Excerpt from Outwitting Writer's Block and Other Problems of the Pen
by Jenna Glatzer:
I want you to buy an ugly notebook.
Pretty notebooks and journals make you feel like you have to write important and
polished things in them. Ugly notebooks let you be yourself in whatever
condition you’re in. Oh, and be a cheapskate. Don’t you dare buy one of
those gold-trimmed-page journals.
Now, give your notebook a name. Mine’s named Stanley.
In this notebook, I want you to write stupid things. Trivial, pointless,
everyday details that fall out of your brain when you’re eating breakfast. I
want there to be ketchup stains and coffee rings all over this notebook.
This is not the same as journaling, so you’ll have to unlearn that urge. By
all means, keep a separate journal (or diary, whichever term you prefer), but
don’t let this ugly notebook become one.
In a journal, you’re probably trying to record your feelings and how you
perceive the world around you in a coherent, orderly fashion so that you may
later look back and see what an erudite, clever person you’ve always been.
Think of the ugly notebook as your journal’s drunken cousin.
This drunken cousin is sometimes an embarrassment to the family, and you’d
prefer that no one ever associate you with him. After all, you’re
sophisticated and articulate, and this cousin is just a babbling idiot with
stains on his shirt. (You might name your notebook "Cletus" or
something.)
But deep down, you love your cousin. And when nobody’s looking, you and he
share plenty of laughs, because you can let it all hang out around him.
==> PROMPT: Write about a wedding your character
doesn’t want to attend.
How to Use This Notebook
The point of this notebook is to let you jot down every little thing that pops
into your brain, without any censoring whatsoever, until you feel creatively
purged and ready to focus.
Sometimes, writer’s block is not caused by a lack of ideas, but of too many
ideas all vying for attention at once. You get scattered and don’t know where
to start. This notebook will help you filter.
Just stick your pen on the top of the page and write. If you’ve got nothing to
write about, write about why you don’t have anything to write about. Write
about how you feel right now, and what you’re doing and seeing, and all of the
things around you demanding a piece of you.
In her book The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron advocates the use of
“morning pages.” In essence, the rules of morning pages are that you must
write three throw-away pages every morning.
But you already know how I feel about rules, especially that
“you-must-write-every-day” rule. So here’s my “un-rule”: write in your
ugly notebook whenever you damn well feel like it. You can write three
paragraphs or ten pages at a time, and you can do it at any time, in any place,
in crayon, in marker, working back to front, or filling in pages at random,
while hanging upside down from a tree with no clothes on (I do not want to know
where you keep your pen).
Filling this notebook should never feel like a chore. It’s supposed to be
something you look forward to doing, so don’t let it become a dentist’s
appointment. Don’t use guilt to prod yourself into writing in it. Don’t feel
like Real Writers would fill their notebooks faster than you do (though, yes,
they’d probably do it fully clothed). This is your spot to be you, to write
about whatever thoughts are pinballing around in your brain, and to enjoy your
oasis. No pressure. You’re a writer no matter what happens in this ugly
notebook. You’re a writer, you’re a writer, you’re a writer. Put that in
your notebook and smoke it.
Sometimes my thoughts don’t come out in words. Sometimes they come out in
cartoons. I’m particularly fond of my pictures of a cracked-open head with a
person eating her own brain with a fork and a cartoon bubble over the top
proclaiming, “Yum.” I think the makers of Hannibal stole my old notebook,
because I drew it years before the film. It might have been inspired by the
Stephen Crane poem that starts with the line “In the desert” (“But I like
it / Because it is bitter, / And because it is my heart”).
I want you to write in colors. Markers, crayons, or colored pens and pencils all
work. I want song lyrics to creep in there, and bubble letters, and too many
exclamation points!!! I want you to use all the excessive punctuation you want,
like you have an endless supply of dots and lines stored under your desk.
Don’t lift your pen from the page, and don’t stop writing until you’re
done. Write your brains out. Don’t think of it as practice, and don’t try to
hone your skills, improve as you go along, or write rough drafts of stories
you’re actually planning to write. If new story ideas happen to wrangle their
way into your ugly notebook, all the better, but that’s not the point.
You’re stretching your muscles and warming up.
Want to read more? Order Outwitting
Writer's Block and Other Problems of the Pen!
