Writing Experience A personal essay Presented to Prof. Beverly Connor On this, the 16th day of September, 1998 By Jared Earles It's strange you should ask this. Many have wondered the same thing. How do I do it? I walk into a room late at night, and I come out with a masterpiece of Pulitzer proportions. My hidden talent obscures itself from all but me. I want to begin by dispelling some common rumors: 1. I do not take ginseng or ginsana; 2. Neither Pat Conroy, Scott Turow, nor the ghost of Walt Whitman share a room with me. Writing begins long before pen meets page. A good writer is a student of the art. Seeing how other authors view life and portray it with language diversifies not only my perspective on writing, but my perspective on life, too. I envy Carl Sandburg's mastery of details. He poetically forms words to portray exactly what his mind's eye sees. Dante and Blake have a unique ability to use symbolism to speak on many different levels about our own nature and the nature of the society around us. Shakespeare captures the human nature like no other. His characters are often so real, I can relate to their feelings. I hope to combine the traits of each of these as I embark on the process of writing. To begin writing, I find a lamp-lit desk to provide the intimacy necessary to undertake writing. I find a comp book, always looking for a half-full, bent one. The book's character exhibits itself in my writing. I turn on Mozart or techno, Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff, because I find the mood of the music influences my writing. Mozart's structure is well suited to analytical papers, whereas Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff express more emotion. Techno gives me new insight. I often mix music between drafts. I may write the first draft to techno for originality, but write the second draft to Mozart to give it definite structure. Then, pen in hand, I draw my eyes shut; the pen moves over the page in arching spirals and linear expressions. A whisper later, intuition instructs me to stop. I open my eyes as I lay the pen to rest over my new masterpiece. The once confused lines gyrate and dance on the page, as though they have been granted one last Mardi Gras before a lifetime of lent. I see a tangled ball of yarn weave itself into a winter quilt, sometimes patchwork, sometimes knit. Whether it is poetry or prose, fiction or scientific, the lines know what words to form. The words write themselves. The words are not simply conglomerations of letters, but building blocks. Each word can be the building block for a sentence. Let it be noted that I do not mean that all words are rectangular and three-dimensional. Some words are curved, some are spherical, and some are one-sided. The combination of words gives sentences different feels. Some look like waves, with a rise and fall of syllables or complexity. Others are very straight-forward and linear. As I write, the words take on structures, as though I am their architect. Some delight in their simplicity. Simple sentences are like bright colored boxes fashioned by a kindergartner from construction paper. More complex sentences range from a toy train, with each idea linked to another, to a bomb with a hundred moving parts all working in synch with one another. Other structures overwhelm a reader with their complexity. Analytical pieces sprawl from the ground as gaping cities. Words and phrases dash up and down the sidewalks, seemingly ten minutes late for an interview. Roads have square corners; buildings are often plain. Highways carry citizens from the outskirts of town to the city's center. All roads and ideas soon begin to travel towards the city's main skyscraper. It towers over the city with grandeur and beauty, the prize of the entire work. All the while, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (by Mozart) rages in the background. A poem is far more abstract. Coils spring from all sides, causing the creation to bound in all directions like Jell-o fresh from the refrigerator. Just as the piece of art seems to fall into the nothingness that supports it, a hoof springs from the side propping it with the perfect conclusion. Simultaneously, the final canon from The War of 1812 (by Tchaikovsky) sounds, demonstrating my victory. Only by freeing the architect can the greatest structures be formed. The words themselves must be the architect. Words are not simply structures; they are organic. The words themselves are alive. As I write, ivy grows on the sides of the page, slowly camouflaging the entire work. Sometimes, the ivy is sparse, but heavily trained, curling itself in delicate ringlets all about the written page. Others, the words dominate the page, as the ivy at Wrigley Field, looking to snatch a fly ball with its depth and character. Writing is not limited to ivy or even plants. The page matures into a vast jungle, with an astounding canopy, the song of birds, and large predators looking to devour the reader. On the other hand, they can create something as simple as a household pet panting for water. The words must be given their own life, to live and die by their own hand. Writing begins with release but not release of thought, release of consciousness. This is the most fundamental prerequisite to great work. I must observe from a distance as my words weave and interplay. They must be allowed to structure themselves, to bob and intertwine in delicate corkscrews and quadratics. The power of language lies in the words, not the impotent maker. In the real world, I try not to take myself too seriously.