John Mason Skipp

RETURN TO THE STORYTELLERS HOMEPAGE

Welcome to Storytellers Unplugged. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

SKIPP’S LAST CLASS! LET’S HOPE IT DOESN’T SUCK!

(W IS OUT THE DOOR AT LAST; AND SO, ALAS, AM I)

 

by John Skipp

 

Dear beloved class and fellow faculty members –

 

Let’s take a moment to picture ourselves in that imaginary classroom amphitheater we’ve shared, at various points over the last several years. You guys are all up in the seats, for some reason, watching me yap about one thing or another; and I, for once, am poised to make some big emotional statement. Like, for instance, goodbye.

 

But it’s November 4 as I write these words, and we all just found out that Barack Obama is the Next Motherfucking President of These United States! (Speaking personally: WOO- HOOOOO!!!)

 

Which means that everyone will be either out celebrating their asses off or lamenting the end of All Life As We Know It.

 

Talk about shitty timing for this little statement, huh?

 

But it sure does put things in, for me, a lovely perspective.

 

So here’s the deal. I love you guys and gals, and love what we do here at Storytellers Unplugged. I’m proud of have helped at least one new writer get published, and proud to have been invited into this community of fine minds, inspiring each other.

 

 I remain a part of this community.

 

But I gotta go focus on the work at hand.

 

To the extent that I have ever been a teacher, I teach largely by example. Sure, I have theories about all this shit – how stories work, how publishing works, and the practical applications of a life devoted to inhabiting creative experience – but the proof is in the pudding (or lack thereof).

 

Right now, I need to go make me some pudding. DELICIOUS PUDDING!

 

I hope you understand.

 

I also hope that SU will make it easy to find my SU archives, so that you all can peruse the stuff we’ve already done. Most of it will hopefully ring as true today as it did then. 

 

I’m fiercely proud of the time we’ve spent, and the many fine writings you’ve contributed to my near-monthly doodads and exercises. Plus, I had fun, too!

 

 I’m also pretty confident that there’s another teacher out there who will actually show up for every class, provoking fresh things out of those of you who are genuinely here to learn.

 

As I recall, I was recruited to fill in when Douglas Clegg and Brian Keene had to bail, for much the same reason. And though those were huge shoes to fill, I know for a fact that we have had us some fun.

 

SO KEEP THE LOVE ALIVE, brothers and sisters, boy and girls at play with the tools of wild wisdom. You are thinkers. You are dreamers. You are here to help make sense of this life, for yourself and for all who will listen. You are here to come to terms with your demons and angels, give voice to your vision, tell both the highest and lowliest truths you know in the service of honesty, accuracy, and genuine soul-sustaining bullshit-freeness.

 

Or maybe your vision isn’t quite so lofty. Maybe you’d just like to tell some stories, have some fun, make a couple bucks, and possibly get laid (or at least somewhat respected). That’s all good, too. Your writing is a calling card for who you are. You wrote it. If you sent it out, then it’s out. Let it do what it will.

 

Whatever the case, here we are.

 

So your last assignment is this.

 

WRITE ME SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL, ABOUT WHY YOU LOVE TO WRITE. About what writing means to you. What you hope to achieve. What you hope to learn, have learned, or are learning as we speak. And why you do it instead of all the other trillion things you could otherwise be doing.

 

I’ll be checkin’ in, over the next couple of days, to honor this last official round of play.

 

Thank you for playing with me. It’s been an honor and a pleasure.

 

Yer pal and eternal booster,

Skipp

 

 

 

 

 

 

(AND THE WALLS COME A-TUMBLIN’ DOWN)

By John Skipp

Dear class –

Today, I thought it might be nice to slap the living shit out of some stupid ideas that have annoyed me for years, and hobbled us far too long.

They’re the same stupid ideas that Dave Wilson and the Tems grappled with, in their very smart essays that led off the month here at good ol’ SU.

And they function like the sand bags on the ballet dancers in Kurt Vonnegut’s classic short story, “Harrison Bergeron”, wherein all human excellence is systematically squashed flat, in order to make all things, all people, and all experiences nightmarishly “equal”.

They are:

STUPID IDEA #1 – THE WAR BETWEEN ART AND COMMERCE

STUPID IDEA #2 – THE WAR BETWEEN HIGHBROW AND LOWBROW

STUPID IDEA #3 – THE WAR BETWEEN GENRE AND MAINSTREAM

They’re three big dumb bastards, and they all rush in at once. But since I can only smack one ugly mug at a time, let’s take them in order, shall we?

STUPID IDEA #1

Art, as I understand it, is creative expression. It takes many forms, means different things to different people. But it’s all an attempt to evoke some feeling, communicate some vision, capture a moment, provoke a response, do any or all of the things that art is presumed to do.

Commerce, as I understand it, is an exchange of goods or services for the currency of choice.

What makes “Art Vs. Commerce” a stupid idea is the notion that art isn’t worth money. Only dumb shit is worth money. Which just patently isn’t true. (Ask Dali and Picasso. Oh, wait! You can’t. They’re dead.)

STUPID IDEA #2

Yes, there’s clearly a difference between the high-flung gallery and the low-slung gutter. And yes, they define themselves in opposition to each other, in a kind of perceptual class warfare. The Illuminated vs. The Great Unwashed. Or, conversely, the Snooty Elite vs. The World-Weary Grunt Who Knows The Score.

But if you take a step back and take in the big picture, BOTH OF THEM ARE IN IT. They do not exist in separate universes: no matter how much they appear to; no matter how hard they try. They form as much of a continuum as the black and white halves of yer basic Tao symbol.

They are flip sides of the same twirling coin.

And that twirling coin is us, in fullness.

Yes, our loftiest concerns and our basest realities can often seem pitted against each other, like Jekyll and Hyde.

But the point of that story was that they were both the same guy. And that the schism WAS the problem, because it yanked both sides out of proportion.

In other words, the stupid idea is not that high and low are different. The stupid idea is that they need to be at war. That they are mutually exclusive, somehow.

That they cannot be commingled into an all-encompassing – and altogether more accurate – worldview that I like to call “The Third Brow” perspective, with something like maximum impact.

Which brings us, neatly, to…

STUPID IDEA #3

Last time I checked, the “mainstream” of popular culture was made ALMOST ENTIRELY OF GENRES: types of stories, types of music, types of whatever delivery system you want, that somehow stood out and attracted the people who really like those sorts of things.

And just to be absolutely clear about this: “coming-of-age” novels and “relationship” novels and “embittered college professor” novels are every bit as much genre confections as romance, mystery, or horror novels. They’ve got sets of rules and expectations. They have customary tropes.

But what often sets the “mainstream” apart from the rest – in ANY genre – is its ability to simultaneously…

• deliver on the expectations of their core audience, and
• TRANSCEND AND EXPAND UPON those expectations, in ways that get the core audience so excited that other people wanna know about it, too.

If you manage to get any audience at all, you have formed a sort of cult.

And if the cult gets big enough, you just might wind up “mainstream”.

Mainstream is a function of commerce. It’s a numbers game. And all kinds of weirdos – which is to say, genuine artists — have stumbled into it, either accidentally or on purpose.

Was the afore-mentioned Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. a mainstream artist? Why, yes, he was. He sold shitloads of books, to both rich and poor alike. Was he highbrow? Yes. Was he lowbrow? Yes. Was he genre? ABSOLUTELY: first as a “science fiction” writer, until he carved out his own unique turf so successfully that he became a genre unto himself.

So what was the point of all this?

1. “Art vs. Commerce” is bullshit. There are genuine artists who make very good money. And there are cynical hacks beyond counting who will never make dick. So selling out your talent in the hopes of a big score is no guarantee of anything but ultimate self-loathing. Do not kid yourself on that. And for fuck’s sake, don’t use it as an excuse for creating anything less than your best.

2. “Highbrow vs. Lowbrow” is a ridiculous, short-sighted, self-limiting waste of time and everything else. If you don’t integrate both into your life and work, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom you make blinder with every myopic step you take.

3. “Genre vs. Mainstream” is dumbass because Genre IS Mainstream, the second it goes beyond its standard tropes to engage larger swaths of the entire human race. Usually through things like extraordinary talent, effort, empathy, ambition, and – get ready for it – a willingness to kick your audience’s ass in some sort of delightful and meaningful way.

Most of my art/cultural heroes have succeeded BECAUSE they went way the fuck out on the limb, not because they shied away from it. I’m talkin’ everyone from Dr. Seuss to The Beatles, Frank Zappa to Harlan Ellison, Thomas Pynchon to Tom Waits to Quentin Tarantino, Stanley Kubrick to Neil Gaiman, Charles Dickens to Stephen King.

IMPORTANT FINAL NOTES: Your audience is made primarily out of people who are either very much like you, or fascinated by people very much like you.

If you deliver the best work you possibly can, you are very probably making art.

If you make a point of identifying and connecting with your audience, there just might be some commerce going on.

If your work has depth and skill and sincerity, your audience might be bigger than you think.

And if nobody likes your work, you might wanna look into that.

Your homework for today, should you choose to accept it, is to take a good hard look at what you’re doing, what you love, what you hope to achieve, and what those things actually have to do with each other.

Then – if you’re REALLY gung-ho – steer your battle plan accordingly.

And don’t let imprecise paradigms (a.k.a. stupid ideas) limit you or weigh you down, like sand bags on a ballet dancer.

If you’ve really got something to offer, then there are people waiting for it.

Give it to them. Give it to yourself. GIVE IT UP.

At the very least, you’re doing something you love.

And when you tally it up, in the course of your life, there ain’t much that counts more than that.

Although money is very nice, too.

Yer pal/instructor/fellow pilgrim,
Skipp

(ON REMEMBERING WHO AND WHY WE ARE) 

By John Skipp  

Dear gang – No homework this time. It’s a holiday weekend, and the odds are fairly good that most of you won’t read this ‘til you drag your super-fine asses back to work on Monday, anyhow. 

Not to mention the fact that I just spent the whole day in a swimming pool – with family and friends, no less – and upon returning home, my ambition level at this instant is not nearly as high as I am. 

So I’m gonna wish you all a blissful, fun-packed couple o’ days, and hope you wind up havin’ ‘em! 

As for writerly thoughts, they are largely at bay. Not so bad, now and then, to shut the voice off for a second. Take some time off from the endless spinning yammerfest within. 

And just enjoy hanging out with other people for a while. P

referably ones that you actually enjoy hanging out with. 

There’s something about people that you just plain like to be with: a sweet, sympathetic resonance, like notes on a sitar that thrum all by themselves when you hit the right strings, in the right way, and all your fingers are placed just where they ought to be. 

In order to make it beautiful. 

There are social harmonics that spell happiness. Relaxation and openness are the tonic and fifth, in musical terms. They lay down the root of the chord. Set the tone. Let you know what key you’re in. 

Warmth and optimism announce themselves with the major third; introduce the minor third, and sorrow leaks out. A gorgeous note, the minor third; but if fun is what you’re after, it’s a grace note, not the thematic thrust. 

Sorry about the music theory lecture. 

Did I mention I was high? 

Bottom line: IT IS GOOD TO FEEL GOOD. To pass that feeling on to others, while they hand it right back to you.  

That is love, on the experiential level. 

My soundtrack to today? Rockabilly and surf music. Simplest shit in the world. Ridiculously joyful three-chord jamborees performed by people JUST BARELY GOOD ENOUGH to rock those three chords hard as fuck. So that people would dance. 

All major chords, by the way. 

Sometimes it’s good just to just take the time to enjoy the life you’re living.  

The rest of the shit – pain, loss, loneliness, heartbreak, disappointment, doom, and all the extenuating circumstances that all-too-often define the parameters of our lives – certainly have their place in the scheme of things.  Minor chords. Dissonant notes. Powerful colors. 

Enough to make you rage or weep. 

But if you want to remember why you’re alive in the first place – and why BEING ALIVE IS GOOD – then it ain’t no crime to savor those simple human moments in which simply being together, and enjoying each other for the best of who we are, is pretty much the whole fucking point. 

And maybe later, you can write that into your fiction. 

Reminding us of why we love to be alive, too. 

Horror writers, in particular, please take note.   

Yer instructorly pal, and fellow pilgrim,

Skipp

(OR: MAKING DEATH AS FIRST-PERSONAL AS IT CAN POSSIBLY GET)

by John Skipp

Dear class –

This is, I hope, the last of my quickees for a while. (Last-minute JAKE revisions; you don’t even wanna know.)

But the assignment itself is really cool, and I hope that you have fun!

To whit:

Many people have a problem with writing first-person narrative: locked in one perspective, sustaining the illusion convincingly without becoming self-indulgent or precious, etcetera.

I find it an enormous pleasure, myself, in the same way that I imagine acting must be fun. You commit to this one character, and their point-of-view, to the exclusion of your own or anybody else’s. But that’s just me.

Many people also have a problem writing death scenes that go all the way, IN AN EMOTIONALLY-CONNECTED MANNER. It’s one thing to get off on the grue, quite another to explore the moment from the inside, with the understanding that you are MADE OF that grue, at that moment.

So your assignment, of course, is to do both at once.

Don’t worry about the fact that your character is writing and dying at the same time. This is a message that your spirit is able to convey. So please, don’t rely on the “CASTLE ARRRRRRGHhhhhhhh…” school of hilariousness.

The persons/things you’re trying to escape from are entirely up to you. As is the manner of your death. The important thing is that you die, and do so in somewhat intimate detail.

Remember: the things that matter to you (or your fictional self) in life are as essential a component of the experience as the actual meat you’re squirting.

And once again: PLEASE HAVE FUN! I mean, if you can’t even enjoy your own death, others will clearly have to do it for you!

I’ll check in, as always, to see what horrors you’ve wrought, and offer benign encouragement to both the living and dead.

Yer instructorly pal,

Skipp

(WHEN IT ABSOLUTELY CANNOT FUCKING WAIT ONE MOMENT LONGER)

By John Skipp

Dear class –

Not to put too fine a point on it: I can’t play with you guys this month. My ace collaborator and fellow SU instructor Cody Goodfellow and I have a new book to hand in, one month from now, and it’s still got a whoooooooole lot of work left to do.

So here’s your assignment for today, should you choose to accept it:

1) Take out your most pressing project: the one that you really need to finish, so that you can move on.

2) Turn off your phone, your email, your message boards, your instructional writing websites, your friends, your family, all the forces that oppose you, and everything else in the known universe.

3) Lock your door. And don’t answer if they knock.

4) Sit your fine ass down.

5) Write the living shit out of that thing.

6) Don’t stop until you drop.

Got it? CLASS DISMISSED!

Yer pal in the trenches,

Skipp

(OR: HOW YOU CAN BE A GOODER WRITER, TODAY!)

By John Skipp

Dear class –

I’d like to dedicate this month’s creative escapade to a young writer/entrepreneur by the name of J. Timothy King, who – though he probably didn’t plan it this way – has brought much joy to my life over the course of the past week.

Here’s the deal:

Below, you’ll find a link to Mr. King’s ebook, entitled 1001 CHARACTER QUIRKS FOR WRITING FICTION: A TOOL FOR CREATING MEMORABLE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS.

I strongly urge you to peruse this advertisement, because what follows will be a whole lot funnier if you do.

And your assignment – should you choose to accept it – will be based directly on your response to the quality of the ideas and expression contained therein.

Ready? Go!

J. Timothy King’s Quirky List (link by Dave)

Okay. So I don’t know about you guys, but I am totally fucking sold. In fact, I don’t think that “1,001 Character Quirks” are nearly enough. AND NEITHER DO YOU!

That’s why I’m offering “10,000,000,001 MORE Adorable Character Quirks!”

Check out these 20 FREE SAMPLES!

———————–

1) Picks nose frequently.

2) Forgets to chew sometimes.

3) Is 62 years old.

4) Has never been to Spain.

5) Is a Wichita Lineman.

6) Makes muskrat love, with actual muskrats.

7) Would vote for George W. Bush again, if given half a chance.

8 ) Can’t turn invisible, but can make you THINK they’re invisible.

9) Has a harelip.

10) Has a black light in their bedroom, even though it makes their teeth look green.

11) Is actually kinder, by and large, than the historical Jesus.

12) Has every album by the band Toto, on vinyl and CD.

13) Eats scrambled eggs and orange slices for breakfast with the family, four days a week, and wonders why they all have such sulfurous farts.

14) Enjoys the texture of felt.

15) Is frightened by lint.

16) Is so ticklish he or she turns violent, and kills.

17) Has a dozen nipples.

18 ) Speaks a dozen languages, including Panda.

19) Has been cut in half.

20) Is unsightly. (Or attractive!)

———————-

See how easy that is? YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO THINK! (#21)

And yet, you find that your characters are still not “quirky” enough? Of course they aren’t! The fact is, all best-selling books are populated exclusively by characters so jam-packed with quirk, they’re literally CHOKING on their own abnormality!

Not convinced? Try these 20 NEW SAMPLES, fresh from our ovens:

———————

1) Is obsessed with phlegm.

2) Collects doggie dashboard ornaments (bobble heads a plus!).

3) Member of Ruth Buzzi Fan Club.

4) Wears only hot pink and lime green.

5) Cannot discuss sausages without yelling “Snausages!”

6) Pretends he’s a mastadon, when cornered.

7) Is covered with suppurating boils.

8 ) Won’t stop hitting on your mom.

9) Still does his Chris Farley impression.

10) Dreads sundown.

11) Maintains backyard mud-wrestling pit.

12) Lines underwear with eggplant, just in case they need a snack.

13) Wears glasses with actual Coke bottle lenses.

14) Says “Top of the mornin’ to ya!”

15) Wishes she could be shrunk, injected into a scientist’s bloodstream, and wind up sexually accosted by microorganisms.

16) Is suspicious of cheese.

17) Follows you home.

18 ) Specializes in frumpy hats.

19) Lives in Wyoming.

20) Calls cockroaches “land lobsters”, and treats them accordingly.

——————-

At this point, frankly, I’m a bit concerned that the revolutionary impact of J. Timothy King’s theories is still being dismissed here, in a fairly callous and cavalier fashion.

So in the interest of great literature through the ages, and the hope that it flowers, eternal…

…HERE’S ONE LAST JUMBO BATCH OF HUGELY IMPORTANT CHARACTER QUIRKS! Ignore them at your own peril!

—————–

1) Shaves his balls.

2) Thinks the words “Ass-Burger’s Syndrome” are funny.

3) Always takes a Ouija board to parties.

4) Knows all the words to John Coltrane “songs”; sings them like Bullwinkle Moose.

5) Is overly fond of gnats.

6) Will drink a liver-and-onion daquiri if you dare him.

7) Dances like Crispin Glover.

8 ) Still keeps the first dead bird she ever found in a Baggie in her sock drawer; thinks it gives her “mystical powers”.

9) Has that whole “naked-women-covered-with-baked-beans” fetish.

10) Believes that chickens are the Devil.

11) After three minutes, decides “You’re my best friend EVER!”

12) Thinks rich people smell like actual money.

13) Incubates in raw sewage.

14) Has a little tuft on their forehead.

15) Thinks Justin Timberlake is “rough trade”.

16) Still loves the great taste of Elmer’s Glue.

17) Dresses their vestigal twin in Barbie clothes.

18 ) Fondles walnuts.

19) Kisses like a drowning sailor.

20) Won’t stop screaming, no matter how many times you slap them.

21) Thinks Metamusel is an energy drink.

22) Can’t be bothered with flushing.

23) Runs 10 miles every day, even though it takes them all day to do so.

24) Used to date Tiny Tim.

25) Has cauliflower ears, cherry tomato eyes, carrot fingers, sliced cucumber nipples, and a belly full of ranch dressing.

26) Believes that FRATERNITY VACATION with Stephen Geoffreys is still the greatest teen sex comedy ever made.

27) Considers their home to be one enormous ant farm.

28) Doesn’t believe in vowel sounds.

29) Thought the doctor said he wanted a “pancreatic casserole”, and can’t find the recipe anywhere.

30) Has only one zit, but it lasts forever.

31) Stutters while asleep.

32) At 27, is the oldest third-grader in town.

33) Wishes babies were taller.

34) Can crush a full can of Fosters Lager between their ass cheeks.

35) Believes that life is but a dream; is desperately trying to wake up.

36) Wishes R.L. Stine would write more books for grownups.

37) Wishes Ann Coulter would write more books for grownups. (ZING!)

38) Likes to “lick the batter” out of cement mixers.

39) Lives in terror that the guy from Kids In The Hall will actually crush his head.

40) Thinks that faraway objects are actually as small as they appear.

———————-

As you can see, I still have quite a ways to go before making it to the coveted 10,000,000,001 mark.

And that’s where YOU come in! Cuz if we don’t make it, THERE MAY NEVER BE ANOTHER BESTSELLER!!!

So — in the immortal words of J. Timothy “Martin Luther” King — it’s time to pick up the hammer of writerly ambition, and SMASH IT REPEATEDLY against the “Magic Idea Box” that is your skull.

That’s your foolish assignment for the month.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with keeping a “character journal”, or a running litany of human idiosyncrasy. Paying attention to the nuances of oneself and others is half the fun of the writer’s life. And vividly executing it in prose is…well, pretty much THE OTHER HALF.

Certainly, a movie like AMELIE gets most of its charm from playful, accurate observation. And I’ve never loved a movie more than I love AMELIE.

I guess the thing I find most hilarious and heartbreaking about young Mister King’s advertisement is the whole cart-in-front-of-the-horse thing.

I mean, we ALL want attention and recognition. There ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.

But when you get a guy who is seemingly-unpublished, offering to sell you the SECRETS OF BESTSELLERDOM, and he leads off his list with “Trips over things” and “Is rude to others”, I gotta think this young man has maybe gotten slightly ahead of himself.

So the great gift of laughter that J. Timothy King has brought me is twofold, at least.

First, it makes me laugh at my own writerly ego, which DESPERATELY needs to be laughed at, on a regular basis. And fortunately, there will never be a shortage of people laughing at my writerly ego. (You could be doing it RIGHT NOW!)

Second, it underscores the need for new writers to take this sort of “Instructional Paraphernalia” with as many grains of salt as your personal saltshaker has handy.

Which is not to say that I might not still purchase 1001 CHARACTER QUIRKS, as I remain unconvinced that it’s not some kind of crazy Church of the Subgenius prank: deliberately hilarious and painful, instead of just inadvertently so.

And since poor ol’ Tim has only managed one blurb for his ebook – coming, with horrifying predictability, from HIMSELF – please feel free to wrangle up some of your own. I know I did!

For example:

“Now that I have become my own ‘Magic Idea Box’, I just stay home and watch myself. I never know what I’ll do next!”
– John Skipp, Writer!

“I no longer think of characters as ‘people’…just assemblages of tics and shenanigans. And my writing has never been better!”
– Charles Dickens, Writer!

“Help! I’m trapped in a ‘Magical Idea Box’! I haven’t eaten in three days, and I’m running out of urine!”
– E.L. Doctorow, Writer!

“It appears that character quirks are the mystery ingredients that underlie all matter…oh, wait. That’s quarks. Never mind.”
– Stephen Hawkings, writer!

——————-

So, please, MORE QUIRKS! And more testimonials! Deep, heartfelt thoughts are also welcome.

And GOD BLESS YOU, J. TIMOTHY KING!!! For the laughs. For the love. And for reminding us all that a “Magic Idea Box” could be ours for the taking, if only we use – ummm – OUR IMAGINATIONS, OR SOMETHING!

Yer incorrigible instructor,
Skipp

(ON THE VIRTUES OF BEING YOURSELF, IN PRINT, NO MATTER WHAT)

By John Skipp

Dear class –

Today, I’m gonna open with a recent blog by one of my favorite writer friends, comedian Rachel Arieff. In it, she sets up the central premise of this month’s zesty exercise:

———————–

Losers and Jerkoffs

I’m currently reading Shit Magnet by Jim Goad. I really enjoy reading that motherfucker, as pathetic and self-pitying as he is. I’m about half-way through it and what I’ve read so far just seems like an exercise in dodging responsibility.

But damn, I like the way he writes. Thanks to him, I totally sullied my last summer at the beach, reading Jim Goad’s Gigantic Book of Sex. He is so clear, concise, and entertaining. When someone’s a good writer, you read their stuff and you feel like you know them.

In the case of Jim Goad, I feel like I know someone that I wish I’d never met. Like when you meet someone at a party that makes your soul curl up like a potato bug and go, “Eeew!” And then you spend the rest of the night trying to avoid that person — mainly by leaving early.

Or if you’re young, dumb and have no self-esteem, by leaving with that person.

Whether or not you personally like an author is irrelevant. Do you see how hard it is to get total strangers to feel as if they know you, just by what you put down on paper? It is incredibly difficult. It involves stripping away layers of bullshit and masks to reveal the essence of who you are. Even if what you end up stripping down to happens to be your biggest, simplest mask, it’s still a damn good effort. After all, we’re all human, and humans are flawed and frightened and full of shit.

Putting on masks is easy. Just take a look around MySpace. Excluding the creative people who actually do something with their pages, the rest of the site is thousands of pages of appropriated names, derivative identities, nonexistent blogs — or, when they do exist, blog entries that consist of music lyrics, movie dialogue or other work created by someone else. Not an original thought anywhere.

Maybe they haven’t discovered what they have inside. Maybe they’re afraid to find out. Maybe they’re intellectually and spiritually uncurious and just don’t want to do the work. Those people are the majority.

It takes courage to show who you really are, what you really think, how boring, stupid, or ugly you can be. It takes cojones to put your flaws out there for all the world to see, judge, and ridicule. But a real artist doesn’t have any other choice.

That’s what’s fascinating about writing. You can be a total loser jerkoff of a human being, but if you write convincingly and entertainingly about what a loser jerkoff you are, you end up a winner. And you end up inspiring other writers to work harder on their writing.

Jesus, look at what I just wrote. How embarrassing. I hate those terms, “loser”, “winner.” So crude, so trite, so ’80s.

See? I need to work on my writing more, so I can be as good as that loser jerkoff Jim Goad.

——————

Okay! So just in case it isn’t clear already, your assignment for today is this:

WRITE A SHORT ESSAY ABOUT HONEST, FLAWED HUMANITY THAT LETS US FEEL AS THOUGH WE REALLY GOT A GLIMPSE OF YOUR SOUL.

You don’t have to make yourself the topic of the essay (although you’re more than welcome to). I’m not asking you to expose your most private, deep, personal pain or shame.

Just pick a subject that you feel passionately about. Express yourself in an unflinchingly candid manner. And don’t be afraid to show us your ass, as well as our own.

The point is to write, as Rachel said, so concisely, convincingly and entertainingly that whether we like you or not is completely irrelevant. The point is that WE GET YOU.

Why is this important, for a writer of fiction?

Well, for one thing, because your characters need your emotional honesty if they are to thrive and become full-blooded.

And I don’t know about you, but insofar as I’m concerned, honest writing kicks the shit out of dishonest writing, every time.

Courage and candor and raw personality are qualities that glow from within. So is the ability to laugh not only at others, but at ourselves.

Which is to say that – no matter WHAT you’re writing – having these skill sets in your arsenal is only going to help.

So let’s see a little bit of that action now, shall we?

And THANK YOU, RACHEL ARIEFF! Let’s give this gal a great big hand! ALL THE WAY FROM BARCELONA, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! Make sure you Google her, and check out all the excellent fun!

(CLAPPITY CLAPPITY CLAP!!!)

Now just before we wrap up, one last caveat: please refrain from writing essays in response to your classmates (as in, “I can’t believe what a stupid dogshit essay that LAST guy wrote!”). Okay?

This exercise isn’t about poking holes in each other. It’s about entertaining each other by revealing ourselves, while we cultivate our skills.

Clearly, this is gonna come easier to some folks than others. If you blog, the odds are good that you’ve already got a running start.

But remember: this isn’t just about mouthing off (i.e. “expressing opinions”). Let’s cut a little closer to the soul.

Can’t wait to see what you guys and gals come up with! And again, thank you for being such a wonderful class.

Yer bare-assed instructor,
Skipp