danbarden.com

Many people believe that if they just get access to their creative spirit – their “inner writer,” as it were – all will be well in their lives. Best Sellers like The Artist’s Way and Writing Down The Bones are the bread and butter of this belief. As a result, a thousand writing groups have bloomed.

But these books miss the point. If writing is a disease – and we know in our hearts that it is – the thing to do is cure it, not control it. While thousands of people in our community suffer from a yearning for publication and literary achievement that will not abate, we must offer them more than weak platitudes and faint praise.

Toward that end, I will now unveil my Seven Point Program for Killing the Writer Within™. Lest you think I come to this project with scant skills – I am, after all, a moderately successful writer – I will assure you that I am extremely qualified to speak on this subject. There are few people who have killed their inner writer more effectively than I have. Now, for a modest fee, I will be happy to share this technology with you. I can guarantee that with even a modest application of these seven principles, you will not be bothered again soon by the desire express yourself in sentences and paragraphs.

1. Stay in your own head: Start every day with a meditation on yourself. What can you do to advance your cause in the world? What people, places, and things stand in your way? How can you destroy them? This is also a good time to contact your Higher Power, if you have one. A spiritual program bent to an anxious writer’s will can help enormously. Talk to Him/Her/It as though He/She/It were a competent and highly loyal artillery officer who will at your command execute precision strikes against your enemies.

2. Don’t listen: When you encounter another human being, try to understand them only as a function of your ambition. That is, who do they know? How can they connect you? If they offer information that doesn’t fit into your latest game plan, don’t listen to them. If a pause occurs in the conversation, tell them whatever you can about yourself, emphasizing your deep pathetic yearning to become a published writer. Remember: conversation is not broken down into talking and listening, it’s broken down into talking and waiting to talk.

3. When it works, quit doing it: When you find something that actually works, cease after a respectable amount of time calculated to convince your friends and family that you are still earnestly pursuing your dream. Also, you should continue to proselytize on behalf of your successful strategy at the same time that you slowly abandon it. For example, if writing courses have made a big difference for you, convince everyone else to take them while telling yourself that you’ve moved beyond that stage.

4. Do not read, do not go to museums, do not listen to music: Rightfully understood, this principle is a subset of the “don’t listen” principle. If it’s important to stay in your own head, it’s really important to divorce your own writing from the work of others. Particular dangers are reading books and listening to music that you decided ten years ago was “not your thing.” Talking to younger people about what they’re reading or watching or listening to is always to be avoided. Nothing inspires creativity quicker than an open mind. New influences are to be avoided at any cost.

5. Insist on the importance of talent: This principle is the secret weapon of any program for killing the inner writer. Correctly employed, it should destroy even the most eternal spark. Ask yourself – and others – whether you have the talent to be a writer. Ask writers, particularly, if you have the talent to be a writer. In a pinch, ask homeless people whether you have the talent to be a writer. When you’re really sick of the word “talent,” continue to use it anyway. When you have difficulty with a project, ascribe your failure to “lack of talent.” Steer clear of people who work hard on their stories and poems and screenplays. They will insist that “inspiration follows perspiration.” Interpret rejection from magazines and publishers as a sign of your “lack of talent.”

6. Wait for inspiration: Nothing will more certainly insure a constipated muse than a commitment to inspiration. Write only when you are moved to write. Write only when you “have something to say.” Do not, under any circumstances, regard writing as a skill that can be developed over time. This reduces the art of writing to the stature of woodworking or basketball or ballet dancing instead of what it really is: a thunderbolt from the sky, a much higher calling than any work that requires sweat or muscle fatigue or time spent sitting in one place.

7. Insist on being original: This is the crown jewel of all my principles. If you remember nothing else, this essential principle will prove adequate to the job of destroying your inner writer. The insistence that your writing be a work of genius is probably the most effective defense possible against real creative accomplishment. Think of all those people, alone in their padded rooms, completely insulated from publication because they are busy inventing a new language. Think, too, about all the people who spend very little time alone in any room but speak of originality as the highest value in writing. What better way to divorce yourself from the community than by insisting that you create something that has nothing in common with anyone else in the community? What better way to divorce yourself from the community than by insisting that you must be much better than everyone else?

The principles of my Seven Point Program for Killing the Writer Within™ are only a beginning. I am confident that as we each earnestly explore this new world, we will add many more. Imagine the freedom! Untroubled by the desire to write, you can pursue a vocation that actually gives you pleasure. A trip to the bookstore will no longer be an adventure in angst. The announcement of the Macarthur Awards won’t require Zoloft. Cafés will once again become places to buy coffee.

And those who aren’t writers, take heart: I will soon deliver the manuscript for my Seven Point Program for Killing the Artist Within™, to be quickly followed by my Seven Point Program for Killing the Filmmaker Within™.