I am starting to get better at this. I had some down time today between running errands and Scott coming home from York, so I sat down on the couch and committed to working on that little blob of narrative I started last weekend, and holy crap it is hard to keep a thought in my head when Scott is four feet away from me playing “Thick as a Brick.”
So, I worked on it until Scott got home, and the thing that I am getting much, much better at doing is writing with no idea where anything is going. I used to be great at that when I was younger, but eventually I would lose the momentum and leave these big piles of narrative unrefined. Then, I got into college and beyond, and I started to learn how to write with intention and direction, but inevitably I would get stuck when the story wasn’t going where I thought it would go. But now, NOW, freedom. No intention, no direction, just write until I start to figure out who the characters are what they are doing here, then intention. In time. No judgment. Just creating. I’ve written a bunch of pages and all I know is that there is this mechanic who screwed around a lot, and a girl with toes who smells like tea and strawberries and might play a surprising instrument in a band. (Like an odometer! That would be a surprising instrument to play in a band. Har har. But, more likely something percussive and unfeminine. Washboard? Congas? Nose flute?) So, on we go.
Here is an awesome thing that happened to me in high school, that just came up in conversation between “Thick as a Brick” and “Personal Jesus”:
At the end of my sophomore year, one of my teachers submitted three of my poems to some big statewide contest without me knowing. One won the top award in the state, one took first place, and one got an honorable mention. The one that took first place was written in about ten minutes while I sat in the journalism office and my friend Dave sat behind me saying random words every minute or so, which I worked into whatever I was writing. (Hi Dave, if you ever happen to read my blog. No, not that Dave. The one who isn’t an astrophysicist. No offense, Dave.) The final product was a short poem called “freaky petting zoo,” which was largely populated with butt puns, such as…
You may hesitate to leave your loves behind when you yourself ascend
for anything can happen here should you bring your loves fine end
I even mentioned something about it at the end of the poem…
But do not fret on puns and cleverness and the things still boiling you
Cus everyones on permanent hold at the freaky petting zoo
It won an award. My name was in the paper. I found it hilarious then, and I still think it is funny enough that I can post snippets of my teenage poetry here without embarrassment. I might not be over the poem that won the big award, though, the one that was deadly serious, really painful, and found its way onto an overhead projector at a schoolboard meeting. In fact, it may actually be more horrifying in retrospect than it was at the time. Yeesh, how about some more butt jokes?
