How to Write

1. Find a smooth and empty surface such as the pages of a new notebook, or one of those empty rectangles on the Internet, or a wall of polished marble, or a volleyball, etc.

2. Find something suitable for making marks on that empty surface, such as a pen or pencil, or a computer keyboard, or a hammer and chisel, or a magic marker or whatever.

3. Scribble and scribble and scribble on that empty surface until you are very tired.

4. Play with cats to help you cope with the heavy workload and restore your energy.

5. The next day, and the day after that, and the day after that and so forth, repeat steps 1 through 4.

6. Repeat step 5 until you are rich and famous. (If you actually enjoy writing or otherwise feel somehow compelled to do it, you may continue writing even after this point.)

There are billions and billions of books which claim to tell you how to write, but what they actually attempt to tell you -- or what they claim to attempt to tell you in the cases where their authors don't actually care about you or your writing career and just want to sell books by exploiting your hopes and dreams, which might actually be almost all the cases -- is how to write well.

The thing is, people almost never agree about who writes well and who doesn't, which makes even those books written by people who actually care, worthless -- with one exception:



How to Write, by Gertrude Stein. This book is exceptional quite simply because, as everyone who has ever been anyone heartily agrees, Ms Stein wrote exceptionally well. Sistah came from Oakland back when there was no there there, and didn't play. Anyone who says she didn't write exceptionally well is probably either an innocent oaf or a very bad person who perhaps will try to sell you a worthless book or swampland in Florida. Watch out for the bad ones, and warn everyone you know, and strangers too!

Gertrude Stein's How To Write Haz Arrived --

-- and therefore I haz a happee!

I can't recommend this book, because over and over, reviewers -- writers of positive reviews, rave reviews -- call it "difficult."

Therefore, I know that I do not react to this book in the same way that humans do. Nothing I say here will be of use to humans in deciding whether or not this book is for them.

How to Write by Gertrude Stein is the exact opposite of difficult to me -- it is a great relief. Life in general is often difficult for me: puzzling, frightening, intensely unpleasant. How to Write is a break from all of that.

No offense to Patricia Meyerowitz, for all I know she may be a delight, and her Preface and Introduction may be sublime -- to humans. But right there in the first paragraph of the Preface, there she is, trying to tell me that this book is difficult -- and apparently it is, to most of you. No offense to Ms Meyerowitz, but How to Write is right there in the same volume. So, I gotta go. ARTHUR A GRAMMAR is my very favorite chapter -- except for some of them which are even better, wow!!!!

Ms Stein writes:

"Successions of words are so agreeable.
It is about this.
Arthur angelic angelica did spend the time."

Are you hooked already? No? Well, then maybe Ms Meyerowitz can help you. I can't. If you're not hooked after the first 3 lines in ARTHUR A GRAMMAR, I simply don't know what to say.

I also like Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. I've never found Finnegan's Wake difficult -- I've only ever found it to be pure pleasure. This is why I think Joyce may have been autistic -- and come to think of it, maybe Stein too.

Or maybe neither of them was autistic in the slightest, and maybe I actually don't "understand" How to Write or Tender Buttons or Finnegan's Wake or Portrait of the Artist at all, and the ecstasy I receive from them, or from looking at Cezanne, whom I also don't want anyone to "explain" to me -- maybe my experience of all of those artworks has nothing at all to do with the artists' intentions.

I seriously doubt it, but maybe. Anyway, there is that thing about "difficulty" which I somehow completely missed.

That's all for now, I must read this thang! Yr verr nice person, thnk yu verr mutch pleez!

(Seriously. I don't know what to tell you. Sorry.)

And Now, I'm Gonna Act Sorta Weird

yr verr nice person. i like yu verr much. thnk yu verr much, pleez.

yu know that i like kittiez verr much. i thnk they arr verr nice. that is jest my opinyun. but yu du not evr skrach me. the kittiez cant hlp it, no kittiez are rilly tame. wen yu tuch uh kittie verr gentlee on top uv the hed it iz verr nice fr yu an th kittie both.

that iz all for now. we both like kittiez verr much. thnk yu verr much, pleez.

ps: now i will sho yu how 2 rite. i almos frgot: