Yet Wordsworth’s definition of poetry, “the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions,” has a codicil: “recollected in tranquillity.” In my youth, the cocktail napkins that I scrawled upon with heartfelt emotion rarely stood up to the sober light of day. But I blame the Romantics, who believed in spontaneity and fresh air, and the idea that the wellspring of a poem must be in the heart, which isn’t a thinking organ that a poem must represent a fountain, not a well-measured amount. I do at times feel bad that my process resembles bricklaying more than picking flowers. Full confession: I sometimes even write poetry that way. Only when I’ve finished outlining the sequence do I start putting together sentences. Often, the snazziest parts-like the scene where my protagonist, ghosted by her girlfriend, Natalie, dresses up as a ghost and knocks on Natalie’s door-come from slow script‑boarding. I need time to plan out my writing too, whose effects come from-I admit-something resembling a diagram. I’ve never been a spontaneous type, to the annoyance of friends who call me at 8:00 in the evening asking me to head out with them at 9:00. That’s not the way I work, and I’m tired of apologizing for it. So, they reason, how can writers evoke a sense of wonder in their work unless they also work in a state of unknowing? Multitudes have embraced this “no surprise” view, trusting in divine uncertainty, hoping to preserve freshness that way. If authors start a project knowing exactly where they want to go, that’s exactly how it’ll read: planned out, executed without inspiration, showing the blueprint underlying the writing. Robert Frost’s famous line of writing advice, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader,” comes not from a poem but from his essay “The Figure a Poem Makes.” A lot of writers love this idea. David Galef NO SURPRISE FOR THE WRITER? WHAT A RELIEF FOR ME.
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