Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life

I thought I would be redundant, but reading a book about writing is different from actually getting down and doing writing. I was naïve. I should have remembered that after I read the Tibetan Book of the Dead, I was still afraid to die.

“Why, Naa-da-lee, this book should be very successful. When you are done with it, you know the author better. That’s all a reader really wants”—she nodded her head—“to know the author better. Even if it’s a novel, they want to know the author.”

Hemingway said if a writer knows something, even if he doesn’t write it, it is present in his work.

4. Don’t think. We usually live in the realm of second or third thoughts, thoughts on thoughts, rather than in the realm of first thoughts, the real way we flash on something. Stay with the first flash. Writing practice will help you contact first thoughts. Just practice and forget everything else.

6. You are free to write the worst junk in America.

3. Be specific. Not car, but Cadillac. Not fruit, but apple. Not bird, but wren. Not a codependent, neurotic man, but Harry, who runs to open the refrigerator for his wife, thinking she wants an apple, when she is headed for the gas stove to light her cigarette. Be careful of those pop-psychology labels. Get below the label and be specific to the pers

1. Keep your hand moving.

7. Go for the jugular. If something scary comes up, go for it. That’s where the energy is. Otherwise, you’ll spend all your time writing around whatever makes you nervous. It will probably be abstract, bland writing because you’re avoiding the truth.

Nanao Sakaki, who translated Issa’s haiku, said, “Not gifted with genius but honestly holding his experience deep in his heart, he kept his simplicity and humanity.” That is how Issa wrote his haiku; that is how he got his style. Nothing fancy. He digested who he was: a human being with human experiences.