Essentials of Spontaneous Prose
SET-UP
The object is set before the mind, either in reality.
as in sketching (before a landscape or teacup or old face) or
is set in the memory wherein it becomes the sketching from
memory of a definite image-object.
PROCEDURE
Time being of the essence in the purity of
speech, sketching language is undisturbed flow from the mind
of personal secret idea-words, blowing (as per jazz musician)
on subject of image.
METHOD
No periods separating sentence-structures already
arbitrarily riddled by false colons and timid usually needless
commas--but the vigorous space dash separating rhetorical
breathing (as jazz musician drawing breath between outblown
phrases)--"measured pauses which are the essentials of our
speech"--"divisions of the sounds we hear"--"time and how
to note it down." (William Carlos Williams)
SCOPING
Not "selectivity" of expression but following free
deviation (association) of mind into limitless blow-on-subject
seas of thought, swimming in sea of English with no discipline
other than rhythms of rhetorical exhalation and expostulated
statement,
like a fist coming down on a table with each complete utterance,
bang! (the space dash)--Blow as deep as you
want--write as deeply, fish as far down as you want, satisfy
yourself first, then reader cannot fail to receive telepathic
shock and meaning-excitement by same laws operating in his
own human mind.
LAG IN PROCEDURE
No pause to think of proper word but
the infantile pileup of scatological buildup words till
satisfaction is gained, which will turn out to be a great appending
rhythm to a thought and be in accordance with Great Law of
timing.
TIMING
Nothing is muddy that runs in time and to laws of
time--Shakespearian stress of dramatic need to speak now in
own unalterable way or forever hold tongue--no revisions (except
obvious rational mistakes, such as names or calculated
insertions in act of not writing but inserting).
CENTER OF INTEREST
Begin not from preconceived idea of
what to say about image but from jewel center of interest in
subject of image at moment of writing, and write outwards
swimming in sea of language to peripheral release and
exhaustion--Do not afterthink except for poetic or P. S.
reasons. Never afterthink to "improve" or defray impressions,
as, the best writing is always the most painful personal wrung-out
tossed from cradle warm protective mind-tap from
yourself the song of yourself, blow!--now!--your way is
your only way--"good"--or "bad"--always honest ("ludicrous"), spontaneous, "confessionals" interesting, because not
"crafted." Craft is craft.
STRUCTURE OF WORK
Modern bizarre structures (science fiction,
etc.) arise from language being dead, "different" themes
give illusion of "new" life. Follow roughly outlines in
outfanning movement over subject, as river rock, so mindflow over
jewel-center need (run your mind over it, once) arriving at
pivot, where what was dim-formed "beginning" becomes
sharp-necessitating "ending" and language shortens in race to
wire of time-race of work, following laws of Deep Form, to
conclusion, last words, last trickle-Night is The End.
MENTAL STATE
If possible write "without consciousness" in
semi-trance (as Yeats' later "trance writing") allowing subconscious
to admit in own uninhibited interesting necessary and
so "modern" language what conscious art would censor, and
write excitedly, swiftly, with writing-or-typing-cramps, in accordance
(as from center to periphery) with laws of orgasm,
Reich's "beclouding of consciousness." Come from within,
out--to relaxed and said.
Belief and Technique for Spontaneous Prose
1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr
own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language
sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in
mind
22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture
better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr
morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language
& knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American
form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under,
crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled
in Heaven
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