On Writing: Essential Caca
My sister’s bulldog has a penchant for eating stuff he shouldn’t: bits of Frisbee, sponge animals from my niece’s bathtub, the eyeballs of stuffed bears. They all emerge like little treasures in the yard after a warm rain.
You get me.
Far be it from me to compare my beloved art form to a pile of dog business, but you know, there’s a reason Anne Lamott calls them Shitty First Drafts.
When I write I put down a lot of words—upwards of several thousand a day. I do time in my chair (the first part of which may consist of internal debate on the merits of Botox or mindless eyebrow pulling). But somewhere around the twenty-minute mark I get down to it. I write fast and ugly.
I do not look back.
Anyone who knows me knows this goes against all natural law. That I am, in fact, an obsessive nit who will pick at just about anything—sweater pills, labels, cuticles. Especially cuticles. That I can rearrange a sentence like a kitchen shelf for the better part of an hour. But I also know that without writing a bunch of essential caca, I cannot get to the good bits.
What are the good bits? I don’t know. Really—I never know. I never knew a jogger would get hit by a car in Demon. I did not know how a man’s head would shake on his neck in mortal fear... how Eve’s name would sound on the lips of Adam. Without letting it run out from the fingers, I still would be none the wiser.
And so I’ve just learned to trust that those bits are in there.
But let me say: writing crap is tough. We don’t want it to stink long on the page. We have high aspirations for these words; they should reflect on our insouciant brilliance, maybe be worth some kind of money. In the very least, they should not embarrass us, like sweet-faced children who parrot the best expletives of their parents.
And yet, there they are: parroting, stinking, and not worth… well, you know.
I prepare to go mucking on the second pass. I expect to shovel out a load. I expect to wade through manure.
And, against logic, I expect to find treasure.
You get me.
Far be it from me to compare my beloved art form to a pile of dog business, but you know, there’s a reason Anne Lamott calls them Shitty First Drafts.
When I write I put down a lot of words—upwards of several thousand a day. I do time in my chair (the first part of which may consist of internal debate on the merits of Botox or mindless eyebrow pulling). But somewhere around the twenty-minute mark I get down to it. I write fast and ugly.
I do not look back.
Anyone who knows me knows this goes against all natural law. That I am, in fact, an obsessive nit who will pick at just about anything—sweater pills, labels, cuticles. Especially cuticles. That I can rearrange a sentence like a kitchen shelf for the better part of an hour. But I also know that without writing a bunch of essential caca, I cannot get to the good bits.
What are the good bits? I don’t know. Really—I never know. I never knew a jogger would get hit by a car in Demon. I did not know how a man’s head would shake on his neck in mortal fear... how Eve’s name would sound on the lips of Adam. Without letting it run out from the fingers, I still would be none the wiser.
And so I’ve just learned to trust that those bits are in there.
But let me say: writing crap is tough. We don’t want it to stink long on the page. We have high aspirations for these words; they should reflect on our insouciant brilliance, maybe be worth some kind of money. In the very least, they should not embarrass us, like sweet-faced children who parrot the best expletives of their parents.
And yet, there they are: parroting, stinking, and not worth… well, you know.
I prepare to go mucking on the second pass. I expect to shovel out a load. I expect to wade through manure.
And, against logic, I expect to find treasure.
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