A Book Review of Sark's (2008) Juicy Pens Thirsty Paper: Gifting the World with Your Words and Stories and Creating the Time and Energy to Actually Do It

A Book Review of

Juicy Pens Thirsty Paper: Gifting the World with Your Words and Stories and Creating the Time and Energy to Actually Do It by Sark.  Three Rivers press, 2008. 185 pages. $18.95.

            When I first discovered Sark, I was at once inspired, envious, and critical. I remember sitting on my best friend’s bed, covered in its usual tangle of sarongs and tapestries rather than real bed clothes, growing more incredulous as I flipped each page of Succulent Wild Woman (1997).  What kind of new-age hippie crap was this?  Someone had gotten paid to write this?  These doodles and handwritten pages were worthy of my ultimate goal, that pinnacle of success, PUBLICATION?  But each spunky drawing and passage motivated me to continue my own writing.  Sark wrote the way I wrote, turning letters to friends into artwork, and if she could get paid for it then I could. 

              Fast forward ten years, and I am now a doctoral student bogged down in academic reading and writing, mourning the loss of the joy these activities once brought me, pining for a time in the distant past when I had time to write creatively.  I am a stressed-out, procrastinating mess in need of reinvigoration, in need of a reason to keep writing, looking for a way forward that will allow me to recover the love for my one passion—writing.

            Perhaps because I have become so entrenched in the academic mind-set, I first turned to Annie Dillard to see how she achieved her writing success, to see what kept her writing on those dismal days when she would probably have rather been eating glass and drinking salt-laced peroxide.  Why Dillard?  Well, she won the Pulitzer.  If anyone had words of wisdom to offer, it would be a woman who achieved that level of acclaim, my scholarly brain rationalized.  Instead, reading Dillard’s The Writing Life (1989) made me wish I had a glass-peroxide-salt cocktail.  Her writing memoir reaffirmed what I knew—writing is difficult.  Writing is an impossible master to serve, at least while maintaining sanity and optimism.  Midway through reading Dillard’s description of holing up in a room with the window shades drawn, pictures of the outside world hanging on those shades, I remembered my old love-affair with Sark, the woman who dared to write, sometimes irreverently, always with passion, always to motivate others.

               Sark’s newest book, Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper (2008) breathes fresh air into the genre of books on writing, of which there are many, creating a vibrant atmosphere of “Yes We Can” to all practicing and would-be writers.  Juicy Pens Thirsty Paper is as energetic as it is informative, filled with colorful writing and original artwork that literally tumble from the pages.  Sark’s work is infused with her spirit, a spirit that cannot be contained in traditional forms, and it was just this spirit that I needed to get out of my writing funk.

               This book, like her past publications, is postmodern in that it transcends the bounds of what traditionally comes to mind when we think “book.”  She pens her books by hand in colorful markers, in eclectic handwriting (shifting from all caps to lowercase and from handwriting to cursive sometimes mid-word).  She decorates the margins (sometimes writing in them) and artfully colors or illustrates each page.  Amazingly, her books are published in this form, retaining the playfulness that is at the heart of Sark’s work.  The visual form of her book reminds me that not all writing has to take itself so seriously, that I can write about important things in a voice that is authentically me, not in an uptight academic voice.

            Sark’s playfulness is refreshing.  Sark’s message is that writing is a playful release, a “hilarious practice” (p. 65).  Writing is hilarious practice because it is unpredictable, and we need to have fun with it rather than stagnating because of a desire to be perfect.  Sark encourages us to make mistakes: “…it’s more fun to just begin and allow the “mistakes” to inspire you further” (p. 164).  It is this departure from the books on how to write that emphasize correct form that separates Sark from the rest.  Sure, Dillard shares the agonies she experienced in her writing, discussing how one must “demolish the work,” often discarding the best writing, and start over, but she offers no specific examples, and there is certainly no joy in this process.  Perhaps it is the tone that I appreciate most in Sark’s treatment.  Both authors acknowledge the difficulty of writing, the inevitability of messing up, but Sark uses words such as “hilarious” rather than “demolish” and emphasizes fun rather than drudgery.

            Juicy Pens Thirsty Paper invites the writer in all of us to engage in serious play.  For some of us, like myself, that means writing in pretty journals with bright gel pens or flowing markers.  Others might prefer pencil and a yellow legal pad.  Still others are called to the computer as their primary writing tool.  Whatever our preference, Sark encourages readers to find their unique writing process, style, and voice and offers advice to avoid the blocks of the “blank” page, such as a technique she calls “micro.move.ments,” which involves breaking the writing task into chunks requiring from between five seconds to five minutes to complete.

            This book is full of the typical advice often found in writing books, such as how to make time for a writing practice, how to show rather than tell, how to find our own voice and style, and how to commit to a daily writing practice, which she calls a “story habit.”  However, Sark’s presentation of these topics is humorous and uplifting.   

          The underlying premise of Juicy Pens is that each of our stories is important and that only WE can tell our stories.  She urges readers to dare to share, yes, even that (the private) and she cheers us on from within her writing practice, shouting, “Yes!  We care about YOUR stories.  They matter.  Write YOUR life!” 

            Sark follows her own advice, embedding her narratives throughout the book, sharing pieces of her childhood and stories of her writing life.  Sark explains that Maya Angelou’s writing emboldened her to write about her own childhood abuse, and she urges her readers to read others’ stories (and to write theirs).  After all, “through stories, you find out truly that you are not the only one who feels lost, broken, desperate, joy.full, wildly hope.full, yearning or seeking, and best of all, you can reassure others who feel that way too” (p. 118).  This philosophy, the power of one’s stories, is at the heart of Juicy Pens and reminds me of why I entered the doctoral program—to find a way to use my life, my stories, to teach, touch, and/or transform others.

            Because Sark’s book is handwritten, the words can be difficult to make out at times.  For me, reading her handwriting creates an intimate relationship between reader and author, reminiscent of a simpler time when we forsook computers and sat down with pen and paper to write from the heart.  That is what Sark has done with this book—she writes from the heart art-infused writing, and I am reminded to dare.  I am more committed than ever to marry the academic and the narrative, the scholarly and the creative, to solder my two writing selves back together.

            Although Sark is no Pulitzer prize winner (as is Annie Dillard), she has published 14 books that continue to inspire her readers worldwide.  Whereas more “serious” writers like Dillard paint a grimmer picture of the writing life, Sark conveys that writing can be difficult while still celebrating the joy that can be found in the practice.  For example, Dillard demonizes the blank page, “The page, the page, that eternal blankness…that page of your death…that page will teach you to write” (1989, p. 59).  For Sark, the blank page is something to spill onto, although she also acknowledges “what is sometimes hideous about writing” (p. 101), and offers ways to overcome the challenges from her own experiences.  A further example of Sark’s optimism in comparison to Dillard’s view on writing can be found in Dillard’s quote from her writing memoir, “Why not shoot yourself, actually, rather than finish one more excellent manuscript on which to gag the world?” (p. 12).  In contrast, Sark explains that “The very act of writing rewards us even if we never publish or share it with anyone.  It fills our inspirational tanks….it also gets words out of our heads and makes more space up there” (p. 102). 

            This book begs you to judge it by its cover.  Blue, green, and purple swirls from three hand drawn pencils, and the title, handwritten, extends across the bottom and up the side of the cover so that you actually have to turn the book to finish reading its name.  Just this act will engage you in a more playful interaction with text.  If you are in need of encouragement and uplifting in the face of writing projects that seem tedious or never-ending, if you are in need of inspiration as I was, this book is one that will re-juice your pen.  Open that juicy cover and dive in!  Caution:  You may experience an extreme desire to write which could lead to long periods of “letting the words fly” (Glesne, 2011) and could result in a nasty case of writer’s cramp.

Sark's Writer's Manifesto--she challenges readers to write their own such contracts with themselves

Check out my Writer's (Wo)Manifesto here.