A Post About Writing Posts in Response to a Writing Prompt. Yeah, My Head Just Exploded, Too, Ow.

The IndieInk Writing Challenge continues apace. Last week I was challenged by none other than the Founder of IndieInk: Anastacia Campbell of Jurgen Nation. Her prompt follows, and it's a doozy:

There's a quote I'll never forget (I forget the actual quote, so, sorry) [Ed: Wait, what?] that, to be a great writer, you have to be willing to write badly. Your challenge: pick your favorite piece of writing that you've ever written and rewrite it badly. "Badly" can mean whatever you think is bad writing - you can model it on a blogger/writer whose writing you hate or just based on what you think is "bad." Your choice. Publish your best piece first and then underneath publish the badly rewritten piece. How hard is it to publish something you don't like? Was this difficult, and if so, how?

Before I get too deeply into this, I'll mention that I find this week's challenge delightfully meta. I like blogging about blogging, writing, and the writing and creative process (which I think I should do more of anyway), and would probably blog about blogging about those things. I think I enjoy this the most because I don't consider myself to be a big-wig in writing or blogging circles, and so I give myself an excuse to, okay, openly mock "the blogging process." Why I use the very medium that I profess to not take very seriously to mock those that do, all the while employing similar self-promotion tactics and writing style, is an exercise that I'll leave to the reader.

That said, this challenge makes me a bit uncomfortable, since I have to decide which of my pieces is "good" and then rewrite it "badly." Truth is, I'm never really all that happy with a lot of the thing that I write. I often rewrite on the fly, deleting and retyping and re-deleting and re-retyping over and over again. Those super short pieces that I sometimes write? They often take for ever to just get down.

That was probably the case with this blog post from about a year ago:

I learned how to fall down last night.

Sensei told us that this was an important skill to learn because we would be falling down a lot in our karate class. And quickly added that we'd be falling down a lot in life as well, so we might as well learn how to fall down "properly" so as not to hurt ourselves.

So we learned how to fall down.

Forward rolls. Left knee down on the mat, right knee knee pointing at the opposite wall. Make a "net" out of both hands. Roll forward, favoring the side with the knee on the mat. Roll across your shoulder and back. Ideally, land on your feet and stand up. Turn around and repeat, switching left and right knees.

I've been falling down a lot recently, in varied and, at times, spectacular ways. The problem isn't the falling down, really. That's necessary, and often times important. The problem isn't even getting back up; that will happen when it's supposed to and when you're ready for it (even if you don't know you're ready for it.) The problem is not knowing how to fall down correctly.

Backward rolls. Squat down, arms protecting your sides and head. Roll onto your back, kicking your feet together and then to one side of your body. Roll across your back and shoulder. Ideally, land on your feet and stand up. Turn around and repeat.

Yes, I'm talking a bit about denial, here. I'm also talking a bit about anger, and a bit about depression, and a bit about other states of mind that prove our mettle as human beings if we handle them in a mindful way. I've felt all of these things. Am still feeling them. Will continue to feel them about all sorts of events and people. Again, that's not the problem. The problem is not dealing with these emotions in a healthy way. That doesn't invalidate or judge those feelings, but also doesn't wallow and inflate them. It's a delicate operation, falling down properly.

Safely getting down. From a standing position, sweep your right leg behind you. Bend your left leg slightly, and allow your weight to carry you to the ground. Land on the leg that's behind you, and balance with your right arm. Stand and repeat, switching left and right legs.

If we don't fall down properly, we hurt ourselves in terrible ways. We shatter and break and take much longer than we should to heal. It still hurts to fall down, even when you know how. But you get back up more quickly, mindfully, ready.

Turn around and repeat.

Thankfully, as I mentioned further up the page, I don't write in drafts so I don't actually have a first attempt at this piece. If I did... would it look like this?

I had my first ever karate class last night. It was me, another really unfit-looking person, and about three or four other people. I and the other unfit guy were the only ones not wearing some sort of gi or workout-specific clothes. I felt really out of place.

After warm-ups, we spent the first half of class learning how to fall down. The instructor joked that we'd be spending most of the class time falling anyway, so we should learn how to do it correctly. I played along and managed a chuckle or two.

We learned a bunch of exercises designed to teach us how to fall down correctly: forward shoulder rolls, backward shoulder rolls, falling from a squat or standing position, stuff like that. It was really repetitive, and my mind got to wandering about how I've been fucking up a lot in my personal life lately and how I wish there had been some sort of exercise to practice so that I didn't fail at that shit quite as spectacularly as I had. I guess there really isn't a class to learn how to "fall down" gracefully, and then get back up ready to fight. You just have to learn that shit on your own.

Yeah, that was really boring. But not hard. Writing badly is easy. I banged out that "version" of the post above in about 15 minutes. But I had to stop thinking about writing to do it. I'd rather take more time and rewrite as I go than just spew my thoughts out and be done in ten minutes or less.