Back in the late 90s, Kurt Vonnegut gave some weird advice to a packed crowd of readers and writers at the Wisconsin Union here in Madison. I’d just started taking my writing seriously and was grabbing tips whenever I could find them from local workshops, audited classes, even a neighbor I’d cat-sat for who had published a few poems. Now here I was at the feet of a master, Distinguished Lecture Series program in one hand, pen poised in the other. But the advice that stayed with me I never wrote down. I might have even dropped my pen when Vonnegut gave it.
He told everyone to write a story, poem, essay—something we could complete. Give ourselves to it wholly. Finish the piece. Then like Buddhists constructing and deconstructing sand mandalas, destroy it.
Yes, destroy it. That’s what he said. I blinked a few times. A sense of unease grew in my itchy fingertips. Destroy my writing?I’d diligently saved every halfway-decent scrap I’d written to date. All my potential-laden lines seemed precious, let alone the final drafts I’d cobbled together. Maybe I could let a scrap or two go. But a completed piece? No way.
I still remember sitting in that chilly lecture hall, huddled in my winter coat, trying to imagine myself crumpling a satisfyingly final draft into a ball and throwing it in the trash—only to rush back, dig it up, and smooth it back out again.
I desperately wanted to write something good. Wanted to be read. To have someone sitting in a dusty office in the corner of a university town say, “Yes, this is something I’d like to publish.”
And Vonnegut was saying don’t worry about it. Publishing isn’t all that important. The writing itself matters more.
Maybe he, the great Kurt Vonnegut, had enough ideas so he could burn a few. But not me.
Heck, what if by destroying my completed work, I destroyed the best thing I’d ever written to date? And no one would ever know? Not even me.
I honestly don’t remember anything else he said. Just, destroy your art. And I remember the feeling that came over me as he continued talking—a mix of demoralization, hubris, horror, exhaustion, and somehow in there, swirling around with everything else, the lightest breeze of liberation.
But I did not take his advice. To this day, I still have a box of poems and stories squirreled away from that early period of my writing, most never published.
Over the years, though, I did unintentionally—not intentionally—lose a few final drafts. The misery of computer glitches and misplaced hard copies forced me to confront the splintering, broken-glass panic of irrevocably lost work. I had to let go of that writing because there was nothing to hold onto anymore. So I’d start again, bemoaning the best of my work while creating something new and discovering, in recreation, that where old best words were sacrificed, new best words could be found.
And each time I started over, I learned I could do good work when all seemed lost. Or literally was lost.
You may be reading this thinking, um, Angela, losing work because of a computer malfunction and reworking those original ideas back into something decent isn’t really what Vonnegut was getting at.
I hear you. There’s a bigger concept at work here than “rewriting is an essential part of the writing process.” Yet a lot of new writers question whether rewriting is worthwhile. I can’t tell you how many beginning writers have asked me something akin to, “Doesn’t taking something apart to put it back together again drain a piece of its originality, the spark of spontaneity? Isn’t that a bad thing?”
Here’s my two cents: The “bad thing”, if there is one, isn’t losing a first spark but putting all your trust in a single spark at the onset. True and abiding originality comes not through the admittedly alluring first blush of a good idea, but through testing and executing and developing your ideas, making room for new ones to grow, even an idea that wasn’t there when you started.
I’m typing this not only for my students, but for myself, back in that audience, holding tight to my pen. Because the more interesting questions for me now are, “How can I become better at letting go?”
Even, yes, letting go of what feels like the perfect idea, the just-right image, the stellar sentence so I can better resee what I just did in a new light, then backwards, then upside down, until I find value not only in construction but deconstruction, shift my attention in new ways so the old becomes new again. So what I’m making now matters as much as any other thing made.
At times, I swear it feels like my writing could even be made, remade, or let go of just as easily as a lump of clay can be shaped and reshaped. Sometimes it seems I’ve been using and reusing the same lump all my life—shaping and reshaping words from a collective mound to be massaged, eased, brought back to form and collapse until I somehow believe I hold in my hands creation repurposing creation. Until the kneading and molding and remolding matters as much—maybe more, yes—than the made thing. Making for the sake of making.
So, over the years, I’ve warmed to Vonnegut’s instruction of destruction. I’ve begun to see it as an invitation to appreciate how nourishing a commitment to the creative process can be. Come to value creating over chancing unpredictable gambles with publishing, and to value and embrace the making over the made, as a revitalizing source of stability and strength.
The Instruction of Destruction
TAKE THE VONNEGUT CHALLENGE
Write something for the sake of writing something—nothing more, nothing less. Write knowing that you will complete it, let it go, and won’t move on to publish or share it with others. But don’t just write any old thing. It may be an essay, short story, poem, chapter of a novel, or more. Craft it. Build it the way you’d build a solid fire. Let the spark grow. Turn it into something meaningful. That means more than one draft. You may spend a few hours or a few days on the piece, even weeks, all the while knowing you will not keep it, knowing you’re writing purely for the sake of making something. Consciously reflect on the process as you’re engaged in it. How is your writing process different than it would be otherwise? What’s the same? Is the writing itself different than other writing you’ve engaged in? In what ways? How about you—are you relating to your writing differently? Is the process more pleasurable, or less so? Both? And if so, how can both things be true at once? What is the writing or process missing? What does the experience help you gain? If a piece of writing isn’t read, is it truly complete? Reflect as you go, share your insights with other writers you know. And I’m happy to hear about your process, too. Simply reply to this email.
BUILD A FIRE JOURNAL
While camping this past summer, I carved out some retreat time and started something I called “fire journaling”, inspired in part by Vonnegut’s challenge. Basically, whatever I wrote each night I’d toss into the campfire. Yup, I went for it! Goodbye, creation! Want to hear more about this process? Click the button below to get on my DIY Retreat Kit Waitlist. My Inlet DIY Retreat Kits include downloadable instructions for assembling your own DIY Retreat (how to make retreat space either away from home or at home), plus a couple spotlights, like how you might use a Fire Journal on retreat.