With the generous persuasion of my good friend Steve, and sponsorship from our church, and from said friend Steve, I spent the last three days at a writing conference at Calvin College.
We're back in town. Just up from a nap. What a trip - I'm stuffed. I just read through Steve's blog posts, his sentence summaries of the sessions. It's going to take me months to digest and unpack what was so gracefully fed to us last week with a bulldozer.
I got a taste, as it were, of that digestion process Friday night when Steve and I stayed up late at our respective mobile keyboards. I tried to chew apart the very first talk we heard as we arrived Thursday. This was a speech neither of us really liked, so a little reflux came in the analysis. My summary is longer than the speech, and much more confusing. Rewrite #1.
A few quick points I remember, without going to my notes:
- Art isn't moral. Several authors, including the first one, made this primary point. As we talk about Christian writing, this cuts especially to the heart. I'll be processing this for a long time. It's something about how art is only confessional, or that the morality comes in the interpretation of art. Like I said, it'll take some time.
- Writing is work. Except for one beautiful example of an [autobiographical] novelist who published his first draft, what I heard was rewrite rewrite rewrite rewrite rewrite. In an editing lesson, we heard, "Editing is more like reconstructive surgery than painting your toenails."
- Write specifically. The specific will get you to the universals. Be direct, be conversational, tell a story.
- Pray for Yann Martel. He's made the unreasonable leap of faith; he just doesn't believe yet.
- Set aside an invulnerable time to write. Then, write like you have all the time in the world. Learn to write on command, vocationally - unless you're that guy who published his first draft: if so, then prepare for some long nights.
- Trust your idiosyncrasies. Write what you and only you love.
- There are no rules to poetry.
Okay, I'm peaking at my notes now, so I'll stop. Would you mind if I keep gnawing on all this with my mouth open? I know it's terribly impolite, but we're all friends. My goal is to kind of nibble through each of these sessions, reviewing my notes. I hope this will get my fingers going, help me get into a habit. This blog will be a good place to chew. It'll take a long time.
Thanks for reading.
