Words, words, words. That's what we're made of. Herewith some of my thoughts on what we're doing with them.

Ah, spring. (Cue that music. You know which music. That flute that goes, 'La, la-la-la-la-la-la. . . .la-la=la-la-la-la. . . .la-la-la-la-la-tweedle-dee-dum-dum-DEE. . . ) Time to do some spring cleaning.

How about sorting our a few desk drawers? Looking through a photo album or two? And cruising through some back files? It's a good thing for a writer to do.

Try browsing through your own hard drive. Have you got. . .

• Something you wrote in a fever, that you felt was too personal?
• A character or two in search of a story?
• A rant that might be turned into something useful?
• An unfinished poem?
• A Guide Entry you started, but lost interest in?
• A plot sketch you never filled in?

You get my drift. Just as you find the darnedest things behind the sofa cushions, you might – just might – find something cool in your own computer. Or notebooks, if you like to store your ideas that way. Dust them off, give them a spring airing.

That super-personal essay/story/poem you wrote, back when the moment was fresh and the wounds too raw to disclose to outsiders. Could that material stand a reworking, now that you have some distance on it? Maybe there's something there that could be shared. Who knows? It might speak to someone else in a meaningful way, just when they needed it most.

That character you dreamed about: isn't it time she went somewhere? I'll bet if you put a new hat on her, she might just fit into your next short story.

That rant? Look it over. Unless the persons you were ranting at are dead by now, you'll probably want to reword it, make it less obvious. But still, there might be some useable stuff in there.

You see what I mean. During World War II, poet/novelist/screenwriter/essayist/beloved children's author Erich Kästner had a problem. It was called the Gestapo. Käestner was under Schreibverbot That meant he wasn't allowed to write. At all.

Can you imagine somebody telling you that you couldn't write? What would it make you want to do?

Like many banned authors, Kästner wanted to write 'for the drawer' – stuff he couldn't publish under the regime, but figured he could use later. (He wasn't a fool. He knew this couldn't last.) Unfortunately, the Gestapo was determined. Every month or so, the jackboot brigade showed up in his apartment and turned everything upside down. Just to make sure he wasn't writing a satirical sequel to Emil and the Detectives that had a villain with a funny moustache in. Or whatever.

So Kästner didn't write anything. For a long time.

But a few months before the end of the war, he decided the handwriting was on the wall. Even the Gestapo couldn't last forever. He decided to take a chance. He kept a diary – carefully hidden, of course – describing what he was experiencing, as a record. He was lucky. The Gestapo didn't find it, and then Hitler was dead, and his home town of Dresden was destroyed, and it didn't matter anymore. He moved to Munich, and started writing again. He also published his Berlin diary, so we would know what it was like.

So. If you've been writing 'for the drawer', maybe it's time to do some spring cleaning.

You might find something worth revisiting.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

25.03.13 Front Page

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