What Is Writing? (part 1)
Writing Is Physical
Lately I’ve burned thousands of calories attempting to convince people that writing is a form of communication between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. That writing is valuable and fun in and of itself, not as a service to an artifact like a book or a note. That “not knowing what to write” is not a problem but the default state, the place we want to be, because we’re about to discover something. A writer who doesn’t know what to write is like a jazz singer who doesn’t know what notes to sing, or a runner who doesn’t know which steps to take. We open our mouths and notes fly. We move our legs and running just happens. Likewise a writer puts pen to paper and writing occurs.
Writing is physics and biochemistry.
It's like campfire: sometimes we mistakenly imagine that flames are additional things that are on top of the burning wood. The truth is that flames are the wood. Flame is the visual evidence of wood transformed into ash. Writing is the transformation of ink and paper into crude translations of unconscious thought.
What is Thought?
There are always words at the front of the mind. If we sit down at the blank page, there are always words that come, and they might be “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know, what’s the story, did I—what’s the—this is stupid.” That’s writing. We might believe that the words at the front of the mind aren’t the “right” words, or that they aren’t “good” words, or that merely translating the mind to the page isn’t “real” writing. This is the big mistake. Writing is exactly translating the mind to the page. A working mind is a constant churning of thoughts, like water molecules working their way around an ocean. Writing is like dipping a cup into the ocean and scooping up a few isolated water molecules, a few isolated words or thoughts. The instant those water molecules leave the ocean they cease to be ocean—the act of scooping transforms into mere “water.” Similarly, though not exactly, writing transforms thoughts into words. Just as “water” looks a lot like “ocean,” words “look” a lot light thoughts.
[I didn’t plan any of this when I sat down in front of the blank page. We can see how the water analogy is kind of working, but not all the way.]
We tend to think of the mind as a container that we gradually fill up with knowledge as we grow and learn. Sometimes we say of a toddler, their mind is like a sponge, soaking up ideas. This analogy is totally wrong. If we spill water on the counter, and then wipe it with a sponge, yes, the sponge soaks up the water. The water molecules move from the counter to the sponge. The counter is no longer wet. Learning doesn’t work like this. If I tell you an idea, the idea isn’t transferred from me to you as if I were passing you a bottle of water. Rather, your mind makes a copy of the idea. The better I explain the idea, the more accurate your copy. When we go our separate ways, we both have copies—slightly different copies—of the idea.
This means that the essential building materials of ideas are already in the mind. Or, they’re not in the mind so much as they are the mind. We can imagine an empty swimming pool that gradually fills up with water. We can’t imagine an empty ocean, because an ocean isn’t a container. It is a mass. Maybe we can imagine a mass of unbonded hydrogen and oxygen atoms—the building blocks of water molecules. When we learn, a bond is formed. Nothing new is added to the mind. Rather, what’s already there is reordered, encoded into ideas, like hydrogen and oxygen bonded to form water.
A puddle without water is not an empty puddle. It is a pothole. Likewise a mind without thought is not an empty mind—it is merely a brain.
Once we’re on board with this notion we can make the next leap. There is no thinker of thoughts. The thinker would be the pool, and there is no pool. What we experience as thinker—as self—is the unique collection of thoughts—is an individual mind.
Maybe another analogy would be a computer hard drive. The drive isn’t “filled” with documents and photos and songs and software. We use spacial language to talk about hard drives, words like “storage,” and “space,” and “empty,” and “nearly full,” but these are all metaphors. A hard drive is always already full, full of bits, ones and zeros, binary code. When we “save” a document, what’s actually happening is that the hard drive receives instructions—like a recipe—for how to restructure the bits. A digital photo is a particular combination of binary code. A word doc is another combination. They are both made of the same constituent parts—information.
The human mind is made of similar information coding materials.
(Are there any neuroscientists reading this? I know I’m getting at least some (most?) of this wrong… any insight?)
What is Writing?
The English word “writing” drags along far too many meanings. In one sense, it is an action. I am doing writing. I pull a pen across a page and fill that page with ink marks. This action requires strength and dexterity. In this way it is similar to running or singing.
In another sense, we also use the term to refer to a collection of words and sentences. I like the book’s plot, we might say, but the writing doesn’t move me. This use of the term is unhelpful, because it contributes toward the belief that writing is something that only gifted and talented writers can or should do. Too often we think of writing as a target for critique, like a recording of a song, or an athletic competition. If we ask do you like Stephen King’s writing, what we really mean is, do we like his books.
Writing Is Running.
Running evolved as a method for legged creature to move from one place to another quickly. We humans no longer need running to move quickly—we have many different technological solutions for movement. Now, we run for fun, to exercise the body. Joggers know that running feels terrific, especially if we can find the flow state we call “runner’s high.”
Natalie Goldberg brings up running when insisting that there’s no such thing as “writer’s block.” A person who claims to want to write might opine, I’m blocked—I don’t know what to write. Goldberg points out that a person who wants to run (assuming that ability isn’t an issue here—legs work, feet work, etc.) would never claim runner’s block, would never say, I don’t know which steps to take, or which race to run, or how to pace myself through a 1600 meter relay. A person who wants to run doesn’t fret over races or pacing. They go outside and put one foot in front of the other and keep their body moving and ta-da: running happens.
We often ask writers, where do you get your ideas? How come we never ask runners, where do your steps come from? (they come from the same place…)
Similar to running, writing evolved first as a tool for tracking. Ancient humans invented farming, and they had more sheep than they could count with their eyes, so they invented tally marks to track their sheep. Tallies evolved into numbers; numbers evolved into printed words. Once we had printed words, then we could track ideas as well as things.
Writing is an affordance that allows ideas to live outside the human mind.
Writing Is Singing
Anyone who has working vocal chords, desire, and reason, can sing. You need all three. We might balk at “reason,” thinking, no one needs a reason to sing—it just feels good. Well, that’s the reason. What we don’t need is a song. We live surrounded by the recorded sounds of the world’s best singers, and nearly all of them sing lyrical compositions. Pop music is made of songs. Melody + Lyric. We have become convinced that music is song, that music is recorded song. We have forgotten that the human voice is capable of so many sounds.
Protestant Christians, for all the faults of the institution (and the faults are legion…) have not forgotten this. Presbyterian, Baptist, and Evangelical church services include lively music ministry that begins with song, and then moves and builds to improvisational vocal expression that abandons lyric for pure singing. Shouting, babbling, crooning, humming, oohs and ahhs—the faithful might insist that God speaks through his servants—or whatever—but the truth is that people are singing.
(We also have plenty of secular examples of lyricless singing. Consider Freddie Mercury, Ella Fitzgerald, Paul McCartney, and my favorite, Clare Torry, my god, just watch her entire performance here… And but also, keep in mind, these people are all practiced and skilled singers (not talented, not gifted—there’s no such thing as talent—at best we might talk about aptitude), and the point here is that anyone can do this, not just so-called “good” singers.)
Like a runner doesn’t lament about not knowing what race to run, a singer doesn’t need a song. You open your mouth and the notes come, from the same place as steps.
Most of this messy essay was drafted by hand, with pen and paper, not knowing which words would come next. Here’s a snapshot of the first draft:
We almost never get to see writers improvising, mainly because it isn’t very interesting to watch. The closest we come is freestyle rap or slam poetry, but those are more like extemporaneous speech than writing. Writing requires mark-making. The physicality is part of what defines it.
Writing is a physical act, like running, like singing—I mentioned this to a student who suggested that “dancing” might be a better metaphor, and I agree—thanks, Allison. A dancer doesn’t need choreography or music. Pop culture shows us the world’s best dancers, so we amateurs are afraid to be seen dancing in any way that is less than excellent. A dance move comes from the same place as a stride, as a note, as the next word. No need for choreography; no need for a race; no need for a song. Move your body and dancing happens. Put one foot in front of the other and running happens. Open your mouth and push air through the vocal chords and singing happens. Likewise, scratch the pen across the page and writing happens.
But what, exactly, happens?
I’ll write a bit more and find out.