The Writer’s Technique in Thirteen Theses, Benjamin
Anyone intending to embark on a major work should be lenient with himself and, having competed a stint, deny himself nothing that will not prejudice the next.
Talk about what you have written, by all means, but do not read from it while the work is in progress. Every gratification procured in this way will slacken your tempo. If this regime is followed, the growing desire to communicate will become in the end a motor of completion.
In your working conditions avoid everyday mediocrity. Semirelaxation, to a background of insipid sounds, is degrading. On the other hand, accompaniment by an étude or a cacophony of voices can become as significant for work as the perceptible silence of the night. If the latter sharpens the inner ear, the former acts as a touchstone for a diction ample enough to bury even the most wayward sounds.
Avoid haphazard writing materials. A pedantic adherence to certain papers, pens, inks is beneficial. No luxury, but an abundance of these utensils is indispensable.
Let no thought pass incognito, and keep your notebook as strictly as the authorities keep their register of aliens.
Keep your pen aloof from inspiration, which it will then attract with magnetic power. The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself. Speech conquers thought, but writing commands it.
Never stop writing because youu have run out of ideas. Literary honor requires that one break off only at an appointed moment (a mealtime, a meeting) or at the end of the work.
Fill the lacunae of inspiration by tidily copying out what is already written. Intuition will awaken in the process.
Nulla dies sine linea — but there may well be weeks.
Consider no work perfect over which you have not once sat from evening to broad daylight.
Do not write the conclusion of a work in your familiar study. You will not find the necessary courage there.
Stages of composition: idea — style — writing. The value of the fair copy is that in producing it you fonfine attention to calligraphy. The idea kills inspiration, style fetters the idea, writing pays off style.
The work is the death mask of its conception.
I liked this section from One-Way Street so much i typed it out by hand, something I hardly ever do but want to get back into the habit of doing semiregularly. Next up — “Incandescent Ruins” off of Bleed Out.
i like how Benjamin's use of pragmatic mysticism/psychology shines through here—so much writing advice, and for that matter advice in general, in my personal exp boils down to “be harder on yourself”, “don't have adhd/autism/depression/unhelpful coping mechanisms” etc. this year I've twice read a biography of Benjamin and 3 other philosophers (Time of the Magicians*) and it's so inspiring to hear about how he too dealt with writers block, anxiety, depression, indecision, and how his methods of addressing those helped shape the kind of writing he was regarded as innovative for doing.
number 4 is particularly validating. my Protestant work ethic worshiping father had disdain for me growing up whenever i bought anything, but especially books and supplies because 1. he assumed i would never actually use them and 2. if i did use them it was just a waste cause a better person would be able to do more impressive work without needing special pens or paper, and any reliance on such things was just an excuse for not working in the present. ugh what an awful, bitter man.
5 and 6 seem contradictory to me, which of course makes sense considering Benjamin and the dialectical tradition inherited partly from Hegel. i am not sure how to navigate that contradiction currently. how he uses inspiration versus idea versus thought seems critical, and maybe it's not actually a contradiction. still working on it. 9 for sure is contradictory but that's only a problem if you assume a levelof devotion which completely occludes the possibility of failure. Benjamin himself often went weeks and months without working on long overdue projects so the idea that he embraced a daily practice while being forgiving of himself for his routine imperfections makes me happy.
11 is just so good and rings true from my undergrad days—location is so important to my writing process generally.
on 12, see my above remarks on his use of idea and inspiration for points 5 and 6.
13 articulatesca feeling I've had for decades regarding the inevitable distance between conception and production and how the ghost of each one always haunts the other.