being alone in our work

Karl Ove Knausgaard says that when he's writing he isn't thinking about readers, and I believe it.  It's also extraordinary that he has so many readers as a result.  Also, having typed the words - he isn't thinking of readers, I find myself stumped.   How am I going to finish this blog post!

Actually, I started writing this because I was reflecting on journal writing - and writing by hand, and how different that is from typing or composing on a computer.  When you write on a computer, you see the words in neat print, at a remove.  But when you sit with a pen and paper, the words flow differently. Perhaps they get down more slowly and your mind appears to move ahead of them. But you are more alone. There is a physical link between your pen, paper and your thoughts.

I have noticed that passages written in a notebook can find themselves almost unchanged,  in a finished piece of my published writing.  This tells me that I am more at home, more honest perhaps, when writing by hand than when writing at the computer. The urge to delete a line and recompose as you go along is encouraged by the editor sitting on my shoulder when I compose at a computer.

So why do I mostly write at the computer?  I love writing in journals, especially with a good pen.  Could it be that when writing for no one but yourself- or for you to read at a later date, you produce the best kind of writing for other people? You still have to practice, of course; that goes without saying. And a lot of what you scribble in a journal is rubbish. But if you do practice, and you practice a lot, maybe 1% of what comes out in honest moments alone with the page will be the best work you produce.

I'll try to write the first draft of my next book exclusively by hand. I'm going to write without looking back - without editing until later - even without a clear idea of plot or character.  At least... at first! I heard Jennifer Egan speaking about her writing process last month at Politics and Prose and evidently this is how she works. It takes so much trust. 

Being alone with your work.  Being honest. Not thinking of it as 'work' per se - but simply trusting the practice. 

I used to do a private writing exercise with my students - an exercise in Peter Elbow's A Community of Writers. It was a kind of zen practice and my students enjoyed it.  You start with the assumption that nobody is going to read this piece of writing but yourself.

The exercise goes through various stages, the instructor interrupting and redirecting occasionally - like shifting poses in a yoga meditation.  Afterwards I would ask my students if they thought what they'd produced was better or worse than something composed more traditionally, or for other people to read.  It's interesting to see what you leave out when writing for other people - and what you include. Also what you leave out or include when writing privately, for yourself.

The work has a rawness to it when it's private, and the essence is closer to the bone.
Which brings me back to Karl Ove Knausgaard.  Although his sentences are not always well crafted, the rawness and honesty is what we respond to as readers.  The filter is off and that makes his writing irresistible.