On writing like everyone you know is one phone call away

"Write like everyone you know is dead." Joe R. Lansdale style.

That's what they all say, right? Well, I write like I could call everyone I have ever written something about. Maybe not intentionally, but I struggle to think of anyone I've written something about I couldn't call right now. Not whether they'd pick up or if I'd want to call them or if I'd want them to pick up. And maybe intentionally, I am quite sure that anyone with a sixth grade level of discernment could figure out which piece was about them.

I work in particulars. Specifics. Details. I hope that I write such such specifity that my ex roommate I had a crush on could figure out the one piece I've ever written about her if she had a stack of every poem I've ever written.

Lansdale, to make brash presumptions, had this mindset in order to get out of his own head. To write more freely. To allow himself to express whatever his writing needed to and to articulate exactly in the way he intended to. Maybe it was so that he wouldn't start an argument with someone he was writing about or used as inspiration. Maybe it was so that he could imagine that he lived in this void and wouldn't hurt anyone's feeling and maybe that mindset is helpful to some people. And maybe I'm just a little too confrontational for that to work for me. That's alright. I think there is something to be said for writing with the intention that someone could with some background knowledge come to a conclusion that would not be entirely inaccurate.

I played a little game once with my best friend who knows very nearly everything about me. I'd read him a piece of mine and he'd guess who it was about. Now, this was maybe five years ago but, if I recall accurately, he got about 8/10 correct. That's the goal for me.

All this to say, maybe you don't need to call everyone you've ever written a poem about. I know damn well that I do not and in fact I would have to be offered an obcene amount of money to do that. Offers welcome. I do, however, think that writing like everyone you've ever written a poem about could figure out that it was about them. My goal with my poetry is to create a feeling within the piece. And I am very much of the belief that people will feel more when they get more. Not necessarily more as in more. More as in deeper. Sometimes you need more.

I encourage anyone in the editing process to go back and add more. Get specific. Even if it's not poetry, pick each word out like it is.

"The more specific we are, the more universal something can become."

― Jacqueline Woodson

“In the particular is contained the universal.”

― James Joyce