The Dark Needs To Come Out

I know there’s a story in here waiting to get out, hell there are hundreds of ‘em, thousands.

I don’t much believe in plotting a course. I enjoy jumping in the car and seeing where it will take me. I couldn’t tell you where I’m going to be in a year (though I bet it’ll be right here). I don’t make plans for holidays, or even for the weekend. I leave the Hockey game after the first period, or the second, sometimes I’ll stay until the third. So why do I have a tickler file of articles I thought I’d like to write and a pile of half-written things that petered out?

I don’t write for a living. It’s a damned good thing too. I think if I had to write for a living I’d learn to despise myself for approaching writing as a craft rather than an art. When I write it’s like hopping in the car to see where it will take me. I don’t really know where it’s going. I know, when I’m lucky, I’ll end up somewhere interesting.

I tried to outline a story not too long ago. It was passable, but lacked the sort of soul that I get when I let my fingers go where they want to. So often my fingers want to go to dark places, dark memories that want to play their way out of my head through my fingertips. I try to write things that are happier, but those aren’t the memories I want to share. Those memories are mine, I don’t want to let them go like the darker ones.

I have a clichéd vision of writing that puts me into Coffee shops drinking drek that I wouldn’t feed to my dog. It’s part of the costume I put on to perform as a writer. Just between you and me, it doesn’t usually work. I suppose it’s fine as an exercise to get ready for the real writing. The Coffee shops are where I produce the majority of the pile. You can’t be the white Sherman Alexie in a beatnik Coffee shop.

It’s probably just as clichéd to admit that when the words do start to flow they got a good nudge from a beer. Or three. Sober, you don’t let the dark out. It’s the dark that holds the good stuff, the meaty stuff, the stuff you paid for with bits of your soul. I’m not saying write while you’re drunk. If you do drunk properly you shouldn’t be able to type your password. A little lubrication never hurt anything though.

My idea of editing is to walk away for no more than five minutes, come back and read through a piece three or five times, tweaking just a few words, maybe deleting some, maybe losing a whole sentence. I don’t really anguish over what I’ve written. If it makes sense to me then it’s good to go. Hell, it’s just writing. Despite my mediocre efforts, I’m not the white Sherman Alexie.

I got to take a class once at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. It was an undergrad class, over the summer. I was a bit non-traditional for the course. The professor was an adjunct, and he meant well, but it was his first teaching gig. He was young enough to be my son. But I can say I studied at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. It didn’t live up to my expectations. What ever does?

I know there’s a story in here waiting to get out, hell there are hundreds of ‘em, thousands. I can feel ‘em pressing on my brain, pushing behind my eyes, giving me headaches so bad you’d think someone jammed an ice pick in your eye. I don’t talk much. I’m quiet. The dark’s gotta get out somehow. There’s no avoiding it anymore. No more playing video games to keep it away. No more watching movies, or television, or even meditating to keep things under wraps.

I just hope some of the light comes out too. There’s been a lot of light, more than I’ve deserved. It’d be a pity if I didn’t share it with someone.