Lessons from the Strength Card (Part 3)
Why "Kill your darlings" is terrible advice
In the Thoth Tarot, Strength is Lust.1 This makes sense as lust could be seen as both sexual, or a “lust for life.” This type of vitality or strength makes life worth living. Under the sign of Leo, we need to sustain these creative fires in order to keep writing in the face of rejection, our own inner critic, or any number of obstacles that stand between us and our muse.2 Creativity and the erotic spring from the same life force; you could say they are the life force.
I want to feel like this orgasmic Whore of Babylon when I’m writing!
I don’t have any qualms about how she’s treating her lion or muse, even though many of the beast’s faces look unhappy. Think about all the parts of yourself you bring to the page: they are a kaleidoscope of different emotions, and that intensity is part of what makes a work complex and alive. While riding an animal could imply dominance, it looks like she is in ecstatic union with her muse.
The Whore of Babylon refuses no one. This is analogous to the generative phase of writing when you just want to keep your hand moving or typing, and not let your inner critic begin editing. Yet often in creative writing classes, teachers and students rush to tell the writer what they can cut. There’s a time and place to ruthlessly edit your work but it’s not right at the beginning.
When I was in graduate school, I didn’t realize this. But now, many years later, it saddens me when I see a teacher and their students begin to edit work that’s just freshly hatched. New work is like a seedling picking its way above the ground through a crack in the sidewalk. It’s vulnerable and needs nurturing, not pruning. Any suggestions at this generative stage can be damaging. We ought to be encouraging growth and expansion in the generative phase.
In best-selling memoirist Melissa Febos’ essay Mind Fuck: Writing Better Sex, she shares a writing prompt she gives her students: “write your sexual life story in five sentences.”
After they’re finished, she asks them to do it again. And again. Here’s her description of her students’ response and what the point of the exercise was: “…many of their stares implied I was unhinged, sadistic, or simply ridiculous. Eventually they stopped staring and started writing faster. Here’s the point: Their writing got better. It became truer. It became more theirs. I told them, We could do this all day. I meant: and not run out of ways to tell that story.”3
Damn. I wish Melissa Febos or someone like her had been my teacher. This is not only a kind way to treat your muse, but it works. “Their writing got better.”
Instead you’ve probably been told some version of this quote often attributed to Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, and others.4
If you treat your muse like this, is it any wonder she’s not showing up? This would make my muse run away and hide!
Instead of this toxic masculinity, I love what Melissa Febos said during a class I took at Corporeal Writing. It was something like, “If you edit too early in a draft, you risk cutting out vital organs.” Many writers will never get to the heart, the most vital organ, of their piece if they are shut down early in the process with criticism. The heart aligns with the Strength card.
I’m not going to get into all of the symbolism of the card here. If you’d like to go deeper, I recommend T. Susan Chang’s and M.M. Meleen’s podcast Fortune’s Wheelhouse or any of their books.
I’m drawing on Amanda Yates Garcia’s interpretation of the lion as muse in the Strength episode of her podcast Between the Worlds. I also wrote on this in “Writing Lessons from the Strength Card (Part One).”
The essay Mind Fuck: Writing Better Sex is in Melissa Febos’ brilliant book Body Work.
According to John Crowley in “Spare the Darling” the quote is actually by Samuel Johnson citing an unknown writing teacher. Here’s the article in Harper’s.
This Week’s Writing Lessons from the Strength (Lust) Card
In the generative phase of writing, be like the Whore of Babylon and invite all the words onto the page. This can also be useful as a revision tool. Instead of cutting, write the same story or poem at least 4 times in 4 different ways, as Melissa Febos suggests in her exercise.
Instead of “killing your darlings,” let them romp and play on the page. Think expansion, not contraction. You can edit later in the final phase of your work.
Don’t cut too early on or you might “cut out vital organs” as Melissa Febos says.
If you’d like to learn how to sustain a writing practice, even while writing about difficult or traumatic events, check out my upcoming class
Writing as Healing with Beth Brewer, (LCSW). Early bird price: save $75 if you enroll by 2/4.
I agree that early on in writing a piece you really should just let it all flow and come out of you however it needs to come out rather than constantly censoring yourself from the very beginning. I definitely find myself sometimes ruining a piece with over editing. For me the "kill your darlings" thing is helpful as a reminder that sometimes you have to cut something superfluous even when it's beautiful and poetically stated. But this can absolutely be taken too far! Also, that Melissa Febos book sounds really interesting.