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.
Check out my Writer's (Wo)Manifesto here.
 |
| Sark's Writer's Manifesto--she challenges readers to write their own such contracts with themselves |