Here are some notes I took at a talk by a General Surgeon on writing. It sounds absurd that I should listen to a doctor to blabber about writing, but when I followed him through, the ghost of my old self knocked.
1. Writing is a form of healing.
2. The ideal effect on a reader: Let words disappear into thought; let thought disappear into emotion.
3. Don't push things. Let the materials come to you.
4. Live with your materials: always debate about it with three or four friends.
5. Feelings are thoughts without words.
6. It's not the language; it is something from within that stirs us.
7. Don't censor yourself. Just write what you feel like.
8. Personal is universal. It is OK to put the self into writing.
9. It's a dreadful mistake to imitate the style of other writers.
10. Don't be afraid of being idiosyncratic if you are.
11. To whom does the story belong?
12. write with a pencil, not with keyboard.
13. Writing is about you, not about objectivity.
14. The unconscious is the royal road to semantic cohesion.
---"Writing Medicine: Another Way of Being a Doctor," talk by Sherwin Nuland, MD 1/18/07
He quoted Wordsworth, Shelly, Huxley, Hawthorne, Shakespeare, and Bloom. He sounds like an old-fashioned teacher of creative writing. He is many things that my training kept questioning. But he conjured up the ghost I thought I already left behind. So I put his words down, like some good old song.
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8 comments:
dear--i call this poetic nostalgia "hegemonic ideal of writing" that not every person can afford to enjoy, not to mention it is full of uncritical usage of binaries, like "you" vs. "objectivity." But, old guy, at least he sounds poetic and nostalgic. "Old songs" can only be enjoyed as long as they stay in the category of "old songs."
I drink a toast to beautyofsadness, whoever it is. I fundamentally disagree with each and every one of these commandments, and their implications are legion. But in a spirit of conviviality, I'll permit you your old songs. When I comment on your blog, I'm a guest in your house, and thus I take off my muddy shoes; when you are the guest, you do the same.
Except when you call me a fat whale. Then --- out with the knives.
You seem to forget, Sir Gruntsalot, she referred to you as "my dear fat whale." It's like how I call her barbarian and she calls me savage; it's a (peculiar) term of endearment. What you fail to realize is that you are in fact as "in" as it gets with us now.
I too think most of that is blather, but I know you wouldn't whole-heartedly give yourself over to these "principles" either.
"The hegemonic ideal of writing?" What does that even mean?
thanks, nicholas, for your understanding. you could be my mind-reader from now on:)i will give mike more time before using any "endearments" again. beauty sensed that the poetic nostalgia was mine, not the old man's and she gave me a timely warning.
i used the word "commandments" and mocked the itemization because i knew nobody, especially the would-be doctors that i knew of, would by no means take these seriously.
a few words for the defense of the old man though. He was a general surgeon, he was not a professor of literature or writing, nor a scholar of our training, but he wrote some good stories and he was only talking from his own experience. i would respect the fact that these "principles" did work for him and admire his courage to lay himself open for daggers. some of these did work for me though, such as "be idiosyncratic."
by the way, he actually mentioned that he had some friends from comparative literature and he learned to keep his mouth shut in front of them.
My oh my, I seem to have provoked some inspired back-pedaling for my cranky snickery-doo about being called a whale. I am officially back in seventh grade.
People tend to keep their mouths shut around people from Comp Lit because they don't get any air time. Put Nicholas and me in a room together and we could talk six sociologists under the table, no problem. Liansu is a little more circumspect when it comes to running off at the mouth: to her credit.
Do people shut up before historians? I am asking... Well, They talk more! About history! And they would begin with this: "Do you know...."
I see what you're getting at, beaut, but what Mike is talking about is not mere factual runoff. It's a kind of persistent analytical cantakerousness based on our status as comparativists. We are trained, ironically, to turn what are really the minutia in an argument into the thrust, thus mostly disarming what someone has to say, or, failing that, to produce counter examples from cultures the person has no familiarity with, thus robbing them of the ability re-engage in the argument. It's a kind of verbal smackdown that, while wholly unfair, is useful in attending the kinds of parties where you are likely to be approached by someone who has it in their mind to interrupt wht should be a night of good hearty drankin'.
I like that: "Drankin'!"
Nicholas is right as usual. (Falls back slowly into a pile of down pillows)
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