How to Write: Lessons 17-22
How to Write: Lessons 17-22
Lesson 17: Entertainment, Lesson 18: Crack Yourself Up, Lesson 19: Make Yourself Cry, Lesson 20: Sex, Lesson 21: Drugs, Lesson 22: Rock-and-Roll
Lesson 17: Entertainment
You have to make what you write entertaining. It needs to keep your attention, to keep you interested and amused and engaged and eager to find out what’s going to happen or there’s no point to what you write. You may think you know what’s going to happen, but you don’t. You’ll keep surprising yourself. Characters change as you get to know them better. You change as you get to know yourself better. What you write will be nothing like what you thought you were going to write. It’s way more fun to write a book than it is to read one.
I had completely forgotten about Carrie B. Rousseau, for instance…and she turned out to be important. I needed her. She was old San Francisco. She was also funny and sweet and quirky. Dredging her up was entertaining shitless. Giving her to people to read was even more entertaining. Introducing people no one ever heard of to other people no one ever heard of is partly what makes writing worth doing.
The origins of what happened in the sixties in San Francisco is mildly entertaining all on its own. How it happened is pretty cool to know, too. The sixties set the tone for what’s happening today, and everyone wants to know what the fuck’s happening today. What is happening today? You guys figure it out but keep it entertaining or it won't be any fun to write. You have to make yourself laugh. You have to make yourself cry. In the sixties there had to be sex and drugs and rock-and-roll. Ooo, that’s my next five lessons.
Lesson 18: Crack Yourself Up
I do that a lot. Funny people do funny things. Thulin was a funny guy. He had one eye. Wanda, some chick he picked up on the street, fucked him once, right away, then wouldn't fuck him again until they got married.
“What was also extraordinary about Wanda was that she only fucked Thulin just that one time. He couldn’t figure it out. Days went by. She wouldn’t go away. Thulin didn’t know what to do. He kept kicking her out. She kept not going anywhere. That was fine with Ginny and me. They were cute together. She wouldn’t fuck him, and she wouldn’t go away. Thulin didn’t get it; it was beyond the realm of his experience.”
Here's part of another scene in the text:
"Kirk closed his eyes and bowed his head. Birds stopped twittering in the bushes. Then he opened his eyes and asked Wanda if she would take Jon to be her husband, to have and to hold.
Wanda said, 'Yes.'
Thulin got a big shit-eating grin on his face.
Then Kirk asked Jon the same question.
'Motherfucking, Jesus H. motherfucking fuck,' Thulin answered.
Wanda bashed the bridal bouquet across his chest.
'Okay, okay, yeah,' Thulin said.
Kirk dutifully repeated the question, like he’d be breaking his vows to the guru in Nepal if he didn’t conduct the ceremony correctly. 'Yes. Yes. Yes. For cock sucking Christ’s sake, what the fuck more do you want me to say? I do. I do. Jesus fucking fuck.'
Kirk deemed that to be sufficient. The ceremony was over. We all went back to Shrader Street — well, except for Wanda and Thulin — and when they finally showed up, he had another big shit-eating grin on his face, the biggest yet, the biggest ever.”
Sometimes when I’m writing I laugh out loud and when I read it, I laugh out loud again. I crack myself up. If you watch the multimedia version, you can see (and hear) what cracked me up…all of the above takes place in Chapter 21:
Lesson 19: Make Yourself Cry
I do that a bunch of times, too. I don’t actually cry. Tears well up. My heart aches. I have to wipe my eyes in order to see. Here’s one place I do that in Chapter 33:
"There were flowers on my mother’s dress, tiny little sprigs of bachelor buttons and lilies-of-the-valley. What she said was simply that a song had been going through her head for the past few days. She didn’t know where it had come from; it had just been going through her head.
'It’s an old song,’ she said. 'Maybe from the thirties. It’s just been going through my head. I don’t sing very well, either. As most of you know.' Then she sang it. A cappella. Accompanied by no one:
'Out of a blue sky,
The dark clouds came rolling,
Breaking my heart in two.
Don’t leave me alone,
For I love only you.
You’re as sweet as a red rose in June, dear.
I love you, adore you, I do…'
That was as far as she got. We have it all on videotape."
It can’t be all schmaltzy. It has to be bittersweet. If you can come up with a feeling like this, you’re doing fine:
“his flawed heart—’
Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
Burst smilingly”
There are lots of bittersweet sections in Chapter 33.
Lesson 20: Sex
Writing sex is close to impossible. What do you call things? How do you capture an orgasm in words? How do you show “making love?” Making love is definitely a thing but it’s as difficult to do as it is to write about. Here’s the closest I could come…and there’s not even any sex in it:
I write some sex in several chapters but none of them come anywhere near what happened. Probably the best sex writing is Chapter 31 but it’s more from the point of view of a voyeur than a participant.
Write sex at your peril. It’s like driving over eggshells in a Mack truck. Every word will make you cringe…until you find the closest thing to the right word. Most of the best words, for people who speak English, will have Anglo-Saxon origins. When in doubt, use them. Other than that, you’re on your own. Do your best. Leave sex out entirely if it suits you. Did Nabokov describe sex in Lolita? No. Was it a sexy book? Oh, yeah. It’s easy to embarrass yourself when you write about sex. Don’t embarrass yourself. Don’t say “member.” Or “shaft.” Or any of the thousands of dorky ways there are to talk about sex unless you want to come off sounding like a dork. Don’t ever, ever, ever use the word “amazing” about anything, ever, no matter how amazing it might be. And don’t talk like people in sitcoms. Anything said by characters in TV shows isn’t worth saying. Seinfeld, Friends and The Big Bang Theory have done almost as much damage to good writing as agents and editors, publishers, book doctors, etc. If you find yourself talking like any of those guys, quit trying to write. Archie Bunker was pretty funny, though.
Lesson 21: Drugs
Writing drugs is another tricky thing to do, but it’s fun when (and if) you get it right. There’s a lot of the doing of heroin in Chapter 31 and there a little of the doing of acid and other drugs in some of the other chapters but The Acid Chapter is Chapter 19. The taking of LSD is also almost impossible to write about.
“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; the Named is the mother of all things.”
I’m not equating taking acid with the eternal Tao. Hm. I guess I am a little but there’s way more to the Tao than the mere taking of LSD. It’s a start. I do a fair job of writing an acid trip but it ain’t definitive, by any means:
Lesson 22: Rock-and-Roll
You can’t write the Sixties in San Francisco without mentioning rock-and-roll. I didn’t particularly like the scruffy, rock-and-roll assholes who made the music but the music itself was pretty good…and it was everywhere. See Chapter 24. So, I wrote about it. I had no choice. Write what you have to write. Don’t write anything that’s best left unsaid.
As a brief aside, some silly chick editor dissed an earlier version of Ginny Good (which ends with the narrator ruminating about maybe bagging this writing bullshit and getting himself a job at McDonald's) like this:
"Dear Mr. Jones: I very much enjoyed the freshness of your work; however, I find that there are two kinds of writers, those that want to write and those that need to write. If your story is as thinly disguised as I suspect, Mr. Jones, then you are one of the latter, and I count you in good company. Those who want to write, generally, want to be published and rewarded for their efforts. Those who need to write are primarily concerned with the product of their labors, recognition being an afterthought. In light of the current hard cover fiction market, I see no way in which your work will be published in its current state. Whether or not you wish to subscribe to the parameters of popular fiction in order to alter the fate of your work is up to you. In the end, you may be happier with the job at McDonald's. Warm regards."
I wrote her back:
"You apparently want popular fiction to continue to be fatuous, formulaic and stupid. Why? Why not give people a chance to read something fresh and true? Something entertaining and honest and funny and tragic? You sound like someone with some integrity. Why, then, wouldn't you rather work at McDonald's than continue to promote the fatuous, formulaic claptrap and crap that passes itself off as popular fiction? Thanks for your warm regards. Gerard Jones”
Nobody wants art for art’s sake. They all want writing for money’s sake. Who can blame them? If it weren’t for money, they wouldn’t have jobs. Keep that in mind. If you have to pay the rent by writing, by all means write the crap that makes money. But if you want to write well, tell ‘em fuck your money, fuck your fame…