making monsters

Making Comics by Lynda Barry includes an exercise called “Scribble Monster Jam,” which I love. I divide a sheet of paper into quarters and ask the nine-year-old to draw a scribble or shape in each quarter. Then I turn each scribble or shape into a monster.

These two monsters were created in this exercise.

Brian (my husband) said that these are both the same monster. He lives with the monster, so I guess he knows.

Anyhow, the monsters created through this exercise seem to come out of nothing, but the nine-year-old’s scribbles and shapes aren’t nothing. Instead of a blank page, I have forms to work with.

The same goes with writing. Most of the week after I sent my first post, I was terrified that I had nothing to write. I had committed myself to practice, but I couldn’t think of what on Earth I had to say. And then that Friday morning I just started a list of possible topics, and then I found myself listing the words and phrases that turned into an outline for my next post. As long as I was just thinking, I had nothing to work with; once I started actually making marks on a page, however fragmentary, I had the beginnings of some half-dozen or more posts.

Sometimes I have to sort of sneak up on myself to get the writing done, as I did this summer when my notes on To Write As If Already Dead by Kate Zambreno turned into the beginnings of my essay on the book.

I like thinking of the creations that arise in this way as my monsters: awkward, moody beasts. Maybe it will help to alleviate the anxiety that wakes me at 4am every morning before I release one of these posts into the wild.