As Henry Miller Commands, Part 8 Dont Be A Draught Horse

AS HENRY MILLER COMMANDS, PART eight: DON’T BE A DRAUGHT HORSE We’re rounding the final curve on this very long collection of posts impressed by Henry Miller’s Eleven Commandments of Writing, and when you haven’t been following along from the start, or want one other have a look at the total list of commandments, you can click back to the primary submit here. This week, Henry Miller proclaims: eight. Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure solely. On first glance, this seems like the identical advice from his third commandment: Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand. But maybe not. In my run-down of that piece of advice I targeted on the nervousness, if not outright concern, of going through that blank web page understanding there are ninety,000 words to be typed. Here, I assume, the advice is extra about the way to write once you’ve damaged previous the concern of beginning or the intimidation issue a full-size novel can certainly engender in the best of us. Having given ourselves permission simply to do right now’s writing todayâ€"and a novel is not written in at some point!â€"and to think about our tough drafts as our “short, dangerous e-book,” let’s not forget that the act of writing itself should be fun. True, there are some books that shouldn’t be particularly enjoyable, and even pleasurable, to write. I once wrote an (as but and really most likely by no means to be produ ced) screenplay that gave me nightmaresâ€"it was a really dark, dark thing I was making and never meant to be “enjoyable” for anyone. I set that apart time and again, however was at all times dragged back to the story and eventually completed it. I’ve additionally spent the last ten years or so telling myself I should rewrite it within the form of a novel (or novella) but I actually have but to start thatâ€"possibly as a result of it doesn’t appear to be something that may be notably enjoyable to writeâ€"not like a few of the undoubtedly far more fun pulp stuff, or even the dark fantasy novel I keep semi-engaged on. I have enjoyable writing horrorâ€"scaring folks in that exact context could be enjoyable as hell. For the document, that context is that no one is definitely harmed in any method and it’s bought as horror fiction so people who don’t like to read scary books can just move from the get-go. But I feel as though we have to concentrate on figuring out the way to w rite difficult, difficult, disturbing (etc.) material “with pleasure” while not feeling like some type of psychopath. I think it’s potential, and even healthy, to take a sort of pleasure within the crafting of very dark fiction, fiction that has a tough political or cultural message, or is set against the backdrop of real world horrors just like the Holocaust. But quite than the sort of feeling you might get from writing a very enjoyable sword and sorcery struggle scene or the funny bit where the lovable little robot does something silly, the “pleasure” comes from the feeling that you just’ve conveyed your message in a way that can touch individuals. If you're feeling you’ve handled that troublesome subject material correctly, there’s pleasure in that. It doesn’t mean: “I had a blast writing Night,” stated Elie Wiesel, “what a hoot that was!” But there needed to be some release there, some sense that he stated one thing that wanted to be said in a means tha t individuals would hear and understand it. Don’t take this commandment from Henry Miller as a sign that every little thing you write must be enjoyable and frivolous and sillyâ€"though, of course, there’s nothing mistaken with that, too! This is a kind of things that I generally forget, myselfâ€"and actually need to remember, all day daily: Writing makes me joyful whereas I’m writing. Even after I’m trying to convince you of one thing or scare the pants off you or reveal some horrifying inner darkness from inside myself or that I perceive in the word around us. Let’s not be draught horses or manufacturing facility employees. Let’s, as Jane Yolen very eloquently taught us in her must-learn e-book referred to as, not coincidentally, Take Joy, take pleasure within the work itself, in that rush of a nicely-shaped sentence, in discovering from the depths of your unconscious the exactly excellent word for that second proper there, in nailing the emotional arc, in being shocked by a sudden idea that remaps the trajectory of your entire story . . . all that stuff and extra. With all that in mind, I’ll make my version of this commandment somewhat less complicated: eight. Rejoice in the act of writing itself. It will keep you writing, and it will keep you writing better. â€"Philip Athans P.S.: I’m scheduling this to submit on Tuesday, July 18, whereas I’ll be out on trip. I’ve never accomplished this before, so I hope I don’t screw it up. If you’re reading this on Tuesday the 18th, it means I didn’t screw it up, and I’ll take great pleasure in that! About Philip Athans