Becoming Stories

An essay inspired by Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury.

For only after, can one nail down, examine, explain. To try to know before hand is to freeze and kill. (p. 116)

I first heard of this concept from Dolores who shared what Don Gallera(sp?) had said in a workshop one time. He said he often asked his students, while they were writing, "What does this piece want to become?" I know that pieces do have their own personalities. I, myself, have turned essays into poems because that's what they were. What I struggle with is the writing that has to be done on a schedule and perhaps just not giving myself enough writing time to let a piece evolve, to discover what the piece wants to be, and even to let it become that if I happen to discover the true nature of a piece of writing.

I'm thinking back to my book chapter (the book is due out this coming fall--finally!). The early drafts of that work are so amazingly bad. I found it difficult to push myself forward on the work and felt fraudulent, as if I should have explained to James, "I'm sorry, but I can't write...you might think I have something to tell, and I do, but I can't write." But, because I had made a commitment, I did push forward, hoever slowly and laboriously, trying to make the piece be something, instead of letting it become. It took a long while until I was able to let it become and right now, as I am writing this, I realize that it was after James had given me his first feedback that I felt like I could begin to let the piece evolve. He gave me some positive feedback, something like "this is a decent draft" and then some things to think about. Hearing him classify my work up to that point as a decent draft made me feel as though I had made progress but it also freed me to play with the work a little because if my playing didn't go anywhere, I could always go back to that "decent draft." This freedom made me feel safe, safe enough to take a risk and that's how that piece changed over time.

So, what does this tell me? It tells me that I hang on to tight to my words (I wrote somewhere else in the last couple of days about how seriously I take myself) and I need to let go; it tells me that I need to take risks in order to get the big payola; it tells me that I need to get out of the way of my words and my mind in order to give them their own life; it tells me that stories develop in minds where thoughts are allowed to roam freely without fear of or exposure to those internal censors we use.

And what does this piece of writing want to become? I don't really know right now. So far it's becoming a discovery piece for me...a place to figure out and articulate (perhaps what I already knew, at least subconsciously) the places where I have the most room to grow as a writer. It's a piece that might want to become an essay, or a prose poem, or a found poem. I don't know yet, but what I do know is that if I stand in its way it will become nothing. What Bradbury has taught me, however, is that it's only after I am done writing that I might know what this piece wants to become...and that I might not know it for a very long time.