Writing Down the Bones : Freeing the Writer Within
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Foreword by Judith Guest, author of Ordinary People FREEING THE WRITER WITHIN NATALIE GOLDBERG Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 http://www.archive.org/details/writingdownbonesOOgold ^jLcJh *- Writing Down the Bones y ^^ J /pf^^-^^ Writing Down the Bones is available as an audio tape from Shambhala Lion Editions. FREEING THE WRITER WITHIN Natalie Goldberg Shambhala Boston & London 1986 Shambhala Publications, Inc. Horticultural Hall 300 Massachusetts Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02115 © 1986 by Natalie Goldberg All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. 26 25 24 23 22 21 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper @ Distributed in the United States by Random House, Inc. , and in Canada by Random House of Canada Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Goldberg, Natalie. Writing down the bones. 1. Authorship. I. Tide. PN145.C64 1986 808'. 02 86-11840 ISBN 0-87773-375-9 (pbk.) The poems "Give Me a White," 'The Stone and I," "Maple Leaf," and "Evcr>'body" first appeared in Shout, Applaud O 1976 by COMPAS. Used with the permission of the publisher. "The Red Whcelbanow," "Daisy," and "Detail" arc from William Carlos Williams, Collected Earlier Poems. Copyright © 1938 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. The line from "Angel of Beach Houses and Picnics" is from The Book of Folly by Ann Sexton. Copyright €> 1972 by Anne Sexton. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. Lines from Richard Hugo's 'Time to Remember Sangster" and "Why I Think of Dumar Sadly," from What Thou Lovest Welly Remains American (New York: W W. Norton, 1975), are reprinted with permission. Poems by Shiki and Issa from Haiku: Eastern Culture, trans. R.H. Blyth (Tokyo Hokuseido Press, 1981), and by Basho and Buson from Haiku: Spring, vol. 2, trans. R. H. Blyth (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1981), are reprinted with permission. CoN'er design by Joyce Weston Cover art by Joe Brainard For all my students past, present, and future and for Kate Green and Barbara Schmitz. May we all meet in heaven cafe writing for eternity. 1 CONTENTS Foreword xi Acknowledgments xv Introduction i Beginner's Mind, Pen and Paper 5 First Thoughts 8 Writing as a Practice 1 Composting 14 Artistic StabiHty 16 A List of Topics for Writing Practice 19 Fighting Tofu 23 Trouble with the Editor 26 Elkton, Minnesota: Whatever's in Front of You 27 Tap the Water Table 30 We Are Not the Poem 32 Man Eats Car 34 Writing Is Not a McDonald's Hamburger 36 Obsessions 38 Original Detail 41 The Power of Detail 43 Baking a Cake 45 Living Twice 48 Writers Have Cood Figures 50 Listening 52 Don't Marry the Fly 55 Don't Use Writing to Cet Love 57 What Are Your Deep Dreams? 59 Syntax 61 1 Contents Nervously Sipping Wine 66 Don't Tell, but Show 68 Be Specific 70 Big Concentration 72 The Ordinary and Extraordinary 74 Talk Is the Exercise Ground 77 Writing Is a Communal Act 79 One Plus One Equals a Mercedes-Benz 82 Be an Animal 83 Make Statements and Answer Questions 85 The Action of a Sentence 87 Writing in Restaurants 90 The Writing Studio 95 A Big Topic: Eroticism 97 A Tourist in Your Own Town 99 Write Anyplace 101 Go Further 103 Engendering Compassion 105 Doubt Is Torture 108 A Little Sweet 110 A New Moment 111 Why Do I Write? 113 Every Monday 117 More About Mondays 119 Spontaneous Writing Booths 121 A Sensation of Space 1 24 A Large Field to Wander In 127 The Goody-Two-Shoes Nature 1 3 No Hindrances 135 A Meal You Love 138 Use Loneliness 140 Contents Blue Lipstick and a Cigarette Hanging Out Your Mouth 142 Going Home 143 A Story Circle 147 Writing Marathons 1 50 Claim Your Writing 1 54 Trust Yourself 157 The Samurai 159 Rereading and Rewriting 162 I Don't Want to Die 167 Epilogue 169 Notes 171 -/ FOREWORD Some years ago, while cleaning out my grandmother's attic, I came across this motto encased in an old oak picture frame: Do Your Work As Well As You Can and Be Kind. I remember laughing over what I thought then was a rather quirky juxtapo- sition of messages. Now it makes such perfect sense to me that I wonder how I could have missed it. "Let the whole thing flower: the poem and the person writing the poem. And let us always be kind in this world," Natalie Goldberg writes in her chapter *'More About Mondays," which deals with locating purpose in our work and our everyday lives, also with finding a voice. In this collection of sane and clear- hearted observations on writing, along with its solid, practical tips, there is a vitality that sings and an honesty that makes me want to cry. This is the way writing feels when it is good. What a challenge to make it feel that good all the time! When I first received a copy of Writing Down the Bones in the mail and was asked if I'd be willing to write a foreword for it, I thought, '*God, no, IVe never written a foreword, I wouldn't know how." I believed it, too—that there had to be some specific formula (H2O? NaCl?) surrounding this task that I, lacking the proper experience or credentials, would not be able to crack. I read the book on a flight to Detroit, on the way to a family funeral—the third one in a year. My uncle Jim had died in June, my grandmother in November; then my cousin Bud, on a Sat- urday in March—my fiftieth birthday. For over a year I had been working on a novel that centered loosely around a history of my family, but lately I was feeling discouraged; I couldn't seem to XI Foreword find what it was I was trying to say. I knew I didn't want it to be merely a collection of facts and anecdotes; somehow I wanted to get at the truth of this family of mine. But who knew it? I sure didn't seem to, and so, unable to get control of the material, I was stuck in this boring and burdensome story with nowhere to go. All of this was in my mind when I started to read. Before I had finished ten pages I knew that I could write a foreword, and by page 26, I was writing it. By page 30, I had filled two sheets of paper (all that I had with me on the plane) and was busy scribbling more notes to myself on the back of Natalie's letter. That, to me, is what this book does best and what it is all about—giving people permission to think the thoughts that come, and to write them down and make sense of them in any way they wish. I don't know why this approach to writing should be so revolutionary; I only know that it is. What a comfort it would have been to have had this guide after the publication of my novel Ordinary People. Years later I was still telling myself that I wasn't really a writer, but a trickster —and a very lucky trickster at that. I had written a first novel and it had achieved phenomenal success. I had stumbled upon the secret path and uncovered the rules and been rewarded with much praise. Unfortunately, all of this was proving to be of little use to me in the writing of the next novel. I was having a terrible time of it. How could 1 have forgotten everything so quickly? For six painful years I struggled until I finally figured out that the rules for Ordinary People simply didn't apply to the next situation. It was natural and understandable that I was having difficulty. I was writing a different novel; I was exploring a new path. It is easy to lose sight of the fact that writers do not write to impart knowledge to others; rather, they write to inform them- selvjcs- The affirmation of this—that writing is hard work; that it is a tricky balance of concentration, done "not by blocking out the world but by allowing it all to exist"— is everywhere in this book. With each new chapter the list of people to whom I want xii Foreword to give it grows longer. First, my son John, who's been a closet writer since fourth grade; then my friend who is a retired pedia- trician and who at eighty-two writes of being a woman in med school in the early 1900s; another friend who made her living as a corporate freelance writer and dreams of writing fiction; another whose letters flow as clean and straight as the finest prose Fve ever read. "Anyone can use it," I kept thinking. "And everybody needs it!" It was during the writing of this foreword that I found the key to my own present difficulty. In a chapter called "The Power of Detail," I read about "saying a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist." Further on, a line in "Spontaneous Writing ". Booths" fairly jumped off the page at me: .. never under- estimate people. They do desire the cut of truth." And in that moment I knew what my problem was.