Getting Something Down on Paper

A blank page or screen is so liberating and so terrifying. It's so full of lovely possibilities, yet equally open to a bunch of junk thrown down in haste. It doesn't know the difference. The screen will accept either one.

I had just begun reading the much-recommended "bird by bird" (Yes, it kills me to stay true to the title and not capitalize it.) by Anne Lamott when I saw my niece demonstrate the very same writerly struggles Lamott describes. My niece has a story project due -- some 300-plus words. It's daunting for a 7-year-old. Not wanting to let her leave it until the last minute, the adults decided to help her brainstorm.

We sat down with a notebook and started asking questions. Where would her story happen? What characters would be in it? What would they do? I hoped the series of questions would elicit some ideas from her creative, book-devouring little mind. We tried this a couple of times, with one of us taking notes while she spouted ideas between doing headstands and making an imaginary sled out of pillows.

Lamott's advice is, in G-rated language, to write a lousy first draft. Just get something down on the paper. This is what we were trying to do. I think it was successful. My niece might have too many ideas now.

What amused me the most was that on one attempt to pick up the brainstorming process again, my niece, at the very suggestion of it, raced over to the piano to practice. This is classic writerly avoidance. Writers everywhere struggle to block everything out, ignore the need-to-be-done chores or various sources of entertainment and simply write. It's a formidable task, regardless of age or writing experience.