’s rave a little about something that I do at least twice a week—write—so it is something I should know a little bit about.
Now, don’t think that my status as critic and columnist for the first and finest community free net in Georgia gives me any special knowledge about writing. It’s just that all my life, well, except for the first few years, writing and its related activity reading (not to mention talking about and listening about writing and reading) have been major preoccupations of mine. I earned two degrees in English, worked for two years in publishing in New York City, and taught English for more years than I care to admit. So, I have been vocationally as well as a-vocationally involved in various ways in the mysterious process of putting ink onto paper or perhaps pixels onto a monitor.
So, how do you go about writing? You learn the basics, and that means, reading, reading, and, oh yes, reading some more. When I facilitated creative writing workshops at a community college, I was surprised at how many people said that they wanted to write, but that they didn’t read. That’s like wanting to play football, but never watching a football game. Read widely. Read wildly. Read newspapers, magazines, political platforms, and, yes, read the columns at Peanut.org.
Too often we think of writing as a solitary vice, but most writers I know have in some way or other been team players. They’ve had some contact with some other writer, some connection that helps them see they aren’t the only ones undertaking such an idiotic project. Join an informal writing group, take a non-credit writing course, snoop around various Internet groups where you can read what other people are writing, and they can return the favor.
Of course, in all that reading, sooner or later you’ll stumble upon books about writing. Two good ones, just for starters, are Starting from Scratch by Rita Mae Brown and Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. How good are they? Well, I don’t own either. I have owned them both… but have passed them along to friends who want to write.
Now, ask yourself a few questions… and answer them. Why do you want to write? If you want to write because you feel inspired to share beautiful things with the rest of us, just go collect Pokémon cards, and leave us alone. If you want to write to understand yourself, to work out your "issues," psychotherapy might be less messy. Do I sound a little harsh, perhaps flippant? If you can’t take the smudges, get out of the scriptorium.
To be honest, I always feel suspicious of people who say that they "want" to write. What the heck is stopping them? If you are writing, and you can’t imagine not writing, then let’s talk. If you are keeping a journal, sending e-mails (or even wearing out the goose quills or the IBM Selectric®), then this column’s for you.
If you are already writing, the next step is to decide what to write. To return to the sports metaphor, not many people ever say, "I want to be an athlete." How do you train to be an athlete? Isn’t the training somewhat different if your ambition is to be a quarterback or to be a swimmer? You have to specialize.
Similarly, decide what you want to write. I’ve heard that most writers start with lyric poetry, simply because it takes so little time (and paper). You can crank out a sonnet a day, and after a year, you’ll have 5110 lines of what you can call poetry. The truth is, 98% of poetry is awful—not in the sense of making you want to puke but in the sense of making you fall asleep. Give me a real stinkeroo anytime rather than the kind of sweet little anemic clunker that doesn’t even fall with a respectable clunk.
Now, please, don’t fall back on the old line, "I’m not writing for the critics. If I like what I write, that’s all that matters." Fine, then don’t dump it onto the rest of us.
Commit yourself to your choice. If you choose to write poetry, then subscribe to some poetry magazines, buy some books by contemporary poets. Put your money where your word-processor is.
But, get beyond poetry. We just don’t need any right now. Novels? Journalism? Essays? Plays? Well, I’m not sure we need them now, but at least they demand more of you as a writer.
If there is one cardinal rule in writing, it is "Write what you know about." You’ve never been to Barcelona? Don’t set your first novel there. You have a porch full of potted plants? There’s a starting point for all kinds of essays, how-to articles, and perhaps a murder mystery that involves a poison from an exotic vine. Of course, you’ve never poisoned your ex-whatever, but do a little research on the effects of ingesting alkaline substances from some tropical plant, and you’re on your way to a writing a novel, if not to getting arrested.
Do you feel that there is nothing you know anything about? That you might as well hang up your quill before you ever even dab it into the ink? Probably no one has ever led what would appear to be a simpler, less eventful life than Emily Dickinson, and yet, she wrote about what she knew about, almost two thousand poems that are, at their best, exquisite illuminations of ordinary life.
Writing is one thing, publishing something else altogether. Like so many other concepts, the whole concept of publishing has changed with the development of the Internet. There are free web pages on the Internet. Don’t be in too big a hurry. Do you want to write… or to publish?
This is entirely too big a topic for one little rave. But, I will leave you with one thought, that the secret isn’t in the writing, it’s in the re-writing, and three good links.
Poets and Writers, Inc. – The name of this group has always bothered me, as if poets somehow weren’t writers, somewhat like referring to "drugs and alcohol," as if alcohol weren’t a drug. But, the group and its web site are invaluable resources for writers (and poets) and readers alike.
Project Gutenberg – This is one of those sites that can almost by itself justify the existence of the Internet. If you’ve let your library card expire, do check out the amazing variety of texts available to you here (for free, to read online or to download). There is never a shortage of reading material with Project Gutenberg nearby... or with the sites referred to here.
Freelance Writers and Writer's Exchange of About.com – I’m ashamed to keep referring you to About.com sites, but please catch on to something. The "human guides" at the About sites do so much work for us that it is a waste of time not to take advantage of what they put together. "Agents," "markets," "research" and "workshops" are just four of many very important topics that you can find a wealth of links and other information on at these two sites.
Update: 2002: Here is the remainder of the article as it originally appeared (with one exception, noted below). Many of these links are now "dead," that is, they no longer link to active web pages, since they dealt with a current news event. But, you can still enter the top level domain (as far as the .com, .gov, or .org) to find useful information.
For an added bonus. If you haven’t overdosed on the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization, here are the links that I had accumulated, all of which can still stir up a few brain cells. "About the World Trade Organization" (from the WTO):
www.wto.org/wto/about/about.htm
"The World Trade Organization: A Guide for Environmentalists":
www.wcel.org/wcelpub/1999/12757.html
"WTO’s Third Ministerial Conference" (US Government site):
The American Farm Bureau Federation on the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference:
www.fb.com/issues/backgrd/wto%2Dfb.html
Here’s a title that you can’t resist. At least, I hope you won’t, because this is one of the best articles I’ve read on the WTO. "The WTO and the De-synchronization of the Global Economy":
www.stratfor.com/SERVICES/GIU/112999.asp
Pat Buchanan on (against) the WTO:
www.gopatgo2000.org/library/issues/issue4.htm
And, to get opposition to the WTO from the other end of the political spectrum, here’s "Seattle WTO: Mobilization against Corporate Globalization":
[This URL has been deleted, because it now links to a pornographic site.]
Keep your feet dry, your heart full of noble thoughts, and your browsers pointed to both sides of controversial issues. And, if you want to write, crank up your word processing program, and rejoice that no trees have to die so that your words can be preserved.