The Process of Writing
06/10/12 05:28
They say that Jack Kerouac wrote constantly. He carried a notebook with him wherever he went. All of that could have been preparation for his writing of the classic “On the Road.” He had made two previous drafts, “The Beat Generation,” and “Gone on the Road,” but the writing of “On the Road” was a feat that has never been matched in the history of literature.
Kerouac cut sheets of tracing paper into long strips, wide enough for a typewriter. Then he taped them together into a 120-foot long roll that he fed into the machine. He was a very fast typist, able to type over 100 words per minute. Still the story emerged in one surge, without chapter or even paragraph breaks. He wrote nearly continuously for 20 days with his wife supplying him with pea soup and coffee to keep him going. Without having to load pages the story unrolled as he went.
The original manuscript is currently on display at the British Library in London. They formed a special display box and unrolled the entire scroll so that members of the public can look at the manuscript. This is only the third time that the entire scroll has been rolled out.
The scroll differs from the finished novel in many ways. It begins with a typographical error. The scroll says, “I first met met Neal.” The double word error is one that I frequently make when I write. The difference is that we tend to self-edit as we write when using computers. The machine alerts us to many different kinds of mistakes and we go back through our words as we write.
It is nearly impossible to get inside of that immense burse of creativity that went through Kerouac as he produced the book. He simply kept the words flowing.
Kerouac has long been recognized as a chronicler of the beat generation. His coming of age novel has been read by a half century of American youth. It has taken longer for appreciation for his true artistry as a wordsmith to emerge. The writing reveals a deep appreciation for the English language and a wide and colorful vocabulary.
As interesting as all of that, it seems to me, is the mental process that produced the book. For less than a month in April of 1951, Kerouac so fully lived the story that it was all he did. Except for brief and irregular periods of sleep, he simply wrote. He too his sustenance from a cup that his wife sat beside the table where his typewriter was scrolling through that enormous roll of paper. Typing is a physical activity, requiring more pressure and strength in the fingers and hands. A good typist develops a rhythm that allows the process to continue.
In a way, it is sad that we don’t have a sound recording of the process. Imagine being his wife, Joan, living in the same home as that incessant noise. When he finally did stop, the silence must have been deafening.
I’m curious about the processes within us that produce language for others to read. Unlike Kerouac, I am not much for continuous writing. At writers’ workshops I have done an exercise of continual stream-of-consciousness writing. The exercise is usually done with pen and paper and one writes without interruption for a half hour. It is hard to keep the pen going. I find myself writing about my desire to pause and consider what to write next. I like to think out what I am going to say before I begin to write. I often have the first and last sentence of a daily blog in my mind long before I sit at the computer to write. When I am in the flow, I have the beginning and ending of the blog in mind before I go to bed the night before so that I can mull the ideas. Even on days, like today, when I rise without knowing what the topic of the blog will be, I often dig into a previous experience. I read the article about the Kerouac manuscript going on display in the British Museum yesterday and have been thinking about it since.
I guess all writers wonder where ideas come from. I know I do.
There are a few days when I wake without a clue what I am going to write about. The discipline of writing an essay every day has become a routine, but there are vast differences in the amount of time that it takes me to write. Some days I can produce the essay in 15 to 30 minutes. Some days I work and work to produce something in two hours and then am disappointed with the results. I go through seasons when my blogs seem to be repetitive. Sometimes I get a run of humor going. More often, I fall back into the general realm of philosophy. When I begin to get a bit too personal with my reflections, I pull back and look for a topic focused on some other person or situation.
I am never unaware that others read by blogs, but the primary motivation for writing isn’t for recognition. The number of people willing to read these long reflections is not large. Most popular blogs are a quarter of the number of words I write each day. I write in part to teach myself to write. I want to become an essayist and the only way I know to learn is to do. But I also write to process my experiences and thoughts. I think that is what Kerouac was doing when he sat down at his typewriter and fed the leading edge of a 120-foot scroll into the roller. He was trying to understand the experiences he had. The book has names that have been changed and sections that have been edited from the original. The manuscript is much more of a reflection on a real trip that actually took place.
Processing an experience that has been lived into words that can be communicated is part of a larger process of extracting the meaning from experiences. The philosophers call it “Phenomenology.” My first published article in 1977 was titled “Meanings Emerge,” and was an exploration of how young children discover and interpret meaning from their experiences. All these years later I continue to wonder and think about that same process. Maybe if I continue to write an essay a day for the next 35 years I might produce something as significant as Jack Kerouac write in 20 days one April.
Kerouac cut sheets of tracing paper into long strips, wide enough for a typewriter. Then he taped them together into a 120-foot long roll that he fed into the machine. He was a very fast typist, able to type over 100 words per minute. Still the story emerged in one surge, without chapter or even paragraph breaks. He wrote nearly continuously for 20 days with his wife supplying him with pea soup and coffee to keep him going. Without having to load pages the story unrolled as he went.
The original manuscript is currently on display at the British Library in London. They formed a special display box and unrolled the entire scroll so that members of the public can look at the manuscript. This is only the third time that the entire scroll has been rolled out.The scroll differs from the finished novel in many ways. It begins with a typographical error. The scroll says, “I first met met Neal.” The double word error is one that I frequently make when I write. The difference is that we tend to self-edit as we write when using computers. The machine alerts us to many different kinds of mistakes and we go back through our words as we write.
It is nearly impossible to get inside of that immense burse of creativity that went through Kerouac as he produced the book. He simply kept the words flowing.
Kerouac has long been recognized as a chronicler of the beat generation. His coming of age novel has been read by a half century of American youth. It has taken longer for appreciation for his true artistry as a wordsmith to emerge. The writing reveals a deep appreciation for the English language and a wide and colorful vocabulary.
As interesting as all of that, it seems to me, is the mental process that produced the book. For less than a month in April of 1951, Kerouac so fully lived the story that it was all he did. Except for brief and irregular periods of sleep, he simply wrote. He too his sustenance from a cup that his wife sat beside the table where his typewriter was scrolling through that enormous roll of paper. Typing is a physical activity, requiring more pressure and strength in the fingers and hands. A good typist develops a rhythm that allows the process to continue.
In a way, it is sad that we don’t have a sound recording of the process. Imagine being his wife, Joan, living in the same home as that incessant noise. When he finally did stop, the silence must have been deafening.
I’m curious about the processes within us that produce language for others to read. Unlike Kerouac, I am not much for continuous writing. At writers’ workshops I have done an exercise of continual stream-of-consciousness writing. The exercise is usually done with pen and paper and one writes without interruption for a half hour. It is hard to keep the pen going. I find myself writing about my desire to pause and consider what to write next. I like to think out what I am going to say before I begin to write. I often have the first and last sentence of a daily blog in my mind long before I sit at the computer to write. When I am in the flow, I have the beginning and ending of the blog in mind before I go to bed the night before so that I can mull the ideas. Even on days, like today, when I rise without knowing what the topic of the blog will be, I often dig into a previous experience. I read the article about the Kerouac manuscript going on display in the British Museum yesterday and have been thinking about it since.
I guess all writers wonder where ideas come from. I know I do.
There are a few days when I wake without a clue what I am going to write about. The discipline of writing an essay every day has become a routine, but there are vast differences in the amount of time that it takes me to write. Some days I can produce the essay in 15 to 30 minutes. Some days I work and work to produce something in two hours and then am disappointed with the results. I go through seasons when my blogs seem to be repetitive. Sometimes I get a run of humor going. More often, I fall back into the general realm of philosophy. When I begin to get a bit too personal with my reflections, I pull back and look for a topic focused on some other person or situation.
I am never unaware that others read by blogs, but the primary motivation for writing isn’t for recognition. The number of people willing to read these long reflections is not large. Most popular blogs are a quarter of the number of words I write each day. I write in part to teach myself to write. I want to become an essayist and the only way I know to learn is to do. But I also write to process my experiences and thoughts. I think that is what Kerouac was doing when he sat down at his typewriter and fed the leading edge of a 120-foot scroll into the roller. He was trying to understand the experiences he had. The book has names that have been changed and sections that have been edited from the original. The manuscript is much more of a reflection on a real trip that actually took place.
Processing an experience that has been lived into words that can be communicated is part of a larger process of extracting the meaning from experiences. The philosophers call it “Phenomenology.” My first published article in 1977 was titled “Meanings Emerge,” and was an exploration of how young children discover and interpret meaning from their experiences. All these years later I continue to wonder and think about that same process. Maybe if I continue to write an essay a day for the next 35 years I might produce something as significant as Jack Kerouac write in 20 days one April.