Part 2 of our Hurricane Hiatus guest-blog by Geoff Kirsch...
Like I said last week, I was recently asked to share my writing expertise
with students in a high school memoir writing class. I thought I’d share the ten tips I
offered them to you as well. You know, if you want to take
advice from a guy who moved out of
New York to become a professional writer.
Here they are:
- Everyone
has a story to tell; it’s just a matter of figuring out how to tell it.
That might not be through writing at all. Sometimes, the best way is with
music, or painting, or molecular gastronomy. However, since I know nothing
about molecular gastronomy…
- When
you’re writing, just keep writing and don’t stop writing, ever. I’m not
saying wear a diaper, but you know, if you’ve got an hour to write, spend
that whole hour adding words to the page. Editing comes later, and that’s
a whole other batch of tips.
- Don’t
drink and write. There’s a time and place for drinking—when you’re 21 for
instance, and even then, not while you’re writing. In fact, be careful of
anything you make part of your writing process. It took me 10 years to
quit smoking cigarettes and on a heavy writing day, I still drink a good
300 ounces of coffee. Seriously, half my daily calorie intake comes
through half n’ half. Don’t even ask what my Splenda habit’s like.
- If you
can’t beat it, work around it. There’s always a way around it—creative
problem solving goes a long way to establishing “voice.”
- The
world has plenty of writers already, but it only has one “you.” Your
experiences, Your perceptions of the life you lead and the world you live
in—that’s the rest of what goes into “voice.” Also a trademark punctuation
mark—mine’s the “dash;” I also like semi-colons.
- Allow
yourself the luxury of a crappy first draft. No one will ever see it but
you (except maybe your wife, but honestly, it’s nothing she hasn’t seen
before—and, she’s seen a lot
worse).
- Don’t
set out to make your living as a writer. I learned that the hard way.
Write because you love it, not because you’re trying to feed your family
with it. In order to get good enough to actually earn money, you need to
be able to try and fail and try and fail, and that’s frustrating enough
from a creative standpoint, let alone if you’re trying to bring home the
bacon or, for vegetarians, the tofu-based bacon substitute.
- Show,
don’t tell. Except graphic sex scenes. Those are next to impossible to
write well, and believe me, I’ve tried.
- Appeal
to as many of the five senses as possible. More than any other artistic
discipline writing is uniquely able to conjure sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. I wrote a short story
once in which a jilted wife takes revenge on her ex-husband by stuffing
sushi in all the curtain rods of the house leaving him to search in vain
for the source of the worsening stench… Anyway, I’ll never forget what my
MFA thesis advisor said: “Geoff, your writing smells.” To this day, that’s
nicest compliment anyone’s paid me.
- It’s a
lot easier to make people laugh than to make them cry. The trick is doing
both. When and if you master it, please teach me.
