::mslexia workshops::

The Blank Page #5
a writing workshop with Margaret Wilkinson

THEME: LISTS

INTRODUCTION

I'M A list maker. It gives me some control (I think) over the chaos of my life. Everyone makes lists (I think), or ought to. It’s a great technique for bringing the huge unknown into a smaller manageable sphere. Lists create order. They are short, like poems, and often have titles: ‘Things to do’, ‘Shopping’, ‘Ingredients’.

A collection of great lists can be found in The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon (Penguin). I recommend it not only for the unique voice of a 10th Century Japanese woman courtier, but for the surreal lists she writes. Here’s an excerpt:

From The Pillow Book, by Sei Shonagon (Penguin)

Things that give a hot feeling
The hunting costume of the head of a
Guards escort
A patchwork surplice
The Captain in attendance at the Imperial
Games
An extremely fat person with a lot of hair
A zither bag

Depressing things
A dog howling in the daytime
A wickerwork fish-net in the spring
A red plum-blossom dress

I like the specificity of her lists, the small focus. I like their rhythm; and the apparent randomness, the mixing of objects and experiences under one title; the gaps. Finally I like the way the lists seem magically to reveal things about the writer and her life. Here are some of my favourite titles from other Sei Shonogan lists: ‘Things that fall from the sky’; ‘Things that should be short’; ‘Awkward things’; ‘Things that lose by being painted’; ‘Personal shrine’. You might try to develop some of these yourself.

EXERCISES

#1
To begin this exercise, write two quick lists: ‘Things I want to write about’ and ‘Things I don’t want to write about’.

Try to shun the abstract and make the items on your lists as specific and as individual as possible. Under ‘Things I want to write about’, don’t just write ‘crime’; write, ‘the time I woke up in the middle of the night and heard burglars in my front room’. Stay random. Don’t develop a single idea, but let a variety of ideas come to you in no particular order. (One of the charms of a list is its haphazard quality.)

The lists you will produce will often be illuminating in themselves, but put them to one side for the moment and think instead about what makes a satisfying list to read. Interesting items, of course, but also those crazy jumps from item to item. Items of varying lengths are good too: short then long items. And items that belong together but seem not to, united only by the title. Then there is the list which, when read as a whole, reveals things about the writer’s character and circumstances.

#2
There is something about the brevity of a list, and the distance traveled between items that immediately puts the writer into the landscape of poetry (see excerpt, left). Some lists are so like poems, they need only minimal tweaking to finish. Others propel you on your way, but ought to only be considered as drafts for other work.

Lists can inspire prose too. They can also be used as a technique to develop a piece that is already underway. For example you can list: ‘Things I want my main character to realise in this scene’, or ‘Objects in the room that will produce a creepy feeling’.

When writing a poem, or prose piece, you can use more than one list. In fact, lists seem to work especially well in opposition: ‘Things I’ve seen’/‘Things I’ve never seen’, for example. You might want to tighten the reins further by asking yourself to produce a list with a specific number of items. ‘Five things I’ve seen’/‘Five things I’ve never seen’. You can also write lists from the perspective of someone close to you, as in ‘Five things my mother has seen’.

#3
To flex your list-making muscles, construct lists based on the titles below. Avoid abstract words. Keep your items random, but specific. Include the banal and the profound. Don't develop an idea, but let a variety of items come to you in no particular order.

Smells from my childhood
Things I've seen
Things I've never seen
Advice my mother gave me
What my father did every Sunday
Pleasing things
Things that are unpleasant to see
Things that should be kept covered
Things that should be kept uncovered
Places I've lived
Things my lover loves
Things my lover hates
Things I have forgotten

#4
Once you’ve flexed your list-writing muscles, go back to the two lists you wrote at the start: ‘Things I want to write about’/ ‘Things I don’t want to write about’.

1 Choose one item on either list as your topic. From my own list of ‘Things I want to write about’, I chose ‘Growing older’.

2 Now start to create interesting titles that will produce new lists on the subject you chose. Incidentally, one of the most important things about a list is the title. Writing a good title for the list that will follow is an art in itself. A good title defines and inspires a good list. Try to create titles that will make the issues you want (or don’t want) to write about more concrete.

For example, my titles for ‘Growing older’ included: ‘Things I see when I look in the mirror’/ ‘Things I don’t see when I look in the mirror’, ‘Things I used to do that I don’t do now’, ‘The changes in my body’.

3 Write the lists that accompany these titles.

4 From the lists, construct poems or pieces of prose.

Using this process, a friend was able to write for the first time about the painful break up of a relationship. Having first produced the title, Things I left in his flat, she created a list that led her directly to a poem that addressed an emotional issue in a manageable way.

Lists not only allow you to look at things with a fresh eye; they can also provide welcome distance from potent subject matter.