A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

The blank page/screen continues to intimidate even the most seasoned writers. It’s the blankness of it—the not-yet of words, the vastness of the task, the emptiness of the space.

The same strategy gets words to the page each time: Write. Write THAT. Write that thought right there—THAT one; how you wish the screen weren’t so blank, or that there were already words on it. You can start by writing that.

You can start with writing gibberish or arguing with the prompt: Why do I have to write? Why can’t this be easier for me?

Sometimes those very words lead to surprisingly relevant thoughts. For instance, if you need to write a college application essay, the stress of knowing that the essay may be the difference between admission and rejection can create paralysis. So let’s follow that thought and see what it might yield!

I hate the blank screen. I want it full of words—my words, in my own voice, not trying to impress anyone. I want to go to college badly because I imagine it as a place where I’ll get to learn and grow. It’s frustrating to be one of the herd of people applying, wondering if the admissions team can even see me, the real person behind all these words. I wish I could include a picture of me with my Kindle on a train in Europe while I read Homer’s Odyssey—a trip I paid for, a graduation present to myself. To me, that’s education. I’d just like to have someone to talk with me about it, to help me see what I’m missing…

A freewrite start like that reveals some excellent thoughts that could be shaped into quality ideas for the college app essay. The student wants to have an authentic educational experience not driven by grades but by acquisition of knowledge. This student is self-motivated already—reading, thinking, taking the initiative in his own education. This student is aware that a university context could enhance his self-study. There’s a fabulous anecdote lodged in the middle that could start the essay: riding a train in Europe reading classic literature, a trip he paid for himself.

Freewriting is free—it dislodges the you that is essential to your essay. Writing an “essay draft” doesn’t often yield that same freedom. “Drafts” tend to call forth attentiveness to the prompt, the expectations of the critical reader. Freewriting enables a writer to dismiss the value of the reader and their supposed expectations in favor of what he or she really wants to say.

Those “wants to say” items then can be mined and retooled to suit the reader expectations later.

The last thing about freewriting: There has never been a freewrite I’ve read or written or heard read aloud that didn’t freak me out a little bit on the first pass. Freewrites have this way of feeling “too free” – like, “Crumbs! What am I supposed to do with all those dangly, rambly words?”

Just know that even as a seasoned freewriter and writing coach, I still feel initially knocked sideways by the sheer ungainly-ness of most freewrites. You will too.

Read it. Walk away from it. Read it again later.

Then start looking for single ideas/sentences/words/items to lift from the raw writing that can be used like boards to build the house. You’ll see them, once you calm down.

If you are in the essay for college crunch, feel free to contact Brave Writer. One of our staff members tutors college bound students in completing those essays for an hourly fee, as she has time. You can email me and we’ll let you know if she’s available. (I don’t advertise this practice too much as we can’t handle a big volume.)

In any event:

Freewriting—blank screen, terror; filled with words, daunting; final outcome, writer’s voice and power!

Image by Brave Writer mom, Kelly (cc)

Get in there! Give your kids attention, care, and HELP. Remember how you taught them to speak: you talked with them, you supplied the words they couldn’t find, you gently corrected them when their grammar choices were not quite right, you gave them scripts for answering the phone or thanking Grandma for the birthday gift.

Your involvement—a serious amount of conversation, sing-songy expressing, complete sentences stated for repetition by your children—created fluent speakers by five years of age.

Did you ever think: “She answered the phone using the script I gave her. Those must not really be her words. She isn’t really speaking. I shouldn’t have said so much”?

Of course not! You were thrilled when she “got it right” and was polite to the incoming caller.

Writing is the same. It’s okay to supply full sentences or new words or ideas. It’s okay to bat around a plot concept, helping your son think through how it will involve all the characters.

You can type papers, or handwrite them. You can give ideas and model full paragraphs. You can supply dialog punctuation that your child hasn’t mastered yet. It’s okay to be enthusiastic and to share an idea that popped into your head after listening to the first draft.

The collaboration of two people on one writing project is not an admission of defeat. It’s not cheating. It’s the way it works in the publishing industry! The author produces the insight and puts it in writing as best he or she can. The editor comes in behind and suggests alternatives—sometimes rewriting whole sections.

You are the more experienced language-user. It stands to reason that your ability to generate thought and language to go with it is superior to your child’s. Your kids deserve to benefit from it! You wouldn’t expect a child to learn to speak English in a crib removed from people.

You can’t expect a child to learn to write banished to a bedroom to “get it done” already, “without any help.”

So go for it, without guilt. You are the right person for the job. Support your young writers with:

Enthusiasm
Your own words
Help with mechanics
Brainstorming ideas
Typing or handwriting, as needed

As we like to say in Brave Writer:

Help helps.

Brave Writer student creating a blog post. Image by Holly.

Actually more human beings are writing today than in the history of the world.

In my college class at Xavier, we looked at the dead sea scrolls website. It was fascinating to see the handwritten papyrus, the “added” letter above a word when it had been accidentally left out, the markings for vowel sounds, the literal puzzle pieces of fragments that archaeologists attempt to piece together into a whole. These precious parchments had somehow survived for centuries and represented early religious writings that were cherished and protected as the rare items they were!

In class, we discussed “writing”—how long it has been around, who could read, who could write! For centuries, many of the beloved stories/histories we know today were handed down through oral performance. Oral tradition relied on story-telling features that made the language easy to memorize and urged participation in recitation. Oral tradition relied on a community of reciters and story-tellers, not just a single source.

Over time, the development of written language catalyzed a desire to record some of these stories/narratives/laws/histories. Still, the primary mode of communication from writing to a community came through reading aloud. Written scrolls were copied by hand; eventually handwritten books replaced scrolls. Books were few and prized.

The Printing Press brought a revolution—the masses could be taught to read and write and they would have books to read, and paper on which to write!

From 1439 until about 1993, paper became the context for the written word. Publishing was in the hands of the ones who could print the words and distribute them. While the Enlightenment brought about education for the masses and writing for all, publishing houses became the gatekeepers of what words became books to read and which didn’t. You could try to self-publish but how would you distribute your work? How would you find your audience?

Naturally, being published became a “status” symbol. It meant someone with authority and money outside yourself deemed you worthy of an audience to read your writing. Writing went from being sacred, to elite!

Fast Forward to: The Internet!

Suddenly publishing is for everyone—it is what the Internet does best! It’s not just a tool for transmitting the written word (paper, machine type), but is a delivery system as well—connects writers with readers effortlessly.

The rise of Twitter is an incredible historic achievement! Suddenly ANYONE on the globe can communicate with the entire world in 140 keystrokes, and those tweeters will find a receptive and responsive audience. Never has writing been more democratic, more available, more compelling than now!

What does that mean? Your kids are already published writers! If they update a status on Facebook, caption an Instagram photo, keep a blog, participate on a discussion board for games or movies, write fan fiction, or tweet their lunches, they are writers with audiences because that’s how the Internet works.

No more do they have to rely on oral tradition to retell their stories. No longer do they have to wonder if they are “good enough” writers to “get published.” They write, freely, in front of an audience and find out directly whether or not what they share is interesting enough to compel a comment or a thumbs up or a smiley face. They get to find out the direct impact of their rant or their self-pitying whine. They discover how to shape an argument, how to do research when they are humbled by someone’s, “Did you bother to Google that first?”

Your kids, mine, you and me—we’re all writing all the time every day for all sorts of people, published and out in the world of ideas and words. More than at any point in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD, we are writers and we are writing non-stop!

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

If you are connected to the Internet, have a keyboard, and take the time to express yourself once a day in writing, you are a GENIUS writer compared to the rest of the world’s population since the dawn of time.

How about that?

Keep going.

Use this tool called online writing and celebrate all the ways your kids are becoming wonderful writers just by virtue of being fully themselves, in writing, on the Internet, let alone all the other ways they are writing too!

Well done! We are so lucky to live at this point in history!

Cross-posted on facebook.

Image (cc)