On Writing Processes

by David Marcus Karp


          This is a journal I wrote about half a year or so ago and, even though I have learned more about writing and processes since, I still think this stands out for me! Enjoy!:

            I believe that the writing processes of one’s pieces are as important as the pieces themselves. This is a strong belief of mine, as it can add a lot to the plot and the characters in general.

            To admit it, the thing that made me really realize this and make me want to write about it is the play Red, which I got to see this month at the Goodman. In the play, Rothko had a process to the particular pieces that made the theme of the show. He knew that they represented something inside him that not only fascinated him, but scared him. Yet, there comes the bravery, beauty, and tragedy of art. Depending on the situation, pushing yourself to another level is part of the art. I could go on with this for hours, but I will try to condense this as much as I can.

            Here are some examples from my own work: For the first poetry series I’m writing about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and my travels to the Middle East, I set up my kitchen to look very urban looking, with a single fluorescent light illuminating the place, and the table being my work place set up in the middle of the kitchen. I set up the kitchen this way as it makes me feel like I am actually in a bit more of an urban (and I mean middle east urban, or even European urban) environment and I can feel the atmosphere around me as I work, inspiring me and rubbing off of me onto my work. I want my work to have somewhat of a raw, urban, “graffiti like” feeling to it, and I believe having myself in an atmosphere that mimics it is very helpful to put me into the writing.

            Another example, for my novel, my character is going on a journey of sorts (I won’t say much), so to write it, I have come up with a plan where I will also travel around the city with my laptop and write in a different place every day, as my character is going, so I can, in a way, see through the eyes of the character. In many cases, my work will have different processes or mindsets when then they are created.

            So in other words, I believe that sometimes it’s appropriate to put yourself into the mind and the world of your stories. If you surround yourself with whatever inspires you and the story, whether it be music, environment, place, time, I say put yourself in there! Let the world take you for a bit as you go on your own journey, because I believe you can learn a lot that way.

            The writing process doesn’t only make the artwork, it is part of the artwork, and it should illuminate on the work. As for me, I want to feel what the character does, where the character goes, and why he is the way he is. Of course, it is different with everything that is written, but I believe there is a beauty there when you can feel so connected to your artwork. It is your world, take advantage of it.

I Tried To Write...

I sat down to start writing-not this entry you are reading-but to work on one of the many books I have either started or had an idea to make onto paper as the next great novel in mankind’s history. I have started many books, and a few that I decided to make into screenplays and vice versa, how much have I finished? Well I feel like Franz Kafka the German speaking Jewish Czech writer, who never finishing a piece of work to his complete satisfaction (aside from maybe Metamorphosis). But I live in the age of distractions, the age of overloading of knowledge: books upon books, plays, movies, television, magazines, short stories, poetry, music-oh don’t forget the abundance of music!-I know friends that are distracted by sports, and yet complain about government. See and feel the pain of driving inefficient transportation, and yet are forced to do so for a job to get food on the table and water to continue running. Just as my soul, life, and body feel incomplete without love, it feels incomplete without my work being finished, my friends family and my world-our world-being incomplete without a genuine and virtuous reason to continue getting up each day. Our reason is not fame or fortune, at least not for everyone. But then what is it, to live life like a party? a game? a risk to take?...let me ask you: what’s at risk? Who would that affect? What would you gain? Is it worth it?

            Welcome to my “non-fictionalized” world. It feels so much like a fantasy horror-like that of a Kafka story-that no wonder I wished for film to be a “career”. I guess I wished to no longer see me and everyone go through the motions unhappily doing what society dictated because no one can no longer tolerate, observe, understand-we just disagree. And what a piece of non-fiction this is! All I said was I sat down: I sat at my desk with a chair and wheels that roll on the carpet of my room. However, now I have my feet up on my bed and my computer on my lap-warming it. I stopped writing about midway through the last paragraph as I was distracted (not by any media or cultural thing) but because I seriously thought my nails could use a trim. They have been looking worse lately. Possibly due to my “nasty habit” which I agree-it is quite bad. Some of my nails are bumpy and yes a little yellow at the tips of the nails. The skin on my fingers is soft, as I haven’t practiced the guitar in some time. All the work at my dead-end part-time job is preventing me, however I need the job in order to pay off student loans, and so what is preventing me is my debt, but I wished for an education in the field of film, and now I have one-whatever that is-but can’t get a good job unless I go into further debt or unless I sell out and care little of the world and environment around me. I could say: if not me, then someone else will. True, perhaps, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, I’m barely able to now, especially when this affected by the world.

            People say the world isn’t fair. Okay I’ll take that for a fact then. But fair or not, how can one justify war and killing people, or a single person? The person can be a terrorist. Then jail is perfectly fine to lock up a psychopath, a sociopath, or just keep the irresponsible idiots out of the decision making processes. Right now, locking up so many citizens in a country claiming to be free, it’s not just ironic-it’s plain stupidity. The prison system, the judicial system, the police, the education system, our world: it’s being run like a business…one that’s too big to fail?

            Alright, I’m sorry for typing at my computer and spewing crap all about in the form of language and words. The trees outside are starting to grow green again and for me, that’s hope. Of life continuing to cycle, to continue on. Change is all about me, even if I’m twenty-three and still live in my parent’s house…(sigh) c’est la vie.

Justin Vaisnor

At The Lake: A Journal Entry

By David Marcus Karp

As we walked through the marble stone gate, we were presented by a small pathway for runners and, next to it, a wall that went to about our chest. We quickly climbed over the wall and, revealed to us, were large concrete steps that led down to the lakefront.

            We made our way down briskly (or jumped our way down rather, since the steps were more built for giants) and stood right over the water. It swayed with a calmness that was almost silent and the waves were nowhere near menacing. Out in the distance, you saw the sky, almost absent of all sunlight, meet the water. It was a perfect meeting of the abyss and the unknown, as both seemed to continue on forever in peaceful coexistence.

            We turned around to an equally pleasant scene. On the right side of the steps we had  just made our way down, there were three kids, all dressed in black, and one of them playing an acoustic guitar. You couldn’t make out exactly what he was playing, but they seemed content and the notes went well with the surprisingly warm breeze that haunted the moment. In front of us, on top of the wall, the couple that was making out were cuddled together in each other’s arms, watching the same silent water that we had come to notice. Their hands were locked together and they smiled with the content of each other’s company. To the left, a few friends were just hanging out, talking, and enjoying the warm night.

            There weren’t too many people around besides them and us, except for a few people that still walked the path behind the wall, their upper body bobbing up and down like puppets on an oversized stage, their lower half cut off from view by concrete. It had just reached the end of any sunlight that shined on the day, and would be totally dark in just a few minutes.

            Watching…no…feeling the scene around me, I took a few deep breaths and realized that I had no worries at that moment. I had no fears, I didn’t feel anything bad, I felt content, I felt like nothing could hurt me. I had good company in a peaceful home-away-from-home setting.

            I turned to T.J., one of my best friends, and we talked about life after college and the future ahead. Unlike me, he is graduating on time and hoping to go off to Northern Ireland for a year for a service project. As for me, I have an extra semester here, which I can’t complain about, and walk next year. It’s going to be nice staying in Chicago though and see where life takes me. But, at the moment, life took me to the lake after a crazy weekend, and every ounce of me was happy with that.

            You see, T.J. and I spent the whole weekend on close to no sleep. It was maybe a total of seven hours of sleep in 72 hours.  Thanks to a bout of insomnia, I didn’t sleep at all Friday night and instead, went to my favorite café when they opened at 5:30 am and had breakfast, then went home, took a little 3 hour nap, and went off for another day of adventures with T.J. The next night, I feel sleep around 3:00am (which was really 4:00am because of daylight savings time…damn it) and woke up about 5 hours later to start the busy day. T.J. stayed up until about 5:00 a.m. Friday night, but still didn’t get much sleep. The next night, though I didn’t ask him, we were still out pretty late together so I’m sure he was up awhile.

            I’m not sure if this was the contributing factor to the peace that surrounded me at that moment on the lake, but there was also another feeling. In addition to the calm night that surrounded me, there was also a looming air of something beginning or even ending. It felt like being home but, at the same time, being lost. Lost in something unfamiliar yet unthreatening.

            I climbed the small ladder that lead down to the water to see how cold it was and as I hung off the yellow metallic ladder and stuck my hand in the water, the sensation of the softest fabric you could ever touch warmed my skin, silently and motherly. It held my hand and greeted me with confidence. I slowly took my hand out, climbed up the ladder slowly, and told T.J. that it wasn’t too cold.

            We talked and joked for a few minutes as a few stars appeared in the darkness above us like very distant headlights, and as we watched them, I listened to my breath and let that same unknown feeling of happiness, content, and unknown flow through my mind and my body. It did feel like a beginning or an end. It’s silence was the loudest poem to echo in my ears. I turned to T.J.

            “Doesn’t this kind of feel like the ending of something. Like a movie, or something.”

The Thoughts at a Single Moment

As I drove down an interstate to a relative’s distant house, I noticed an American flag. Normally I would have thought nothing of it, or if I did, I would think of the freedom the flag represents. Lately however, the flag is used for what symbols are always used as, nationalism and propaganda, but - for our flag specifically – the forgotten values and knowledge attained at the time of the American flag’s first formation, of our founding fathers true personalities – though the personalities of some of our leaders haven’t changed – we have forgotten that government is opposed to freedom and longs to expand influence and obtain more resources continuously – this includes human lives: rather through voluntary cooperation (usually working just to live and provide), ignorant enslavement, or - hopefully never, though seemingly unavoidable - enslavement of the many serving the few. This destiny is possible to escape; the thought process of the many needs an awakening. If governments are to be run by people once again and the corporations (which are only concerned for profits and not human or animal life) are eliminated from the influential positions they uphold currently (this includes the private bank firm of the Feds) then peace will not be too far out of reach, but it would most certainly be closer. Thus the stars and planets of our galaxy would be closer as that is the next frontier, space. Mankind exploring space peaceably is the goal our society should be striving for. A planet united not through religion, or a nations flag or even a corporation’s symbol, but the world’s symbol: Earth. A glob peacefully united while divided, this is how mankind can look at our existence, and then maybe religion will be a thing of the past and knowledge will be the true thing to seek, as it is the only real thing to believe. Religion is still possible to believe in, though as an extremist view, that belief can be harmful. Any belief to an extreme can and is harmful (if not to the believer, then the belief is hurtful to others).

            And this all came from the viewing of a symbol, an American flag fluttering in the breeze. What I really thought of at that moment when my eyes saw the symbol has much to do with how the flag looked at that moment. The flag whipped in the wind, without control, but the wind did not have the strength to unfurl the flag entirely to view completely. This, to me, spoke more words than any one picture speaking volumes. The flag had hidden stars or lines that were incomplete. The flag pointed down toward the soil of the earth, symbolizing to me, a nation on the decline, one that has been for a long period of time (in more ways than one). The wind, or the course of evolution and life, whipped the flag about as it had no control of it’s hanging. The stars were secrets hidden from us and the lines are half-truths, or blocking and fogging up, just and right morals. This is done by the mainstream media, which uses questions where none are needed for something like torture. The media uses doublespeak (what George Orwell warned and spoke of in his book 1984), now Americans even doublethink, and have debates when morals are forgotten. The American nation is an empire of corporations and of a military industrial complex that Eisenhower spoke of. Even Franklin D. Roosevelt said Presidents are chosen and not elected. I like to think that this started after 1913 when the Federal Reserve took control of the country, after that, America became a tool for the bankers to one day seize control of the world. And by control, I mean no freedom and the enslavement of humanity. The last president that attempted to abolish the Federal Reserve was Kennedy (although sadly he supported war and had a few other stances that I oppose). Now freedom, and the exploration of space, is on hold and at a full stop.

I am hopeful in the kindness that rests in each one of us, but I am afraid of the ignorance of many, the laziness of others (even myself at times), the consuming blindness Americans live in, the television they sit in front of, and the slow take over of what freedom is while we consume nearly unconsciously. The walls are closing in, as they say. And as for being safe, we can be pelted by an asteroid, struck by lightening, killed by human error at the wheel – rather on a cell phone or changing the radio station – or the house collapsing due to faulty construction, an air borne disease, or food poisoning; the point is: we can die a number of ways, but to give up freedom for safety is ludicrous, or as they said give up liberty for freedom (which is the same damn thing and again is doublespeak). I believe we need to help each other and be happy-as it looks, we have only one life-lets not spoil ours, mine, yours, theirs, everyone. “The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either” -Benjamin Franklin.

There is no word more powerful, more evasive, more elastic, nor more neglected in foreign policies, mainstream cinema and everyday life than that word called love.

Justin Vaisnor

A Fallen Memory

By David Marcus Karp


            It was a beautiful day as I entered the second tower. Inside, around the lobby, flags from different countries waved over me as my father and I entered security. We went through a metal detector, and then, with some of the people who were on line both in front and behind us, we boarded the elevator under a sign that said “Top of the World Observation Deck”

            I was going to the top of the world today. I was so excited. I remember being very giddy when we stepped in the elevators. The doors closed and we were off. As we went higher and higher, a monitor tracked the flights we went up. My ears popped a little as the car went higher and higher into the sky.

            50.

            60.

            70.

            “That’s where my office used to be.” said my father.

            80.

            We kept getting closer and closer and the automated message started. “Ladies and Gentleman: welcome to…The Top…Of the World.”

            107.

            The metallic door opened and I ran over to the window to look out. I was flying! I was higher than all the Central Park pigeons and Jersey Shore seagulls! I felt like New York City was mine. The cars below looked like ants parading through concrete tunnels. The Hudson River was glowing in the rising sun. I could see birds. Clouds. Rooftops. Airplanes.

            My dad took me around the floor, pointing to where he thought our house was across the river in Jersey. He pointed to Times Square, where I was to see my first Broadway show that night, Les Miserables, and then to Central Park and the GWB. It felt like I was a superhero, looking over the world (inspired by the legend himself…Spiderman!) and I could just fly in and save anybody from this height whether they were Downtown, in Brooklyn, or in the South Bronx! The top of the world was everything my dad said and more.

         About a month later, there I was, standing on a field near my school, watching the smoke rise from the piece of the skyline that once held my key to the top of the world. Sirens echoed from a distance, lights flashed like firefly swarms, and every person I looked at that day seemed to have lost their sense of any hope that once kept them sane. I stood there, wondering: how did the top of the world turn into a world of disaster?

An Accident

I am afraid when I am safe. I am alert and ready when I am in some form-some practice-of danger. I once crashed-totaled, really-a van I once drove for a company, and I am sure it was an experience others have gone through in their lifetime too. Mine was only slightly different, some accidents are similar but no two are the same. The road I was driving down was a bit icy and snow was drifting on the road from a strong wind. The road shot straight through an empty field and just as I passed a path to a graveyard in the distance of this large expanse of unshielded space, a strong wind whipped into the large wall-like side of the van and pushed it into gravel on the side of the road. After steering back on the road, going five under the speed limit, the tires ran across snow and ice. All tires tried to catch one another but my fate was sealed. The backside of the van started to wag, first slowly then in a wide motion making the front of the van point west as I had been heading south. Just before this, I noticed a few cars driving ahead of me coming in my direction, they were a distance away and I knew I would not harm them and should the accident be a devastating affair, they would surely help-people are kind at heart. Now my van was perpendicular to the road and running at a good speed toward the ditch. I thought for a moment, all that will be needed is a tow truck or someone with a cable to pull me out of the soft looking snow and ditch, then I would continue and finish my route with minimal damage to the company van. How silly a thought and dream. The van’s independent journeys ended there. I streamed toward the ditch, white snow heading toward me, just before impact-the entire front windshield appeared white so for an instant I was calmed. Calm from a familiar feeling of going home, of having no control and going toward the white bright light. Instead it was white bright snow…with solid frozen ground underneath. A crack and a slam and in an instant, I am rolling in the air. The van is most definitely hitting ground, or none at all, but rolling from the speed and direction in which the van was heading. There was a pop at some point, as the side airbags by the windows went off. Garbage and other affects left in the van-some mine, like my phone, wallet, gloves etc.-flew about the front and luckily their was a metal divider separating me from the back three-fourths of the van as containers, auto-parts, and a dolly tumbled around like clothes in a washing machine. Incidentally, the metal dolly smashed through one of the back windows of the van, I could only imagine what it could have done to me had there been no divider. The two most troubling affects that may have smacked me in the face: was the club-used to keep the steering wheel in place-and a fire extinguisher. Luckily, neither did. While my world was a tumble dry-and I was quite dry, no snow streaming in at that moment-there was a time when my body felt to be in zero g. Something I’ve only experienced on amusement park rides. And let me tell you, I’ve always had fun on amusement park rides. Except recently, since I feel rides can be more amusing if they were longer, faster, and just greater, but I am losing my amusement of the rides for I expect great thrills…as long as my life is not in too great a peril. And although my life had been in peril-I was scared-I was also at ease. I was in a state of content for I was finally aware that I was not in control. I was along for the ride. Later, there was a moment of realization that the comedian Bill Hicks was right and that life is just a ride. Sometimes we like to think we have control, and it appears we do, but there will always be an outside force that can take everything we know or care to know, and it is gone in an instant. That was why I was so content. I felt life as I should feel it, out of my complete control, I am just here to interact when I can move my body as I wished. The only thing I have that can control, be controlled, but never have full control over, is the body. The mind is powerful, it is like a computer link to the unconscious consciousness inside ourselves and all around us. The body is the physical, and the physical body I posses was hanging suspended when the van came to a complete rest on it’s passenger side. I unbuckled my seatbelt (first time I mentioned it! But it should be quite obvious I had it on, otherwise I am speaking to you from the grave and would not waste time telling you this story but try to fit into words the answers all people ask when in this physical and spiritual realm) I slowly got down and stood on the passenger side door and window, gathered my wallet, cell phone, etc. and tried working the damn touch screen on the phone. For my phone: when the screen becomes cold or wet, it is near to impossible to work and once the car came to rest and I turned the engine off, the van became immediately cold (due to the dolly smashing out a back window). And my adrenaline was still running, so trembling and trying to touch little keys/buttons on a cold touch screen after I had finally found my phone in the mess of affects and garbage was a nuisance worse than the actual accident. But thankfully, and I am thankful to them, a car or two that had been driving in my direction-while I headed in theirs-had stopped and called for an ambulance, they had also gotten out to check on my condition. I could open the driver door but they warned not to crawl out as the van could suddenly fall right side up or I slip on it’s metal surface hurting myself. I took their advice as they could assess the situation better than I. I should mention now that at some point, I am not sure when rather during or just after the incident, I received a small but deep cut at the tip of my right hand middle finger. Thinking back now, and thinking even just after the accident, I believe my finger may have been sliced by the seat belt when I unbuckled it and nearly fell to the passenger side. Leave it to the strap that possibly saved my body to also possibly drain some blood from that same body, damn you irony. But I do not damn the rescue workers, the firemen and EMT’s, I gratefully thanked them after they smashed the windshield and held out a hand for me to grab. And so after my experience, I would like to thank-not a deity, gods have nothing to do with my survival-but the emergency responders who naturally want to help others-not just because it’s their job, but because they want to-also to Ralph Nader for fighting against the automobile industry for advancement in better safety measures (like the seat belt I wore). I thanked everyone I knew and the world I lived in that day and to this day. I thank those that have a heart and wish the best for everyone and not those that sent me out on that road (maybe knowing or not, that I had no choice but to do so to pay off a large college debt) but sent me out there in terrible weather conditions for profits while I stress, work, worry, and nearly die in a ditch, just down the road from a graveyard.

By Justin Vaisnor