Do the Work-- We've seen enough of the spirit side

This is a variation on a theme that will come in other variants from time to time. I begin with a list:

***Screw your inspiration
***Screw the workshops
***Screw your starry eyes
***Get down to it

I can't remember his last name (may have been Jarvis) but his first name was John. He was Italian, liked to sing and made a living managing a commercial truck tire department for Sears in West Hartford, CT. Most importantly, he was a par golfer. I was young, just learning to swing a club and knew I would play good golf pretty soon. I went to John and asked for a tip. His answer was simple. "Stay off the golf course. Go somewhere and hit an awful lot of golf balls for an awful long time."
You poets: Go somewhere and write an awful lot of poems for an awful long time. Again I say "LEARN THE CRAFT". To quote Robert Frost from a perhaps apocryphal story, "Go write some rhymey-dimey stuff." Learn form, meter. Get the mechanics.

***Screw your inspiration
***Screw the workshops
***Screw your starry eyes
and...***Forget about publishing

So, again-- do the work. And, although I got to where I could play bogey golf on a particular nine hole course I never did get very good at the game. I don't know if I'm any better at poetry but I have written lots and lots of poems and haven't golfed in a decade.

Next post: Thoughts on publishing
So long for now.

Quick Rules for Writing, Part 4

This is a repeat of sorts: Practice daily and practice specifically. I think it was John Keats and Leigh Hunt who spent afternoons in sonnet competitions-- they knew the forms, by heart. Charles Wright was the first to impress upon me the need to write every day. He reminded that the concert pianist practices hours a day at an art no greater than my own. We have to treat the art as an art, one that is demanding and never fully achieved. Treat yourself as an artist. For periods as long as fifteen months I have written daily. The result is that I am a far better writer and a far quicker writer. Little of it is really good but a greater percentage of it is decent and I am certain I never would have written as well without the practice. Additionally, practice specific things whether forms, meters, styles, etc. Spend a month copying somebody else. Spend a month writing sonnets. Spend a month writing nothing that rhymes. Spend a month writing about a single topic. Exhaust your inspirations.

Remember that the discoveries will be the unexpected seams in your mind, the little spaces where poems reside. Days when you are certain you cannot possibly write will blossom into your most productive. You need not spend a lot of time-- I typically averaged thirty minutes daily, usually in the morning although I urge you to also learn that you can write at any time if you will.

Bottom line: If you want to write, write. Second bottom line: If you want to write, read.
Tomorrow the fifth part.
So long for now.