My Writing Is Like Abstract Painting

Feeling confined by writing structures? Let go.

I recognized something about my writing style while I was writing a response to a comment to one of my stories. This is what I said to Sam Ochstein:

“I use writing like a canvas to paint whatever is going on in my life at the time. I like flick some words onto the page like an abstract painting and see where it leads me.”

—Scot Butwell

Now I hear all you sensible writers out there saying this won’t work on Medium. Medium is like the aisles in a grocery store. Everything in a story must be in its proper place. A strong opening, five or six paragraphs leading up to your first subheading, a middle that keeps readers engaged, formatting, citing ideas and writing for an audience, and ending, you can’t just spray some words across the page with no sense of composition, harmony, or purpose.

Pablo Picasso probably heard these arguments.

One of the quotes he is most famous for saying is, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” That tells me he wasn’t too concerned with creating art based on the aesthetic styles of his period. I think he was one of the artists who was 50 years ahead of his time.

As for me, I don’t just spray words on the page without thought. I wrote the first paragraph in a notebook while in the parking lot at Sprouts. I thought about what I was going to say while driving there (that’s why I forget to ask for fresh coffee when my wife asks me to get a coffee at McDonald’s). Then I thought about my next paragraph while on the way to the bank to get a $50 bill for my son’s 14th birthday. So there is a thought process to my writing. I just like to write fast from my instincts after I’ve thought about a topic for a while.

So like Picasso my writing style is to release what’s inside me. I have a general idea of where I want to go and I permit myself to trust myself to write whatever comes out. I try not to overthink too much in my writing and to let my story take me wherever it wants to go if I am willing to trust its direction.

As Picasso said, “I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.”

Or poet Charles Bukowski said: “Somebody once asked me what my theory of life was, and I said, ‘Don’t try.’ That fits the writing, too. I don’t try; I just type.”

I think we all have to find our style as a writer, and the reason there is a certain template style for Medium articles is that we all tend to skim stories until we find that one story that slows us by pulling us into its warm grasp.

I think good writers on Medium accept this reality, adjust to a certain degree with a stronger opening and avoid walls of long text, but they find a way to write by focusing on making their story as riveting as possible to keep readers hooked without thinking about a paragraph or they chop up a long paragraph after the fact to create a pattern on long and short paragraphs in their story.

The good writers feel like Picasso to me letting the words fly around, not caring about the algorithm or a template style, seeing where their muse leads them without knowing where they’re going, and being fine with no map.

“No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” -Robert Frost

So don’t be afraid to whip some words around, mix in different colors, and write outside the lines, loosen up your thoughts and have some fun while you’re writing, see where your whims take you, catch a wild harmonica chord and go with it, let it take you to unexpected places, thoughts, feelings, rants when you’re not encumbered by the parameters of publication’s guidelines.

I think the best writing is when we find this creative freedom. So say what you want to say, run down the page naked, be free, not worried what others will think or how your writing sounds, sometimes you have to write for a while and get past the bad writing to find what you want to say deep inside yourself, so give permit yourself some shitty sentences to reach that point where you can excavate some part of your life you’ve long buried.

Don’t overthink. Just write. A beautiful abstract painting may just come out.

Thanks for reading my story:

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