the voyeur as writer

Posted on November 20, 2011 by Cynthia G.

JOURNAL THAT

a guide to writing

cynthia gregory

Journaling isn’t, as they say, rocket science. You don’t have to be especially creative or hold an advanced degree to do it.. The barest minimum skill you must own to successfully journal is to be an unrepentant voyeur. Oh sure, you can go at it with purpose, review your day and record your thoughts, deeds, wishes, regrets, passions, traffic backups, lunchroom gossip, career conundrums, or epic visions. This is all very useful but as you can see, you are limited to one specific experience: your own.

Have you ever run across a photo album at an antique or thrift store? I adore old photos; especially the black and white ones with the little scalloped edges. I love to study the faces, wonder what their lives were like, who they loved, what they cared about. Photos are so wonderful because they record a single, simple moment in time. There is a girl in a light-colored dress. There is a dog. A clapboard house. A black car. There are no add-ons. There are no subtractions. The camera capturing a scene is emotionally blank, it just records the picture that appears in the lens. The best journaling does this too.

What you can also do – and actually what I whole heartedly recommend that you try – is to observe the world you inhabit not as if you were the master of it, but as if you are a camera. No feelings of good or bad, right or wrong, but impersonally. It’s good practice to have a regular place to write, but it’s also good to mix it up a bit. If you’re not in the habit of eating alone, go to a restaurant and bring your journal. Is there a waterfront park that you are especially drawn to? Book yourself out for half a day and take your journal along for the ride. Take a ferry boat across the water, park yourself on a bench at the mall, tuck into a table at the newest, hippest coffee house, and bring your journal as your sole companion. Draw it out with a flourish. Observe your surroundings. Dip your head. Listen to your heartbeat for a minute, and then write. Write about the rich detail of the scene around you. No aspect is too small to notice, not one so big you can’t break it into pieces and focus on a part of it. Who is sitting around you? What are they eating, and how do they approach their food? Do they savor each flavor or do they shovel it in with gusto? Is that nanny with the toddler a gentle grandma, or is she a young immigrant with an interesting accent? Details.

We live in a voyeur culture. Strictly speaking, we’re not talking voyeur here in a lurid, creepy way. It used to be that a voyeur was a guy who skulked around and peered into ladies’ bedroom windows. Now everyone is famous, and everyone has a Facebook page. Privacy and solitude have become quaint ideas – artifacts of another century. In the age of reality shows, underwear models, celebrity wannabes, and You Tube, the very idea of privacy is an antique notion. It’s all about the details, baby! Not that I’m suggesting you sink so low as to reveal all. Not at all. I’m just saying look around. Notice the world around you. It’s bright, it’s wired, it’s delivered to you in dazzling color.

So become a literary voyeur. One who observes the delicious soup of life in order to enrich art. Become a human surveillance camera. You think that geezer who peers in through a strangers’ is looking for generalizations? Not close, my friend. He’s looking for the distinguishing marks: the moles, the birthmarks, the ear hairs. They – you – me, we’re looking for those details that are not-me. She is not me – in a hundred ways. You know the love poem even Bugs Bunny could recite: “how do I love thee, let me count the ways”? Don’t let that be an idle promise. List those 100 ways and make every one of them sweet and juicy and poignant.

Don’t just write from the surface, dive in. Write about what is remarkable in the world around you, like an unblinking camera. Go deep and observe acutely. Nothing is good or bad, it just is. Look, and really see. Let go of who you are; who you think you are. Let go of the photographer; be the camera. Allow the photograph.

get lost in it

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Cynthia G.

JOURNAL THAT

a guide to writing

cynthia gregory

Have you ever noticed that something you love to do takes very little effort and time seems to evaporate before you like mirage waves on the desert? Meanwhile, tasks that you’re not so eager about drag on and on and eternally on, like the distance between your body scraping across the desert and that oasis on the horizon?

But when it’s good, it’s hypnotic. Its almost like falling in love; and who doesn’t love love, for goodness sake? It feels good, it lowers your blood pressure, makes you feel lithe and alive, and boosts your endorphin levels. You love your writing, and oh, my stars and garters, your writing loves you back! It’s a total adoration fest. The words flow. Your descriptions sing. Your hand is a conduit for a genius stream of words as they spill and tumble through your mind, down your arm, to the very tips of the fingers that push your pen across the page. Each brilliant thought is a nebulous cloud of interstellar dust from which dozens of giant, dazzling stars are born. There has never been a journaler in the history of this whole watery planet who has managed to capture the essence of your subject the way you have, just now, and forever more, amen.

But when you don’t feel ‘on’ and there are pages to fill? That, mon amie, is the desert of the soul. Some might call it writer’s block, but I don’t believe in writer’s block. The only time you have said affliction is when you’re not writing.

Conversely, if you’re writing, you’re not blocked. Period. You just do it. You may not do it with enthusiasm, but just try going through the motions and before you know it, you’re not minding it so much, in fact you find that you’re actually enjoying yourself and if you let yourself be totally honest, you’re glad you forced yourself in to the fulfilling the journaling promise: just write. That’s all that’s I ask of you: just put a little effort into it.

I’ve had a painting project hanging over me for awhile now. The majority of the project is completed; now it’s just the detail work. Most people hate the painting chore; I don’t mind it. I actually find it to be a very relaxing activity that occupies my body and allows my wind to wander. At any rate, I had been putting off putting the finishing touches on my project, and finally decided to do it. I gave myself an hour to paint, “even if I don’t finish the job entirely.” I gave myself into it. I taped off the edges, stirred the paint, picked up the brush, and surrendered to the project. Before long, the hour was up, I was humming a happy little tune, and I continued to paint for a little while longer. I wrapped the project up for the day, put my tools away, and can I just tell you about the sense of satisfaction that I get each time I pass by the newly painted hall? It’s not a masterpiece, but it pleasures me to know that I create a little piece of beauty by not letting my resistance get the better of me, talk me out of doing something I promised myself that I’d do.

What do you do when you are obligated to journal and don’t much feel like it? Well, you can adjust your journaling goals and motivations, or you can break the project into bite size pieces. You don’t feel like writing? Write for ten minutes. Just write one page (I double-dog-dare you). Write about anything meaningless; what you ate, who was on the commuter train, the ten musical instruments that can make the sound of rain. If you can’t write about the big things, write about the small ones.

Write until you remember why you wanted to write in the first place and fall in love with the process. Because you never really get to that place you’re going. There is no absolute there, there – at least, no destination you can find on a map. Allow yourself to get lost in writing and let the writing remind you of who you are. Just give in to it, immerse yourself in it, let go of all the edges that you know, that you cling to, just let yourself get lost in it. I offer a double your genius back guarantee: you’ll fall in love with the place it takes you.

knit this: words, dreams, stories

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Cynthia G.

JOURNAL THAT

a guide to writing

cynthia gregory

Have you given yourself over to a brand new, never-been-done project? It’s tricky business. A couple of years ago, I decided that I was going to knit a sweater. I could see it in my head, the seafoam green color, the nubby texture. When I told a friend of my intention, she asked if I was an accomplished knitter. “No,” I replied. “I’ve never done it.” She gave me a funny smile. Then she said, “Well, maybe you should start with a scarf.” First I was offended, but then I took her advice and shopped for a pair of needles, an instruction book, and some beautiful skeins of yarn, then went on to knit a series of fabulous scarves, which I then gave away as Christmas gifts. The first ones were something only I would wear, but they got better with time and effort.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking: knitting is not writing. But you know, maybe it is. You start where you start, and each time you do it, it become a bit easier, a little less freakish. Keep at it long enough, you become adept, and your new passion will give you a glow. Look at a hand-knitted sweater closely; it will reveal a story to you. Was the hand that made it loose and confident, or was it tense and fighting the yarn? Knit one, purl two.

There is always a learning curve, whether you’re knitting or writing or making paella. Don’t beat yourself up. Start at the beginning. Make an effort. Take a giant leap of faith. You may not be accomplished in the beginning, but make an honest effort. Become a channel of the spirit of the thing and eventually, with enough practice, your hand will relax and the yarn will flow.

There may be times when you’ll look at your journal and be tempted to pull a string and unravel the whole mess. It isn’t what you thought it would be. The words fall heavily on the page, tight as turds. It isn’t the beautiful creation you intended. But you cannot judge these things. What would a teacher say about your knitting, your journaling? She would be gentle, she would be kind. She would say, “That’s very nice, this here. You see where you did this so beautifully? And here – you can do better than this. Pay attention. Practice.”

At lunch one day, my friend Kate told me that she has kept a journal for twenty years, consistently, except for one year. “What happened,” I asked, curious about that empty year. “I had a room mate,” she replied. “I found out that when I wasn’t home, she ready my journal without my permission.” This was a violation of the worst kind. I sympathized. Journals are not something to share randomly; they are an intensely private affair. Kate’s roommate had found a string, pulled it, and unraveled a precious creation.

In a way, it is easy to understand the temptation of the roommate. There is something pure and delicious and overwhelmingly seductive about the discovery of uncensored thoughts. When we’re small, we’re programmed to not say certain things, not to even think them. So we exile such thoughts to an underground of sorts, in order to gain acceptance from the people who have the power to dole out or withhold love. But the years trickle by and as adults, the thoughts don’t just evaporate, they go underground. Therapy is one route to release them, journaling is another. Journaling can become an outlet for the millions of thoughts jumbled in our heads. We may not wish to acknowledge them, but the thoughts are there nevertheless, and it feels good to get them down on paper. Very good. Soon, if you give yourself permission to get used to creating a personal narrative, journaling become s a delicious habit.

Once you get used to writing in your journal, you may find that you want to keep that sacred text with you at all times. You carry it around in your purse, your bag, your car, the way little grannies carry around their tapestry bag of knitting needles and yarn. When you are waiting on line at the DMV, lunching on a park bench, sitting on a bus; you’ll pull your journal out and look around for a moment and then move the pen across the page, knitting words, narratives, belief, into something lasting. You may even find yourself arriving early to appointments, just to give yourself that space of time to sit quietly, to write.

After Kate and the intrusive roommate were no longer sharing a living space, she began to journal again. You see, the evil roommate couldn’t stop my friend from keeping a journal, for the desire to write was too strong and the satisfaction from having written was too sweet. Now, as if confessing, she tells me that she doesn’t record her thoughts every day, but still, she journals. “Some journals are a single year,” she says. “Some journals contain two years.” She journals for the peace it gives her, the gifts she will one day make of this deep art to her children.

Kate doesn’t journal daily, but she writes often, and keeps her journal on the table beside her bed so that before she sleeps, she can place her thoughts where she can see them, touch them, keep them in a safe place. She, and you, and me, we create something when we journal.

Knit one, purl two.

to be continued. . .

empty your mind

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Cynthia G.

JOURNAL THAT

a guide to writing

cynthia gregory

Sometimes, it feels like that are too many words in the wide world to squeeze down to the size of a journal page. At other times, it feels as if all of the words have turned to smoke and there is literally nothing left to say. The universe is eternally creative; you just have to remember that when you approach the blaring, blazing, empty white page of your journal. Emptiness is an illusion. This is always more.

There is a wonderful parable that I think about when the emptiness arrives. This is a story of a teacher and a student. A new student comes to a teacher one day and begins to tell the teacher all the places he has studied, and all the wonderful teachers he has had. The master listens patiently and then begins to make tea. When the tea is ready, she pours the tea into the student’s cup until it begins to overflow and run across the floor. The student watches the chaos of the overflowing teacup and shouts, “Stop, stop! The cup is full; you can’t get any more in.”

The teacher stops pouring and says very calmly, “You are like this cup; you are full of ideas about knowledge and skill. You come and ask for teaching, but your cup is full; I can’t put anything in. Before I can teach you, you’ll have to empty your cup.”

Periodically, you have to forget everything you know about a subject. You may have studied writing for years. Or, maybe not. At the very least, you were forced to sit through years of grammar and composition training in school where you were taught how to spell, craft a sentence. As a writing teacher, I’ve often told my students to quit trying so hard to sound like a smarty pants. Somewhere along the line, we developed the idea that to write well, we must adopt the voice of an expert with a PhD in microeconomics or some such thing. In fact, the opposite is true.

Have you ever read A. A. Milne? He is best known for his books about a bear named Pooh who is much beloved by a boy called Christopher Robbin. Milne also wrote some astonishing poetry, and he had a penchant for writing everything in lowercase. Sometimes without punctuation. The trick to his writing is that it seems so simply and elementary. In fact, its complexity is brilliant. His work seems to be written for an audience of five year olds, but if you look closely, the beauty of his prose staggers.

Pablo Picasso said that every child is an artist. It’s true, isn’t it? A child is completely open to the creative process, she resides wholly and completely in the Now moment. She does not project her thoughts to tomorrow, or think critically about how to shape a hand or what color to paint the sun. She lives completely and utterly Now, and is willing to put it all out there without filters, without revisions, without guile. You must approach your journal with the same integrity.

Empty your mind and release all expectations. Forget what you wrote yesterday, don’t give a nanosecond of thought about what you might fill your page with tomorrow. Just show up and use whatever material is at hand. Look at it, find the shape of it, bounce it around in your mind for a moment and then put it on the page. Don’t think about what it means about you; that is none of your business. Don’t worry about what someone might think if they snoop in your very private, very personal journal. Don’t wonder if the Nobel Prize committee will publish your journals in their entirety when you are dead and gone, dazzled by your genius.

Empty your mind, pour every drop out of your cup. What is your cup so full of that it crowds out the possibility of an original thought?

We all have incredibly complex lives. Sometimes it is astonishing when you consider what it requires to navigate through a single day. All of our busy lives and the lives of those we love requires thinking, and organizing and planning. Add to the responsibilities of a single day, a lifetime of memories, or worries great and small, anticipation of future events, future plans, all the might-haves and could-be’s. There is so much crowded in our cups!

But then, we have moments of clarity. We empty our cups and we just are. Have you noticed that when you’re completely absorbed by a project, whether its painting the fence or writing a letter or playing a Bach prelude, that time falls away? That you are no longer aware of sounds outside of the room, of the pattern of your breathing in and breathing out, of anything but the melody? You can lose hours and gain lifetimes of pleasure by simply being present to the creative process. This is the paradox: only when you empty your cup, are you open to the possibility of filling it.

Each time you approach your journal take a moment to empty your mind to all but the intention to write. Let the words come. Trust that they will. A bit like magic, it works.

to be continued. . .

having written

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Cynthia G.

JOURNAL THAT

a guide to writing

cynthia gregory

Everyone has heard the old chestnut to “write what you know about.” But, cherished friend, it ain’t that easy. We’ve also been told to “write like you talk” – and that’s just foolish. This kind of advice just leads to unrealistic expectations, not to mention bad syntax, sloppy verb conjugation, and mangled grammar. This is not to say that you should worry about any of these in your journal because journaling ought to be at the very least an exercise in jumping into the stream of consciousness with both feet and an inner tube.

Journaling is not for sissies. You have to really want it with a desire born so deep only a seismographer can find its source. You have to do it; you just do. And you don’t have to explain or justify it any more than you have to justify breathing. Great genius is born of desire. And once the desire to write is established, the next most important part is means; and the method of true genius is to journal by hand. You know, the old fashioned way. Pen. Paper. Good lighting, a comfortable chair. Not too comfortable, just saying.

Why, you may well ask, is it important to write by hand when its so much easier to tap away on three rows of electronic buttons? Isn’t that why God invented Steven Jobs? The answer is that true writing is a tactile experience and because you think differently when you have to push a pen over a rough sheet of reconstituted tree pulp and because the process of writing is refined – just a little – when you have to make the words exact and legible and pretty on the page with nerves and tissues and with the fine muscles of your fingers. Writing becomes a whole body experience when you do it by hand. Transcribe your thoughts later if you must, but start first with an unblemished piece of paper and fill it with observations, feelings, and a million details. Write. By. Hand.

Writing by hand is visceral and it connects with the most primitive parts of the brain; also the most elevated and elegant parts of the thinking apparatus. However, don’t think too much: just write. A mentor once said to me, “Don’t worry about how it all comes together. Just write. The story will take care of itself.”

So I pass this along to you: write. Just, write. And I really insist: by hand. So, you get cramps in your fingers; so what. You’ll get over it. And when you do, you will have written – and you feel like you climbed Kilimanjaro.

to be continued. . .

write, writer, written

Posted on July 23, 2011 by Cynthia G.

JOURNAL THAT

a guide to writing

cynthia gregory

A journal is not a diary. Well, it can be, but at its best, it is not. It is not about recording your deepest, darkest fears; the ones you don’t want anyone (especially that one you love) to read. It is not about judgment in the sense of “am I a good writer?” or “what does it say about me if I can’t put a few scribbles on a blasted sheet of paper?” kind of judgment. It is, in part, killing the editor in your head. You know, the one who says, “who cares what you think? You know you’re never going to write anything worth reading anyway, why bother?”

Kill the editor. The editor is only your insecurities with carte blanche and the power to stop you in your tracks before you uncap your pen. This is what you do: write. Write for fifteen minutes every day, no matter what. Even if you just write “I have nothing to say today.” Even if you just fill the page with gibberish. Write knowing that our journal is not about you. Do you get that?

Your journal isn’t about you, sweetheart.

No offense, and as important as you are, your journal is not an extension of you. Rather, it is like a Polaroid camera that you aim at everything around you and with which you snap a photo. This café. That conversation. That wide, beautiful coastline with clouds hovering over the water like cottoncandy and the smell of the surf pushing spring toward the desert on a mission from God.

It is a recording. It is a gift from the universe. How is it a gift? It is a gift because no one, not one soul who has ever been or will be, has the power of observation from your perspective, with your history, with your love of crossword puzzles or majong or Thai noodles with peanut sauce. You are a dazzling flower on the furthest branch of the tree of life and what you see around you is a devotion in the truest sense.

So write about the hamburger you ate for lunch. Write about the girl who brought it to you, whose shoes seemed unnaturally worn maybe because she’s working her way through art school and she deserves a little extra tip so maybe she can sleep in tomorrow and dream of a watercolor that will turn the world on its collective ear. Your journal is not about you. It is a gift to the world.

My ex-husband’s grandmother kept a journal every day of her married life. When Grandma died at 96, my father-in-law gave a journal of the year they were born to each of the grand kids. You could say that there was nothing extraordinary about it, but there was something precious in the grocery lists she made in her spidery hand. There was a door into the life of a woman who made a family so big that galaxies were created just to contain the love she had for them.

The laundry lists, the shoes to be taken to the repair man, the small concerns, were a door into a world we none of us had seen before. This was a picture of a woman not as we knew her, but a woman who when she wrote the journal, was younger than we who were reading it, and it was astonishing.

So write your journal, and don’t worry about being brilliant. Just write. Just do it, knowing whatever you say is sacred, in a context you can’t even imagine. Or not.

Hallelujah, amen, and wahoo!

to be continued. . .