A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Chris Baty, creator of National Novel Writing Month, says:

The first law of exuberant imperfection is essentially this: the quickest, easiest way to produce something beautiful and lasting is to risk making something horribly crappy.

Most writing programs for homeschool emphasize excellence, order, right thinking and writing.

I’d rather emphasize exuberance.

I wrote recently that “joy is the best teacher.” Exuberance is the manifestation of joy – for the sheer fun of it.

Exuberance looks like jumping on a trampoline with sprinklers underneath, eating the rest of the ice cream out of the carton with a spoon (and not saving any for anyone else!), singing really loudly in the car with the windows down. It’s the down track of a roller coaster, big ocean waves tossing you in the air, your first real kiss (the kind where you lock lips until you gasp for air).

Exuberant writing, then, is the kind that races, that is filled with imagination, hunger, drive, ideas, words and energy.

I know I’m in the “exuberant zone” when I can’t stop, when words pop, when the world is suddenly one big writing tablet.

Is it possible to unleash exuberance in our kids when they often see writing as the enemy? YES! That’s the whole point of this blog.

Exuberant imperfection is critical to better writing later. Anyone who hasn’t experienced exuberance in writing has not yet encountered her writer’s voice. Exuberance fosters voice. Freedom to fail creates the opportunity for exuberance. A receptive audience ensures exuberance (after all, if you dance in your underpants, when you get caught, you hope the person will strip down and dance too, not mock you).

So pick some of the zany freewrites and exercises from this blog. Get jiggy with it!

Exuberate! And write. (Ha! I think I just made up a word. Shakespeare would be proud.)

Image by Lauren Manning (cc)

This entry is filed under Advice from the pros, Brave Writer Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.