Chapter 9

Write It Down Immediately

Over so many years of writing, I’ve discovered that, if I don’t write a poem down immediately when it comes to me, I end up losing it. I can never remember it later. Once many years ago when I was driving, a poem came to me and I started searching my car for something to write it down on. I finally found an envelope on the floor and I wrote the poem as I drove. Apparently, I was a danger to myself and everyone else on the road because the parish priest followed me to the bank where I was headed, and berated me for my erratic driving.

“I was writing a poem,” I said.

“Maybe you should just do one thing at a time,” he replied, giving me one of those looks that said he thought I was certifiable.

After that embarrassing experience, I keep a small notebook with a pen attached to it on a cord in the car. But, when I get an urge to write a poem, I pull over, no matter how tempted I am to write and drive. Also I keep the same kind of notebook near my bed and near the sofa where I sit to read or watch TV, and I carry one in my bag to use when I am sitting at a meeting that seems interminable. I suggest this method to you as well.

The problem with waiting to write until you have time or things are quieter is that you may find that you’ll never have time to write. When my children were young and I didn’t feel as though I had one minute to myself, I got up in the middle of the night to read and write. Of course, I was younger then and could go without sleep, but in those days, when my house was always full of children and noise and things to be done, my spirit needed the refreshment of that hour in the middle of the night more than it needed sleep.

Now that my children are grown and out of the house, I still have all sorts of professional and personal responsibilities pulling at me, as we all do. But again I say, if you do not make time for yourself and your writing, you won’t write – ever. I think sometimes you’re afraid that you will fail, so you don’t try. Surely, you can find 20 minutes sometime in your day or night to write. No excuses. No get-out-of-writing-free card.

If you need extra help to get motivated, then join a group, even a group of two or three friends, and write together and read what you’ve written aloud to each other. I know a writer who gets a motel room, and stays there a weekend each month to write. You can get together with one other person whose taste and sensibility you trust, and write poems together or read each other’s work. My students often tell me that they love the intensive weekends I lead at Binghamton, because it forces them to write nine or ten poems over the course of the weekend. It may take some trial and error but, if you keep trying different approaches, you will find the one that is most effective for you.

I don’t allow myself or anyone else to say, “I don’t have time.” If you want to write, if you want to explore your own creativity, you have to make the time. Excuses are for cowards who are afraid to try, I say to myself when I’m looking for a reason to explain why I haven’t written. Don’t use that excuse for yourself.