Notes on Creative Writing Workshop, First Day

 Although creative writing results in stacks of typed pages just as essay writing does, writing poems for this workshop will differ from writing expository essays. The two stacks speak differently and probably say different things. In much of the writing you do in college, the purpose is to demonstrate to a professor or a committee that you have taken in a particular amount of information, come to a conclusion about what you've read and constructed an argument to support or explain your conclusion.

Creative writing, however, does not require the writer to learn a designated body of knowledge beyond the basic elements of fiction and poetry such as complex character or meter.  Because voice is significant part of creative writing, and voices are distinct and diverse, there are often several strategies for a creative writing problem. Consequently, the criteria for an effective poem or story differs. Nearly everything is allowed given the right context. The poet Steve Kowit warns of only three dangers to the creative writer:

How much writing time is enough? For a story or novel, an hour a day is good (however, I know that I have written whole stories over a twelve hour stretch, the first two or three hours being just a warm up).

Hemingway said he stopped his daily writing at a point when he knew what would come next; then after sleep, he picked up where he left off.

But these are examples from fiction. In poetry the language is a bit more concentrated, meaning a poem can say as much in three lines as someone might say in thirty pages of a novel. Kowit recommends 30 minutes minimum. That's not 30 minutes of doodling, but 30 minutes of putting one word after another. The words can be put down slowly or quickly as long as something makes it onto the paper.

Although rewriting is writing, during the 30 minutes that you write, the poem should move forward.  Write fast or write slow but improve on the blank page.  There will always be time to go back and change spelling or punctuation; however, images and ideas are fleeting and if we don't get them into the poem as they come to us, we might miss details later. In other words, if stuck, write what you see.

Images

The central element of most poetry is image. The basis of this phenomenon lies in cognitive psychology, which theorizes that concepts must be perceived with the senses before they can be understood by the intellect. For example, a reader sees paper or ink before reading printed words; likewise, a reader sees the shapes of letters before understanding what words the letters make.

Another way of understanding image is by knowing the difference between concrete and abstract language. Concrete words represent things that can be understood with the senses. The word "sun" might immediately give a reader the perception of bright light (visual) or warmth (tactile). The phrase "crisp apple" might cause a reader to imagine the crunch of biting into the apple (aural) or the taste or scent (olfactory).

By writing with concrete words, a writer appeals to a reader through the common denominator of the human body. Once the writer establishes the common concrete elements, it becomes easier to attach those concretes to abstract concepts.

Try the following exercise in images. Put at least one image on each line. If at any time during the exercise the writing prompts a memory, write it in, paying attention to the images in that memory.

1. Write down a thing that can be seen. Look around for an object. Nearly anything you can see will do. For example, "floor" will work.

2. Now write words that describe that thing. By observing the object's color, texture, location, size or shape, a writer can make the image clearer in the reader's mind: for example, "floor" becomes "cream-colored, Formica, tiles on the second floor." As I write this I notice that the tiles thump when people walk across them. Since this is an experiment in trusting the senses, I'll put the sound in, something like "the hard tiles thump softly beneath my feet."

3. Compare something to something it is not. The words "is" and "were" can help make metaphors; "like" and "as" help make similes. The more diverse the two things compared are, the more opportunity to come up with something fresh. For now, I'll try this metaphor: "The floor is a drum I play with my shoes."

4. Link a thing to an emotion or idea. Because emotions and ideas cannot be seen, they need things to make them concrete. Because music makes me feel good, I'll link the sound of my feet drumming to a positive emotion such as joy: "Where does this rough rhythm of joy come from on this smooth morning?" Notice that I still used description with the word "rough."

5. Combine two things to make a new thing. I'll try to link several pairs: "drum-tiles," "floor-rhythm" and "drum-floor." I like "drum-tiles" best, so I'll make a line with it. "I smile inside the hollow room on this side of the drum-tiles." By putting two concrete words together, a poet makes something new, something that has attributes of both things: "Drum-tile."

Altogether the lines read as follows:

Drumtile

Floor

cream-colored, formica, tiles on the second floor.

The floor is a drum I play with my shoes.

Where does this rough rhythm of joy come from on such a smooth morning?

I smile inside the hollow room on this side of the drum-tiles.

I've got a poem to work with, something I can revise for next class meeting, and so should you (already, I'm imagining the audience below drumming back at me on their ceiling). Keep copies of all revisions.  You never know when you might need to revive a discarded idea. Here are some examples of some other image exercises.