I like Hemingway, but often think he did not help writers or the art and craft of writing by perpetuating certain myths. For instance, the myth that you have to live it to write about it—whatever it might be. You don’t!
As Stephen King points out in his book On Writing (which I just finished listening to on Audible—I recommend that you listen to the 20th anniversary edition rather than read the book, or along with reading it. Listening to King narrate it is a wonderful treat!) that if you had to live something to write about it, that means you would have to murder someone to write a murder mystery. I’m paraphrasing somewhat, but the point is obvious. I don’t know, but perhaps you would have plenty of time to write the story while you’re waiting on death row. I’m not sure what writing implements are allowed in the cell, but you would have three square meals and a place to sleep . . .
Another myth is that you have to be drunk to write. Some people might could do it. I have to say, however, that the times I’ve cracked a beer or had a mixed drink close at hand, the drink usually sits, totally forgotten, as I become engrossed in the story. I’m far too busy trying to get everything down as the scenes play out and the characters cavort and act out on the screen of my imagination. Well, that’s not quite right about “the screen,” as it is more as though you are there in the character’s world as sort of the proverbial fly on the wall. Feel free to imagine a fly with a tiny keyboard upon which he or she is madly typing away, if you so choose. It’s called imagination!
But, that’s not quite right either—you’re not a bystander, innocent or otherwise. You can, in fact, though not always, hop in and out of a character’s mind at will. There are some character’s that won’t let you in, but mostly you have free rein. The key here is to shut up and keep typing. You are just the person recording it all. Don’t insert yourself, or try to interfere with the flow of things, ever!
I’m starting to veer off topic, I guess, as I often do here, but yeah, pick up that beer and have a taste. It’s warm about now.
Maybe I tried writing while drunk back when I was in my twenties or early thirties, but if I did, I don’t remember. So, whatever came out was a real gem of a story, I’m sure.
Nope! Best to remain clear-headed and enjoy the ride. It’s a blast and a high that you can never quite reach if your mind is dulled by drugs or alcohol. That’s not to say you can’t give it a try. Nor am I suggesting that you shouldn’t have an alcoholic beverage at hand if you so choose, just know that the ice will be melted or the beer might be warm by the time you get back to it. I’m just saying that what comes out, especially if you are totally trashed, probably won’t be that great. And hey, though I believe this is probably the case with most people, maybe you are the exception to this. Personally, I enjoy the story far too much as it unfolds to be too drunk to experience it. My mind might wander and I might miss some of the action if I’m not clear headed and paying attention. Writing under the influence just seems like work to me. At the very least, I believe it’s a bad idea. Maybe I’m just lazy.
I have said this before, but I’ll say it again: I maybe had to work at the first six stories I ever wrote, but after that it has been all play. I feel like a kid having fun. And yes, I guess I’m playing with imaginary friends, but they all seem so very real. Does that sound crazy? Maybe. But if the characters aren’t real to you as the writer, how can they seem real to the reader? It is all about escape, after all.
Okay, so maybe if I put more effort into it—maybe if I worked on the writing, my writing would be better. That’s a fair enough point—and true! I tend to write fast and loose and let the chips fall where they may. My view is that I can pick up those chips (words and sentences) and rearrange them later if I want. Sometimes I do, in fact. But on that first run, as it’s all pouring out onto the page (digital or otherwise) I’m doing all I can to just keep recording it. If you want to imagine this, it is kind of like Lucy and Ethel working at the candy factory trying to keep up with the assembly line. If you don’t understand the reference, you’re probably just not old enough to get it, which is okay (I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball). I might have heard that reference recently. Hope it wasn’t from On Writing. If it was, I apologize. Not trying to steal anything. Guess you’ll have to listen to King’s book to find if the reference is in there. I highly recommend you listen to it in any case. The audio version is Awesome! But I’ve already told you that.
So, no, you don’t have to live it to write it—that’s a myth! You might have to do a little research, however, just to get a few facts right. But research can be fun. I’ll cover that in another post probably.
There is only one thing you truly need as a writer: IMAGINATION!
A couple of blog posts back I gave you a tour of my grandparent’s home, more or less. One thing I kept thinking about after writing that post is that I kept mentioning and describing doors and doorknobs. I never knew that I had such an obsession with them, the knobs especially. But I realize that I love those old doorknobs they used to have in the turn of the century homes. Were they porcelain knobs? Glass? Metal? All decorative. And the doors, well, usually all wood, varnished or painted white, or whatever. Key holes for skeleton keys . . .
So, you can take a moment, here, and picture a door, one leading to your imagination (this is how I’ve decided to use my newly-realized obsession). And picture a knob. What kind of knob would this door have? Mine, at this moment, has a pearl-white handle, and the door is a sturdy woodgrain. And yes, there is the keyhole, surrounded by a square of black metal.
So open this door and step inside. What lies behind this door can be your own personal imagination, a place where you can play and roam free, a place where there are no rules, and no restrictions . . .
Okay, I have to confess, I never have to actually think about this when I sit down to write. I simply sit and start typing. There might be a spark of an idea, or a faint image. Maybe there is a bit of dialogue. I just sit down and start typing, that’s it. Whatever comes out is what comes out, the magic (if you want to call it that) just flows. I just sit down and type. Maybe I’ve been doing it so long that that’s all there is to it. Maybe I can’t remember if there was a door there or not. I suppose there was, in some sense, and perhaps it’s still there and I just don’t notice it. I sit down and start typing and immediately I’m there, I’m in that magic place, the imagination. What flows after that becomes a story—maybe a good story, maybe a bad story. Who knows? As it’s happening, who cares? I don’t. I’m simply having fun. The keys are clattering, the pictures are flowing, the characters are moving, talking. If it’s crap, I can always delete it, though I seldom do. What might be a snippet of a scene today, might not work right now. If it’s a scene or bit of dialogue that doesn’t seem to fit in with what the story is in the end, so be it. This little snippet might turn into a completely different story later.
My story “Resonance Shift,” from my book of science fiction stories, The Red Kimono, didn’t start out as a sci-fi story at all. I had written a few pages of a story (ten years or so earlier) that I had intended to be a mystery. All I had was a man who was getting ready for work, looking under the bed for his shoe. This man had a tie with a golfer on it. His search for his shoe was interrupted by a knock on the door. As this man is walking through his living room he sees a mess, the remnants of a party. Don’t know whether I left it in, but the original idea had a red-headed woman who sits up on the couch, waking from a drunken stupor; she, too, getting awakened by the loud knock on the door. The thing is, the man with the golfer tie doesn’t know this woman. He’s got no idea who she is. He doesn’t have time to question her due to having to get the door. He doesn’t remember even having a party. And the person on the other side of the door is an angry landlord or building manager. Of course, there was going to be a dead body in the apartment. I hadn’t written that part yet. All I had written was the part I’ve described. And for whatever reason, that’s all I had. I’m not even sure the red-headed woman was there. She is there in my imagination, from what I remember. I don’t know why I left the bit of story hanging. Perhaps I got interrupted at the time of writing and never went back. In any case, that little bit, those few pages of a scene, became the second story of my first book of science fiction stories. The bit of a story had no title until I gave it one, as a sci-fi story: “Resonance Shift in Pod Eight.” And then the title got shortened to just “Resonance Shift.” My obvious point is that whatever you write, though it might not go anywhere today, might just be the perfect idea later on.
It is all about imagination!
I’ve just recently discovered a book that I thought lost and gone forever. I had purchased this book at a flea market for 50 cents back when I was about twelve. I had loaned it to my older brother and never got it back. I’ve been looking for it for years. I kept searching online for another copy. I don’t think this book is well-known. It is very similar to the old self-help books by Dale Carnegie (How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, and How to Win Friends and Influence People). The book I’m talking about is very much written in the same vein, and from the same time period. This book explores the imagination and talks about how Edison and others used imagination and tapped into its power to get their ideas.
I only remembered a couple of things about this book, the most important of which was the author’s name: Alex F. Osborn. The title, though I wasn’t sure if I actually remembered it correctly, was Your Creative Power: How to use your Imagination (that’s the title I remembered, which was very close to being correct).
So what was so special about this book? What had astounded me? What did I remember that was so profound?
Well, really just two small statements, the first being the most astonishing. Though I couldn’t remember the exact wording, this author had stated that as a young man he decided to make Imagination his hobby!
Think about that for a second. Playing the piano, the guitar, or some other musical instrument can be a hobby. Building model cars or whatever (and perhaps I’m dating myself here), or playing video games can be a hobby. Many things can become hobbies. But who has ever said that their hobby was Imagination? That statement, to me at least, was very profound. I, as a child, spent a lot of time daydreaming, which more often than not got me in trouble. I had several report cards from school where there would be a hand-scrawled note saying things like: Mark does well when he applies himself, but spends too much time staring out the window, or daydreaming . . .
But here it was, permission to daydream. What’s more, it was okay to make the act a hobby. This guy was making it his hobby—Imagination! It blew me away. He was consciously doing it. He was proclaiming it aloud—or, well, in print at least. It wasn’t something I could proclaim aloud to my parents or teachers. They would, of course, think it was crazy. “Why, that’s not a hobby,” they would say if they knew. But it was—It was a hobby, for me, from that point on. If Mr. Osborn could do it, then so could I! And Edison used it, the imagination, as a tool. And many others did, too.
And the other statement that had a profound effect on me was this: Ideas are Diamonds!
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Here is the Kindle version (a revised–by who I don’t know–version) of Mr. Osborn’s book. For some reason the Amazon link only seems to show up on my web page, not on Goodreads!
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And now that I have found the book (both online and in the paperback version I read as a young boy—which is especially precious to me.), I can share a passage from it relating to the idea of making Imagination your hobby:
My faith has often been shaken during the 35 years in which I have made imagination my hobby. Too often have I heard intelligent people sneer at would-be creators as “nutty,” or “whacky”—as “crackpots,” as “guys with wheels in their heads,” or with “bees in their bonnets.” Scholars have scoffed at ideas as being “a dime a dozen.”
Ah, so Mr. Osborn suffered for his decision to make Imagination his hobby. But isn’t this what writers do all the time? Inventors? Yes, but they don’t proclaim imagination as their hobby—why, that would be totally absurd!
And I have to confess, though my father was a very practical man, very down to earth in his everyday life, he was also an inventor. Between the ages of eleven and fifteen, I spent a few hours (once he recognized my semi-artistic drawing skills) drawing up figures and schematics for patent paperwork. So, technically, my father used his imagination and condoned the use of it (at least by way of his actions). Yet he wasn’t as bold as Mr. Osborn when it came to declaring such a thing. And I was probably admonished, it occurs to me, for daydreaming during school hours as it would undoubtedly interfere with schoolwork. So I guess I can’t hold a grudge.
But yes, my God, the statement—the very idea–that one could boldly make Imagination their hobby was totally astounding to me as a twelve-year old. To this day it is a mind-blowing idea on its face, at least to my mind.
As a writer, I live in the imagination. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I step boldly through that door. And the ideas—the diamonds—are there! There is, in fact, no limit to them.
Let the imagination be your very own diamond mine.
Write, write and write some more. And keep on writing, and the diamonds will surface as the words spill forth onto the page! You can polish these diamonds up as you go, or later on (which is often the more practical way to go about it).
The thing to remember is that you don’t really have to “live it,” to write it. That’s just a myth. It’s B.S. I don’t even think Hemingway was the first to espouse it. One thing you can say for sure about Hemingway is that he knew a great deal about what today would be called “building his brand.” He created this super-sized mythological figure that was Hemingway the writer.
And he was a writer. But the myth overshadows the man. I often wonder whether in the end the man felt he couldn’t possibly live up to the myth that he himself had created.