“It shows that dirt is clean when there is a volume.”—Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons
When you sit
down to write, sometimes you may find it difficult to get into a
writing headspace. Sometimes a warm up is in order to break from the
rest of your day and say to your mind, “Alright, now we're going to
do the thing.”
Try this to
limber up your language and creativity: tenderize your
buttons.
Alright-alright,
I'll explain. Gertrude Stein wrote this little book
called Tender Buttons (read here), which
was a kind of urtext for Modernist writing. Her writing emphasized
sounds and rhythms rather than meaning. Tender Buttons is
her experiment with automatic
writing. She would sit
down and just let her mind spool out a ribbon of words, one after the
other forming, if not sentences, at least kinds of sentences.
The
thought at the time was that your subconscious would push forward and
take control, spilling out your deeper self in semi-coherent patches.
As it turns out, that's mostly stupid, like most Freudian thinking,
but it does make for a
really fun and freeing writing exercise.
What
Gertie discovered was that she could never really achieve automatic
writing, in which one word randomly popped up after the next. She
could never totally stop thinking, I guess because she was of
literary mind and, you know, awake. Certain words she associated
with other words, which had definitions
and connotations
that led her mind down familiar paths. Basically, you end up in this
wind tunnel of free association.
So
here's what you do.
Your writing feels constipated, or you don't want to sit down
because the task seems too arduous, the work ahead of you too
serious. Relax. Just have a little fun with language for a few
minutes to stretch out your brain. Open up a blank doc, and without
any hesitation, start typing. Nope, don't question a single word.
If thoughts form, write those thoughts. Don't be afraid of any of
it. Never mind syntax. Never mind sense. Follow the sounds of
words. Chant, rave, just keep typing. Jump from one thought to the
next. Drum up an obscure word, then follow it, and fast. Don't
wait. It feels good. It feels good to keep typing, to keep moving,
to watch the blank space fill up. All out in a burst. Here's mine:
Flipper
melon wilting in the sun. Sunbird picked away the rind but never
mind the sweet. Can't swim full up anyway. Marching hares,
debonair, james dean metal sling fired the ever wary off into the
world. So long my shining diamond.
It's
just that easy. Now
you.
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