Dorkgasm

Look, for a lot of us, writing is like a drug. We got a little taste, probably as kids, and we just couldn't stop. Fiction, poetry, and even academic writing consumes us. It doesn't matter, really, as long as we get to sling some ink and manipulate words. You know I'm right, because you feel it in your bones. You sit down from time to time and you either write furiously, like W.S. Burroughs chasing a fix, or you sit and stare for a long, long time into the void because you're overwhelmed with ideas, and you want to make the time count. I get it. I'm a word junkie too. Thing is, we’re junkies that need direction. We can masturbate until our hands are covering in gooey, sticky ink all day long, but we might not ever produce something substantive from our passion. No, being a junkie isn’t enough to be successful: we need to learn to focus. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that people can be auto-didactic about damn near anything. I have a wealth of knowledge just waiting to be unleashed at Alex Trebek, because he’s probably the only motherfucker who cares that I can name the first film Clint Eastwood was in, or the reason Kenner convinced parents to give their kids an empty box for Christmas in 1977. We need to learn structure though, and it isn’t easy, not by a long shot.

Make sure the Academy doesn't show this "Black Lagoon" shit when I die, okay?

Wait, where was I? Damned insufferable distractions! I needed a break, I told myself, so I took one. I smoked a Camel, got something to drink, brushed my hair, and then my teeth, and then I read some blogs that I like. All the while, somewhere in the back of my brain, I wanted to finish my fix, but I procrastinated. See, the problem of writing is that the addiction is psychological. We get so deep into our heads that sometimes we drown in it. That’s why we need structure. Here’s some examples.

The closest I could get to Hogwarts.

1. School

One of my favorites. I’m currently closing in on my Master’s Degree. I’ve gotten to study at Mount Mary College in Milwaukee with Ann Angel, 2011 winner of the YASLA “Excellence in Nonfiction” award. It’s more than just learning to get better at the craft though, it’s the grueling deadlines. Normally, as writers we can write and write and write. The program demands we write pages upon pages in a short amount of time, and then edit those pages, and then write some more, and then edit some more. By the end of one semester, I’m sitting on the first 20,000 words of a novel, and they aren’t crap. Without those school-imposed deadlines, I might have 2000 good words, or 50,000 shitty ones, but probably neither. School takes the ink-needle out of your hands and teaches you how to make it last.

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