Automatic writing
Saturday, February 24th, 2007 at 9:38 pmFor the last couple of weeks I’ve been dipping into Surrealist Women: An International Anthology, ed. Penelope Rosemont. Today I came to two short texts, described as automatic writing, by Denise Levy - I Went Into a Green Song and Ivory Blue and Shady Satin. I found them intriguing, particularly the latter, which I liked better, I think, because of the characterisation in it: “Shady Satin loves vinegar while Ivory Blue loves mass”.
I got a sudden urge to do a bit of automatic writing of my own - though whenever I do it, it’s only semi-automatic, because I always let myself think about it a little. Anyway, mine is not as good as Denise Levy’s but it was fun.
IT TOOK ALL THE FOSSILS
It took all the fossils a week to dismantle a nightingale’s house. The invitation was to a lull in the sound of an unbreakable heart at the speed of childhood. The willows by the lake where we had tied ribbons around swans’ necks mourned for the solemn, handsome young hussar of the Blue China Cavalry, who got lost on his way to Moscow and came by way of seizure and goat paths to the farm where everything was made of silver needles and there were no haystacks. It came to an end in the rain. On the morning when he was to fight a duel his mother made him stay indoors and count the holes in a lace tablecloth. In the evening everyone went outside and made love. I watched them through the window in the attic, where I had gone looking for the Christmas decorations that we were to hide around the garden for the Prime Minister to find when he came on his inspection visit, but there was only an old woman and a giraffe, who begged me not to reveal their location. As I was feeling tired, I went to the milking sheds of severely tattooed players and paraded the lycanthropes of an objecting glove in the brass gardens of our old house on Winterfare Street. The interior of the car smelled like cement and your face was lime green as you suggested we should go to the ocean and exorcise the demons out of a pod of blue whales.
February 25th, 2007 at 3:01 am
I just had to have a go with your title/prompt:
It took all the fossils, finally, after the King’s horses and King’s men failed, to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, but he was a shambling, crumbling zombie of a thing, shedding blood and egg-tears with each step. Feared by the people for his hideous visage, he stepped over the lands until he reached the mountains, and from there to the stairway to the plate in the sky where he found a small girl whose white skin was marked with dark blue ink. She whispered to him of the winds and the routes they took, twisting upwards and downwards and sidewards until they reached the lady of the forest-top whose gnarled hands possessed a darker power he might find useful. Still trailing parts of him, he took up the ink-girl’s carpet and flew east, past deserts and rivers until finally he reached the forest. Atop it sat the lady, wood for her body and lichens for her hair, and her fingers like twigs sank into his seeping self and flickered, once, twice, like images on an old cinema reel, and suddenly he was whole, no longer a tap but a man.
….That was FUN! And I think, like you, mine was not fully automatic. Once or twice I had to stop myself going back and changing a word. The inner editor, she does not want to be turned off. And it was impossible for me not to think ahead and work towards something, rather than being totally free and writing whatever words sprang to mind.
February 25th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Wow, that’s even more hallucinatory than my automatic writing. Well. My usual automatic writing. Sometimes it’s pretty out there.
Mine is also essentially semi-automatic, since I can’t turn off the conscious deliberation completely - but I figure that, like meditation, this is mostly the case for everyone. When meditating, sometimes you experience complete quiet and the conscious mind mostly shuts up, but usually that’s not the case; and during automatic writing, you might sometimes get into truly intense states of your subconscious just pouring out in a river without much of any interference from the conscious mind, but usually it’s not really going to be that way.
February 25th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Alankria - wow, I like what you did. Strong finish there with the last line, too. If I had a magazine I’d publish that. Maybe you should submit it somewhere. Actually, I originally started mine with the first words of Levy’s “I went into”, then I changed it when the fossils popped into my head. But starting with a prompt seems to help somehow.
& Laurie - usually when I let my subconscious pour out with no interference the results don’t appeal to me as much as when I let the inner editor have some input, I have to admit. Some of the writing in this anthology is very out there indeed - so you might find yourself in good company.
February 25th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Thank you very much! I’m glad you liked it.
And I might try to get it published, although I don’t know if I could leave it as is or if I would have to expand it. Something for me to ponder.
February 26th, 2007 at 7:14 am
I take it there is no difference between stream of consciousness and automatic writing?
Well, when I do Steam of Consciousness I tend to insert every thought I have, which mostly has to do with comments on the prose I’m writing.
I don’t know if that would qualify as automatic writing.
February 26th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Alankria - I think it’s great just as it is, but then again, if you want to expand it, why not? =)
Scott - as I understand it, there’s a difference in that SoC records the processes of the conscious mind, so while there may be some odd leaps of thought and syntax, the ordinary logical consciousness is still switched on, whereas automatic writing is more like a stream of unconsciousness. So where in SoC you might write, “She went downstairs. And where was the letter? She had forgotten it. The davenport looked dusty. When on earth was Mavis going to come?”, in AW you might write, “She went to Monte Carlo. And where was Charles II? She had scrubbed his toes. The Cherokee Nation looked dusty. When on earth would the decision to be a leopard linger alarmingly over breakfast?”
At least, that’s as I understand it. But the two probably overlap. I’m going to see if I can get an expert opinion on the difference between them.
February 27th, 2007 at 5:29 am
Automatic writing is produced by machines originating in the far western region of the Inidian (sic) subcontinent. That form of writing designated “stream of consciousness,” or “VTJ,” is far younger, appearing no later than the domestication of the chicken.
I think your characterization is apt. Automatic writing is produced with as little conscious interference as possible, while stream of consciousness writing is generally an authorial tactic. Automatic writing is supposed to emerge directly from the unconscious mind of the writer, while stream of consciousness writing is often a means of characterization.
It is interesting to note that the automatic writing of the Surrealists nevertheless exhibited a certain recognizeable style anyway.
Fifty cents please.
February 27th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Herr Professor Doktor Stupid - thanks for the info. May your hovercraft forever be full of eels, and may all your drunken masters be Thursday.
Gertrude Stein’s “Tender Buttons” is a Gutenberg e-book:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15396/15396-8.txt
The influence of the conscious mind and narrative paradigms seems somewhat less than in the (admittedly small) amount of Surrealist auto writing I’ve read. I wonder if she wrote it just like this or if she refined it to be more scrambled.
I find it curiously compelling. There can be breakages in Japanese. Yes.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:55 am
I owe you huge, huge thanks. Wow. I sent my little sort-of-automatic thingy, unchanged, to “Behind the Wainscot”, a small online venue, two days ago. And I just got an email saying they want it.
My second ever short story sale!! I’m about to bounce off the walls!!
I don’t know yet when the story will appear. They said they’ll get back to me about that soon. When it does appear, I’ll give you a link.
Thanks again! For the inspiration in this post to write it, and for your kind words about it. Squeee!! ^o^o^
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Congratulations & squee back at ya! Behind the Wainscot looks like a fine zine indeed. Hal Duncan’s a contributor to the current issue, I see - with a gay pirate poem, no less. You don’t owe me nothing, m’dear. I hope you keep writing (if it pleases you to).
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Oh, I’ll keep writing. The characters crowding the inside of my head will make sure of that. =D I actually have eight other short stories under submission to various places, and some longer things in various stages of development. I’ll probably still be writing when I’m a senile old crone.
Hal Duncan’s poem is awesome. Actually, everything in the Exhibition is awesome, which is why I’m still squeeing that I’ve been accepted. My little thing will appear in the livejournal offshoot thingy.
Squee! ^o^o^
March 3rd, 2007 at 6:40 am
You’ve just made me think that one of the nice things about Surrealism is that you can still do it, and maybe even do it better, when you’re senile =)
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:02 am
Like two whales in a pod.
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:28 am
With no particular porpoise.