What It Is by Lynda Barry

I've written previously about my love for Lynda Barry's comics and novel (The Good Times Are Killing Me) and how I suspect her language has influenced my own from when I first read her over 20 years ago. I recently came across a book of writing instruction she made that I didn't know about. That's an exciting find. I snatched it up, and read it last month and thought I would give it a shout out here.

It's called What It Is. pub. date 2008. The LOC tag is graphic novels, so it may be hard to find. I can understand the mistake, because it does resemble a graphic novel, since it's made up of cartoons and collages with hand lettered text. However it's not a novel but a long non-fiction essay/instruction manual about the creative process that Barry uses and teaches, which she says learned herself from a particular teacher who she celebrates throughout.

Now, most of the book is not my particular thing--abstract collages that appear to be examples of warm-up exercises from her notebooks. There is a hint of a narrative thread--a series of related inquiries about where creative ideas come from. But for me it's a gossamer thread that never latches on anything long enough, and the collages themselves, while probably excellent examples of their form, are a form that just doesn't interest me as much. I loved the short comics interspersed throughout.

What does interest me is the second half of the book where she starts to focus more directly in this instructional method that she calls "Writing The Unthinkable." The mascot of the class is the Magic Cephalopod who is summoned from the image world by the creative act. In practice, this section of What It Is amounts to a series of creative writing exercises using freewriting techniques with specific prompts or guided questions, all explained or illustrated in comic or collage form. The exercises have the writer making lists of certain kinds of words or childhood memories (e.g. the first 10 cars from your early life that you remember) and than using those as prompts in timed exercises. Some relaxation exercises are also an important part of the process.

Now, I'm a big proponent of freewriting, and I think as long as you can come up with good focused prompts, it's an exericse worth the time in most cases. So it was fun seeing what amounts to Lynda Barry's idea of a never-ending prompt generator.

I think the kind of advice she's giving here is most suited to the early stages of a writing project, especially generating ideas for a story. If you've written your story and are revising or are trying to find focus or are otherwise further along in a project, this is less useful.

In short, this is a good handbook to get you off the dime when the creative impulse is itching and you are despairing for something to write about. If it's what Barry uses, it must be worthwhile, because her comics rock.

"Finshed" with Chapter 7

When did I start working on this chapter? I can't remember. I still don't have a lot of confidence in it, but it's better anyway. 4-5 hours of work today--a Monday--after poking around at it at the end of last week. I'm not sure if tommorrow I'm going to continue to the next chapter or give this one another read with somewhat fresher eyes. I'll sleep on it.

To get going on it, I relied on freewriting, and one trick I used afterward was to go through and highlight some of the key discoveries from my freewriting. Then when I was feeling lost, including at the star of each session, I glanced through the freewriting at what I had highlighted to remind myself of what elements I was trying to build up in this chapter.

I have a feeling about this chapter . . . Whatever the problem is in it is a problem that is significant to the whole book. Like a key to a lock. I'm hoping that when I figure out this chapter I will gain an understanding about the book that will allow me to elevate the drama in the rest of the book. I'm pretty sure it's a problem having to do with character--a limitiation on my understanding of the character. This chapter is reavealing that limitation and my numerous attempts to patch it over are not working.

Tough couple of days

Last year I used to joke the day after my Tuesday night basketball games that the games were the biggest disruption to my writing schedule. But I'm playing again, and for real, it's no joke. I'm in a lot of pain the day after the games and besides that just mightily fatigued. I moved like a zombie all day yesterday and got nothing done, and today hasn't been a lot better. I'm going to have to find a way to deal with that--dramatically increase my coffee consumption or something, when I'm trying hard to decrease it otherwise.

I'm also going to have to do something about how OCD I'm getting about following the news. I'm having a lot of trouble resisting the endless media offerings online about whatever has my interest. (These days it's the election. Next month I expect it will be the baseball postseason.) I'm being very undisciplined.

Part of that is me, but I also know part if it is a response to the fear I have about the book right now. It rears up at different times--for instance when I have a lot of thinking to do to find my way through a really vague problem. It's necessary, but it means not making a lot of mileage, and the guilt and uncertainty makes me hesitate.

So yesterday, I didn't accomplish much except doing a little bit of that thinking--in the form of about 3 pages of freewriting about the specific problems in Chapter 7. And today I started to tackle Chapter 7, making a lot less progress than I should have for the amount of time I had, but some progress anyway.

So, unlikely that I'll finish the chapter tomorrow and therefore this week. But I'm determined to make good use of tomorrow. I see a path, and I'm going to walk it.

Freewriting

I thought I would share an example of the kind of freewriting I do when I'm stuck and trying to get my thoughts sorted out. This is very raw material, really unintelligible to anyone but me, but it gives a sense of something very basic in my working process.



In this case, I'm trying to figure out how to diagnose and start remediating what isn't working in Chapter 1. It's the beginning work of my second rewrite.





August 14, 2008

What is going on with B?

Who is he?

Why does he behave the way he does?

What is his thinking about the ________ ?



A is someone he can manipulate. He probably feels ambivalent about that. It’s probably not something he wants. It’s like a crime of opportunity and he feels not great about it. But A gets on his nerves with by being so needy and overeager and fawning.

Take the ________ episode, for example. B is pretending, but it’s in a certain pitch that An misses.



What is that distinction? How are they pretending differently?

For B it’s the activity. The project.

For A, it’s the performance for each other. The act of bonding. A keeps “breaking the fourth wall” to talk about themselves as actors.





August 18, 2008



How would they handle ________ differently?

A wants to talk about it

B wants to circle around it. Hoard it for later. Taste it.

A is ocd

B is add

A might also tend to add, but the ocd is predominant.

That means he feels agitated until he gets some full satisfaction. Until something is completed in a some particular and emotional way for him. He has a script he expects to be followed in order to get proof of love. Deviate from that script, and he feels insecure, thus vulnerable, thus panicked, thus he can’t let it rest. Harps on people trying to Shepard them back onto the script—to make them say their lines.



With B, he perfectly willing to stop in mid script and switch to something else. He feels uncomfortable with being responsible for anyone else’s feelings. Wants to be loved like anyone else, though not particularly needy about that, but he doesn’t want to feel responsible for other people’s feelings, love or otherwise. Aloof. Learned it from his dad. That’s what’s manly. Neither of them are macho, and it’s not an aversion to emotion exactly so much as it’s an aversion to being intimate.



Hmm. Is it an aversion. Like they genuinely avoid it? Or is it that when other people seek it, they see it as an opportunity to exploit? To control people by withholding? Perhaps it’s not so much that they can’t be intimate as an addiction to the power that comes from withholding.



These are contradictory explanations. One makes B a lot less sympathetic than the other. Is it that he gets tempted into some manipulative behavior or that he has some piece of his soul missing?



Put it that way, and it’s obvious. He can’t be a monster. Has to be real.



Fragile balance. B tends to withhold, imitating his dad. Gets a kind of control. Confronted with someone especially clingy like A is what makes him feel vulnerable. Manipulating and pushing away feel safer.



Alright, so in this episode . . . I need to rewrite a few key scenes. When B shuts down the game—rewrite it with this motivation in mind. Same for when they start the game and the couple times we revisit it in the middle. The whole tone of it should be more like A drives B away—B reacting to A’s neediness—rather than B jerking A around, or worse, acting indiscriminately, which is how it reads now and why it reads so confusingly.



How about Chapter 2? Harder to say. Need to read it carefully again.