- - - - Step One You are reading this for a reason. Something has called you. You are on a journey, and your path has led you here. Don't question. Instead, persevere. Trust in your inquisition. You alone hold the answer, even if you cannot yet say what that answer is. Even if you can never say. Step Two Make a list of your most memorable experiences. They should be the life experiences that left the strongest impression on your psyche. If you've done your job properly, they will be humiliating. It will be unbearable to write them down, and you'll be ashamed to look them over. When you've finished, look over them again. Are you sure you didn't miss anything? Leave no small humiliation out. I can see you. You're cheating. Try again. Step Three For each life experience, describe a character in central relation to that life experience. For example, if your life experience was, "Taken to cleaners by first wife in divorce," your chosen character might be, "Me, purchasing folding dish-drainer for newly rented studio apartment." Or, if your life experience was, "Locked out of room in Shanghai Hilton naked, while drunk," your chosen character might be, "Me, naked and drunk in Shanghai Hilton lobby." If your life experience was, "Asked by boss at Christmas party to explore other professional opportunities," your chosen character might be, "Me, at Christmas punchbowl, suddenly and violently alienated." You get the point. And yet we so often forget. We make excuses. We DENY to ourselves the SELF we ourselves know to be inside us. And it is this DENIAL that hides us from ourselves. The worst crime. A travesty. Step Four The artist must reveal himself before he can reveal another. Exploration begins with revelation. Through the use of character and scene, we will be exploring TRUTH. This exploration will, ironically, come in the form of a revelation of ourselves to the world of truth. This revelation is a lifelong journey of inquiry and understanding. It can only be communicated to the audience through the ART made as part of the journey. Some people won't get this. To them, be polite and move on. Give them the time of day, but nothing more, nothing of your soul. Your soul is busy, and has other places to be, and can't abide chitchat. Step Five Art is not discovery, it is creation. A work of art is a made thing. You're a fool for thinking otherwise. You're a fool, period. We're all fools. But especially you. Step Six Actually, you're more than a fool. You've also treated other people horribly. You're a bastard. You should be ashamed. Step Seven Gogol once said, "Art is what is left when God has departed the stage." That's a lie. Gogol never said that. Step Eight What am I good at? What skills do I bring to the human experience? What wisdom do I have to impart to the world? Heady questions. Difficult matters to address oneself to. Art is not easy—no one said it would be. You dare to think of yourself as an artist, and yet you cannot articulate what you have to offer the world. The truth is, you have nothing. Your thinking otherwise is pretense. Self-exposition becomes indulgence. "Sharing" becomes self-absorption. Emotion without sensitivity and direction is kitsch. You've seen Cats. You know what I'm talking about. Step Nine Make a list of subjects that interest you. Draw the list from your life experiences of humiliation, referred to above. Each of these subjects should be organized around a CHARACTER, and should present a THEME embodying CONFLICT and RESOLUTION. This is DRAMA. Storytelling is primitive. A good story tells itself. The act of writing is like channeling a voice from another world, like scratching charcoal lines on the walls of a cave. In this way, writing is a form of neurosis. Art is inextricably tied to insanity. It has the power to destroy you. Stop kidding yourself. You're never going to get this. Step Ten Keep firmly in mind the lessons of your craft. You are drawing from inspiration, but you are working in a form. Your expertise in this form is your only salvation. The amateur loses sight of this, and becomes lost, tossed upon and roiled by the tempest sea. Keep firmly in mind what you intend to communicate. Remember that only by baring your humiliations artfully can this communication have meaning in the world. You must risk everything. You must share your most intimate secrets, bare your naked body to the world. It—your naked body—contains the truths you have worked so hard to discover. These truths are your only possessions. Your sharing of them with the audience is a PROFOUND moment, one the audience will feel privileged to entertain. If they don't, they are cretins, and this is not your fault. Step Eleven This sharing is the central meaning of the human experience. Do not be ashamed to weep before its beauty. Step Twelve You have made a good beginning. Carry on with your journey. Don't look back. The fires of imagination will consume you. You are those fires. God help you.
OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES:
Words and Expressions Commonly Misused by Insipid Brothers-in-law By Dennis DiClaudio The Dick and Jane Reader for Advanced Students By Matthew Kennedy Early Bird Report Card By Pasha Malla About the Meet the Teacher Night, By Ken Krimstein A Message from the Principal, By Jason Roeder |
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