Purpose

This blog is for little throwaway creative stuff. Here I will post the results of bar games, one-off gems that get logged in my little notebook, paper passing games, and occasionally, prompts. I'm a poet, and a nonfictionista. Things posted here will be in those veins if anywhere.

This blog takes its name from Han Solo's line to Obi-wan Kenobi explaining how Han understand the phenomena that Obi-wan understands to be the Force.


"Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. 'Cause no mystical energy field controls my destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense."

I thought it appropriate for a small little nonserious fun and goofiness-directed blog like this one.
Writing? No forces or mystical energy required.

Cue motivating story:

As an MA/MFA creative writer, I've been exposed to (and participated in) a lot of strange behavior, and a lot of folks who seek something akin to "The Answer:" some formula or attitude or idea that will always make their writing result in "good writing," or "literature." There is, despite all the conversations that writers and philosophers and all sorts of people have had about writing over the ages, no consensus on neither what the formula or idea or attitude is, nor on what "good writing" or the various criteria for "literature" are.

Despite this, many writers I've met often carry around catch-phrases or little nuggets of wisdom about writing that work well for them and the particular stuff they like to write. These things help them write (huge step 1), and they seem to write stuff that people enjoy having read (big step 2), stuff these readers would recommend to others (big step 3).

My favorite writing is playful: it fucks around, it experiments, it jokes with the reader's expectations, goofs its way toward the bottom of the page. Most importantly: it surprises. I am not saying that all good writing surprises you, or that all literature must surprise. Rather, surprise is just my favorite thing that I've noticed writing I tend to like does. My favorite. Not everyone's.

Additionally, a lot of academic creative types I've met need the writing to be serious for it to merit their attention. There are certainly places where this serious drive can help the piece become better; typically this will be an argumentative piece, out to prove a point, its origins rooted more in persuasion and argument and evidence-assemblage than in anything resembling fun. And these pieces can blow your lid off. And they often do.

But there are also times, in my experience, where that seriousness, that demand for the piece to mean something, to stay on task, to make sure you're doing X, actually works at a cross purpose to the writing task itself. Sometimes a limit can be productive. Sometimes it is not. The pressure to create something brilliant in these situations can actually keep the writing from going where it wants to, and more importantly can keep the writer from taking the kind of risks inherent to the creation of surprising, new writing--and as a result can inhibit the creative act instead of freeing it.

Here, in this space, I want to ignore all of the hoity toity highfalutin aspirations I've been taught to hold and suggestions I've been taught to keep in mind when I write, and just goof around. Let's enjoy this thing we do, if not when we're being serious, then at least when we're just playing around.

After all, if I've learned anything about writing since I started studying it, it's this (cue catch phrase): Writing is really just a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.

~Z