“Sometimes we are so confused and sad that all we can do is glue one thing to another. Use white glue and paper from the trash, glue paper onto paper, glue scraps and bits of fabric, have a tragic movie playing in the background, have a comforting drink nearby, let the thing you are doing be nothing, you are making nothing at all, you are just keeping your hands in motion, putting one thing down and then the next thing down and sometimes crying in between.”
—Lynda Barry
THE FOG OF WAR, THE FOG OF DOODLING
Notes on The Fog of War (see them bigger)
The filmmaker Errol Morris’s blog for the NyTimes has quickly become one of my favorite reads on the internet, so I Netflixed a bunch of his documentaries. I started with The Fog of War (Amazon), since the film’s subject, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, died a couple weeks ago. (There’s a good Fresh Air with interviews of McNamara and Morris.)
This was a lazy set of notes for me: I knew ahead of time that there were “Eleven Lessons” from McNamara’s life, so I just listed them as the movie went along, with a few other scribbles here and there.
The one thing notable about them is that I used the page on the right of the sketchbook for straightforward notes, and the page on the left for doodles. I was thinking of Lynda Barry — how she keeps a legal pad next to whatever she’s working on, so she can keep her brush moving when she gets stuck.
Of course, to me, the doodle page is much more interesting. The right side is straightforward information, the left side is free-associative, with me riffing off the information, processing it. In my better notes, I combine these two sides…
HOW?
Creative-writing programs are designed on the theory that students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem how to write a publishable poem.—Louis Menand, “Show or Tell: Should creative writing be taught?“
For me, the question isn’t should, it’s how.
How should creative writing be taught?
In The 3 A.M Epiphany, Brian Kitely writes that his approach is to make the creative writing workshop a workshop in the sense of an artist or carpenter: “a light, airy room full of tools and raw materials where most of the work is hands-on.”
The standard American workshop is a lazy construction. The teacher asks students to bring in stories or poems to class, sometimes copied and handed out ahead of time, sometimes not. The class and its final arbiter (usually the teacher) judge the merits of the story or poem. Few ask the question, “Where does a story come from?” The standard American workshop presumes that you cannot teach creativity or instincts or beginnings. It takes what it can once the process has already been started. Most writing teachers say, “Okay, bring in a story and we’ll take it apart and put it back together again.” I say, “Let’s see what we can do to find some stories.” The average workshop is often a profoundly conservative force in fiction writers’ lives, encouraging the simplifying and routinizing of stories….I use exercises in my workshops to derange student stories, to find new possibilities, to foster strangeness and irregularity, as much as to encourage revision and cleaning up after yourself, and I don’t worry much about success or failure.
I don’t really like doing exercises, I like playing games. My own philosophy is: “if writing isn’t a joy for the writer to write, it won’t be a joy for the reader to read.” So, I’ve spent the majority of my recent writing life trying to turn writing into a game—to push it explicitly towards play. (Like, ahem, using newspapers and markers to make poems…)
[Note: for more on writing as a game, read up on OuLiPo.]
No one has influenced my thinking about this more than the writer and cartoonist Lynda Barry, who I met in 2006. She has dedicated her to most-recent work to the question, “Where do stories come from?”, first in her book, One! Hundred! Demons!, where she used a japanese sumi-e brush to draw her “demons,” and second in her amazing collage-art/comix-memoir/writing textbook, What It is.
a page from What It Is
From an interview with the Comics Reporter:
What It Is is based on something I learned from my teacher, Marilyn Frasca, at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. I studied with her for two years in the late 1970s. Her idea seemed to be that everything we call art, whether it’s music or dance or writing or painting, anything we call art is a container for something she called an image. And she believed that once you understood what an image is, then the form you give it is up to you.
The question “What is an Image?” has guided all of my work for over 30 years. Because of what I learned from Marilyn, there isn’t much of a difference in the experience of painting a picture, writing a novel, making a comic strip, reading a poem or listening to a song. The containers are different, but the lively thing in the center is what I’m interested in.
Can you teach creativity? Maybe not, but you can teach people what the energy flow of creating something feels like (hint: it’s no different from how you felt smashing GI Joes together in the driveway), and once you’ve felt that energy, you can set up processes to help you tap into that energy.
Once you know how to drink from that tap, then it’s only a matter of spending a bunch of time with a paintbrush, or a guitar, or an arc welder.
And to get back to the Kitely quote, “don’t worry much about success or failure.” This is a really important point. There’s a place for creating for writing for the sheer joy of writing, and there’s a place for figuring out whether it’s any good or not. In Lynda’s workshop, there is nothing but encouragement. No place for criticism.
My own stance is that art isn’t made by committee. If you want to know whether your stuff is any good, get a big bunch of readers (not just teachers [people paid to read your writing] or students [people paying to read your writing]), and see what happens. The way I did this was by starting a blog—by putting my stuff up for free on the internet.
The key ingredient in all this is time. You need time to get good, and you need time to build a readership.
So if it’s going to take time, how do you feed and clothe yourself after college?
The answer: get a day job and keep it.
I just finished Hugh MacLeod‘s great new book, Ignore Everybody. Hugh has said the book is “advice I wish I had when I was in my early 20s that I learned the hard way after many years. I had just finished college and I had a creative bug, but I had no way to make a living doing it.” It sprung from his piece “How To Be Creative,” which was a big deal to me when I found it a year or so ago, specifically for his “Sex and Cash Theory.”
The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.
Once you let go of the idea of making your money primarily by being an artist, you’re set free. You can make what you want. Get a day job, work 9-5, and squirrel a few hours each day away for your writing, drawing, whatever. Start a blog, so you have an outlet. Once your art is making more money than your day job, you can quit (I sure as heck still work my 9-5…)
My big question, which I’ve asked of many writers, and many have been unable to answer, is: how can you be a decent family man and also be an artist?
Many of our favorite writers/artists weren’t so great as human beings. They couldn’t keep their marriages together, they neglected their kids, they lost their friends—all in sacrifice to their art.
The world needs more great human beings. It doesn’t necessarily need more artists.
I haven’t found many great books on balancing art and family. I have a sneaking suspicion that any such books have been written by women. (Maybe you can suggest a couple?)
The one book I have read that’s helped me out is Bruce Holland Rogers’ Word Work. There are three great chapters on relationships in that book: “Writers and Lovers,” “Writers Loving Writers,” and “Writers Loving Non-Writers.”
So anyways, when it comes to ways to teach writing and teaching folks how to be writers, you could do a lot worse than to buy these books:
- Lynda Barry, What It is
- Hugh Macleod, Ignore Everybody
- Bruce Holland Rogers, Word Work
- Brian Kitely, The 3 A.M Epiphany
Let me know what you think and please list your favorite writing/creativity books in the comments!
ON CHUCK JONES, ART SUPPLIES, AND PARENTING
Some notes doodled while watching the Chuck Jones documentary, Memories of Childhood.
* * *
I asked my mother, what should I teach my kids? She said don’t teach them anything, just give them lots of supplies.
I have been thinking about art supplies and parenting.
Chuck Jones spoke fondly of his wonderful mother, and quoted Gertrude Stein, “Artists don’t need criticism, they need love.” Jones’ father was physically abusive, and yet “he served a purpose,” as Jones recounted in his autobiography, Chuck Amuck!:
But—now listen—every time Father started a new business, he did three things: 1. He bought a new suit. 2. He bought acres of the finest Hammermill bond stationery, complete with the company’s letterhead. 3. He bought hundreds of boxes of pencils, also complete with the company name.
EVERY TIME FATHER’S
BUSINESS FAILED, HIS CHILDREN INHERITED
A FRESH LEGACY OF THE FINEST DRAWING
MATERIALS IMAGINABLE.[…]
NOT ONLY THAT!
We were forbidden—actually forbidden—to draw on both sides of the paper. Because, of course, Father wanted to get rid of the stationery from a defunct business as soon as possible, and he brought logic to bear in sustaining his viewpoint: “You never know when you’re going to make a good drawing,” he said.
[…]
We also had perhaps the most vital environmental rule of all: parents who gave us the opportunity to draw, free from excessive criticism, and free from excessive praise—Mother, because she felt that children in the exploration of life could do no wrong, and Father…because he only wanted to get rid of that paper as soon as possible.
Turns out, access to art supplies is a big factor in the life of a young artist. Here’s the cartoonist Lynda Barry:
My mother was actually upset by me reading, and she hated for me to use up paper. I got screamed at a lot for using up paper. The only blank paper in the house was hers, and if she found out I touched it she’d go crazy. I sometimes stole paper from school and even that made her mad. I think it’s why I hoard paper to this day. I have so much blank paper everywhere, in every drawer, on every shelf, and still when I need a sheet I look in the garbage first. I agonize over using a “good” sheet of paper for anything. I have good drawing paper I’ve been dragging around for twenty years because I’m not good enough to use it yet. Yes, I know this is insane.
There’s also a “good cop/bad cop” parenting element that seems to pop up. Here’s Milton Glaser:
In my parents I had the perfect combination—a resistant father and an encouraging mother. My mother convinced me I could do anything. And my father said, “Prove it.” He didn’t think I could make a living. Resistance produces muscularity. And it was the perfect combination because I could use my mother’s belief to overcome my father’s resistance. My father was a kind of a metaphor for the world, because if you can’t overcome a father’s resistance you’re never going to be able to overcome the world’s resistance. It’s much better than having completely supportive parents or completely resistant parents.
Ample supplies, a resistant father, and an encouraging mother. Sure, it’s Freudian, but I like it.
And God help the aspiring artists with perfect childhoods!
HOW-TO BOOKS
So many artists are secretive about their process of making art. As if the magician revealed his tricks the magic would be lost.
Thanks to my wife, I’ve recently become inspired by the crafting community (see my posts on D.I.Y. and Maker Faire.) These folks not only peddle their art, they show you how they made it, and invite you to make along with them.
I’m working on a “how-to” section for my book so that people can try our their own poems. I’ve been pillaging my own favorite how-to books for inspiration. Books that don’t just show you how to make art, they’re works of art in themselves. These books have a spirit of generosity and inclusiveness. They believe that anyone can make art. They invite you to play and make along. Here are four of my favorites:
* * *
One! Hundred! Demons!
by Lynda Barry
Barry begins her book with a comic strip about how she discovered the japanese sumi-e brush and ink, and how it opened up a whole new world of creativity for her. She says she “hopes you will dig these demons and then pick up a paintbrush and paint your own! Sincerely! Pass it on! I had so much fun!”
And after 200 pages of her “autobifictionalographic” comics, she has a 10-page section in the back detailing what type of brush, ink, and inkstone you’ll need to try your own. “Come on! Don’t you want to try it??”
* * *
What It Is
by Lynda Barry
Barry’s next book follows roughly the same structure: half the book is a crazy collage/comic memoir, and the other half is a “how-to” writing workbook based on her Writing The Unthinkable! workshops.
* * *
Whatcha Mean, What’s A Zine?
by Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson
Rad book about making mini-comics and zines. As Mark and Esther say in the introduction, “We wanted to make a book that we would have loved to have found when we first started our mini-comics.” It includes sections by comics superstars like Ron Rege, John Porcellino, Anders Nilsen, and Dan Zettwoch.
* * *
Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book: Make A World
by Ed Emberley
This is a book from the late 70s I’ve only recently stumbled upon. Ed Emberley shows you how to “make a world” with just a few simple shapes, step-by-step. I love the emphasis on simplicity: if you can draw a triangle, a square, a circle, and a line, you’re good to go.
Here’s a great little video review of the book by Chris Glass.
* * *
What are your favorite “how-to” books?
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