Write The Lightning

"Tell me," the interviewer asks across a mahogany table, "how do you write? What is your process?"

The interview was for a teaching position I really wanted, so the answer was something plausible sounding that would make Hemingway, Thompson, and Fitzgerald hang their proud heads in shame. But what I wanted was to explain, was what really goes on in this den of hyperbole from whence the mad rants emanate. The process starts with Inspiration, which comes from something so many of "them" haven't seen in decades:

Real Life.

You know what I mean: the experiences that reach around from behind and hold a knife to your throat, forcing you to look at the car wreck and think that could have been me. Or force you to stare down the old man gazing vacantly past the bus stop, knowing that will be me. Real Life has those moments when you find a fiver on the ground and for ten minutes you are the king of the world, those days when the boss threatens your life and your dog spits blood on the couch and no matter what you try, there's no escaping that this life is real.

I don't remember exactly what happens - no one does - I remember what I perceive, what I feel, the way the breaking glass sounds like a splash or how The Fear made that cop seven feet tall with a badge that shone like a spotlight. These swirl together like Neapolitan ice cream in midsummer, and no matter what I try they leak through until I have to put pen to paper and clean the mess in my mind.

Ah, the mess. The mess of thoughts and feelings, my background and research mix like sharks and eels in the dark waters just outside of consciousness. I approach writing like swimming: by swallowing a huge gulp of life and jumping in headfirst. The second sentence follows the first, and somehow the chaos is ordered automatically so what comes out on paper flows somewhat intuitively. There are times, too frequent in a life lived past the deadline and over budget, that this isn't good enough. Then comes Intervention.

Intervention comes with the staccato clink of ice cubes in a tumbler, then the swoosh of Grand Marnier. Some nights the prescription is for Jagermeister, served at 31 degrees, others it's Rogue, but the concept is the same: Intervention cuts the clutter of life, dulling the nag of distraction and wayward impulses. When words get in the way of meaning, Intervention dilates the aperture and the flood is unstoppable. Maybe that's why the greats were known for drinking, or drugs, or other ways of stripping away consciousness to expose the dark hearts in their minds. There must be more to it than that, or bathroom stall poetry at the soup kitchen would be high art, but perhaps it's a start.

Rapture. Like hitting the magic mile in the marathon, once you get to a certain point everything just clicks in place. My fingers fly over the paper, or the keys, and my eyes just watch in astonishment as the page fills with characters and symbols, strange words I don't immediately recognize but know must be my own. The freedom of art and abandon of Grand Marnier combine, cutting my ties to body and world as everything in my brain floods out. I lighten, lifting, floating somewhere above and watching now my whole body type like one of infinite monkeys chained to infinite typewriters trying to stumble by designed accident into producing the complete works of William Shakespeare.

Then comes Editing, the artistic hangover that matches the faded buzz and low-grade headache of the morning after. Was it the alcohol? Was it the release? Did something sweep in like a wraith to fill my depleted mind when my defenses were down? Something, evil? Editing your own writing is like a baby playing with its shit: first it made it, then it shapes it, and when it grows up to be a misanthropic sociopath it plays with clay and steel and is called "artist" and other dirty slurs.

I do have my own shitty-ass blog, afterall.

We hope to make something more than ourselves - something that will outlive us, or, something that freezes one day in our past like a photograph or a memento. We can be a scared kid freshly landed on the front steps of Life again if we read our writing from Back Then, or we can show the world just what it's like on the other side of society. Perhaps, we write to make the distance between two barstools meld into brotherhood, or showcase a new discovery in the world. Whatever the result, the process is long and magical, taxing, and one of the greatest trips you can take.

That's what I wanted to say, but there's something unsettling in the image of a hack writer pounding rounds of Jagermeister, ejaculating warped perspective into a laptop... and the thought of him inspiring the next generation of writers.

Write away, future Hemmingways