We have
Write-a-Novel-Month, we have poem-a-day initiatives. Try Save
Nothing Day, a session in which you delete or
discard whatever you've written.
Write your own sand mandala. Do not keep notes toward what you have written. Do not save drafts. Do
not memorize phrases to keep for later. Do not tuck them discretely under a
folder or notebook when no one is looking. Instead when time is up for your writing session, press
delete, drag the item to e-recycling bin or crumple the sheet of paper into an
actual waste bin. Using a paper shredder might be a better option for it keeps
at bay the temptation of retrieval.
Write your own sand mandala—writing that gets blown away.
Reach beautiful insights, find colorful structural strategies, realize new
points and segue, create whole stretches in an aesthetic approach—and then erase.
Often another breed of deletion becomes dominant in a writer’s
process: a deletion that causes more harm than good, that anticipates a future audience and is
defensive. (Hitting the backspace bar as often as moving forward, mixing editing with creating.)
The deletion of disposable writing is different because it's a deletion of
product, not process. We follow the moment, we enjoy the motion of writing, and
at the end we relinquish product, unattached to outcome.
Who should join the tradition of those who Keep Nothing?
·
Those who are stuck in their writing and
find everything they have written to be precious.
·
Those who need to think everything
through before writing, who need to be perfect as a defense against anticipated
criticism.
·
Those who daydream about
product and outcome, about how the end result will personally benefit
them, change their status, improve their lot with others or with themselves.
·
Those who will not allow words to be in
their natural state and those who will not allow writing to be ordinary and
prosaic in its constant generation.
·
Those who worship writing.
·
Those who wait for regeneration of their
writing, either of their overall ability or a specific project.
·
Those who place their own standards and
motives before the motion of writing.
·
Those who don’t see writing as a
movement occurring in time but instead as an object, static, like a trophy.
The benefits of disposable writing are the lowering of
standards and the practicing of detachment. For the practitioner, there is trust in this letting go: one trusts the abundance of
impermanence, knowing that just as good writing arose in this moment, it will
arise again in another moment.
What
does one write when keeping nothing?
Write as one would normally write or write
as one would not normally write, but at the end, delete.
Write with an audience
in mind or write with no audience in mind, and at the end, shred.
Give oneself
a focus, genre, approach, or do not give oneself a focus, genre, or approach
and instead freewrite, and at the end, crumble.
Write the next step in a draft
on a particular project or begin something new.
The content, stage, and genre
don't matter—decide those on your own—but in the
end, delete.
Many find the disposable method most useful and least intimidating
if done with freewriting or with the earliest stages of invention. A person of advanced
training in the mindfulness of writing will practice disposable writing at advanced
and more polished phases and with genre of increasing distinction.
You may decide to retain your creation, but don’t allow yourself this exemption too often because the lessons of
disposable writing and the benefits of acknowledging
impermanence will fade away.
Finally, it's possible to keep your writing and at the
same time maintain the disposable mindset: this requires a sincere dedication
to impermanence while you write, a true tracking of the passing moments. It's
possible to cheat the recycling bin, but the person who does so must have a strong
mindful writing practice. It's is too easy to become ensnared in attachment.
Write your own sand mandala—words that get blown away.
1 A quota means focusing on doing, which is good because that is a focus on process, but at
the same time these sort of initiatives dangle the charm of a particular genre
(I wrote a novel; I wrote a sonnet today), and therefore harden patterns of attachment
(I wrote a whole novel; I wrote an actual sonnet today).
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