An Introduction to Microwriting

Michael Kurtov An Introduction to Microwriting I. 62 Today, a tremendous amount of writing is being produced and published, but much of it is simply unreadable — like some kind of rubbish, mush, or stuck-together dumplings. The root cause of this issue lies in the fact that writing is always a solitary endeavor, even when it is a collective effort. The experience of writing is akin to dreaming: we quickly forget about it when the text is finished, and rarely discuss it with others. Bringing individual writing habits, everyday mechanics and physiology to light would presumably help make our texts better — more clear and concise (but no less deep and imaginative) — and thus save the reader's time and attention. The goal of this introduction to the microwriting is to learn how to express any idea in three to five sentences: not rubbish and stuck-together dumplings, but crystals and mixtures. The purpose of writing can be either a) communication or b) transmission. This distinction was proposed by Régis Debray (“Introduction to Mediology”): communication is instantaneous, synchronous, and oriented towards the present; transmission (conveyance) is durable, diachronic, and oriented towards the future. Based on this distinction, we can identify two types of writing. a) Writing-reaction: its task is to convey something to someone for a practical purpose. This type of writing is heteronomous, its goals are set externally. In this case, we are already involved in some social game and usually have no difficulty choosing words, no need to care about the text, or reflect on it. b) Writing-retention: its task is to retain something for transmission over a long period of time. Retain what? — Thoughts. Writing is the only thing that retains thoughts almost directly. Our thoughts are ourselves, hence the ambition of poets and writers, the myth of “exegi monumentum”: it is the dream of selfpreservation through the retention of thoughts in words, the dream of immortality. The volume of text has a decisive influence on the mode of its production and its existence. The duration of the act of writing is determined by the life rhythms of the writing one and, in turn, determines them. (Here we follow the distinction between writers and writing ones, écrivains et écrivants, coined by Roland Barthes.) While we read or write one “tweet,” a global catastrophe may occur, but only while we are reading or writing a novel, do forests grow and are cities built. In accordance with the volume of texts, four levels of writing-retention can be distinguished: 1) nanowriting — text within the range of one syllable to one phrase or one sentence (line): this level is explored, particularly, in Charles Olson’s manifesto “Projective Verse”; 2) microwriting — text within the range of one paragraph, a “tweet” (2 — 7 sentences): this level is more often considered not in writing classes, but in courses on “thinking,” the clarity of which is believed to contribute to the clarity of presentation; 3) mesowriting — text consisting of several paragraphs, a “post,” an article, a story, a speech: this level is dealt with in courses on so-called creative writing and academic writing; a classic analysis of the writing process at the meso-level is Poe’s essay “The Philosophy of Composition”; 4) megawriting — a collection of texts, a book or series of books: we usually learn about #3 [Translit] en traduction (2023) this level from an author’s comments or memoirs or from the texts of researchers. Our focus will be on microwriting. If you have mastered writing at the micro-level, you can master writing at the meso-level — taking blocks of 2 — 7 sentences and composing from them larger blocks, separated by paragraph indentations. Learning microwriting requires that we constantly keep count: knowing how many sentences we have already written and how many we still have left to write. II. The process of microwriting usually consists of four phases: 1) “catching words”: collecting semantic and sonic material; 2) “shooting the arrow”: posing rationalor intuitive problems; 3) crystallization: the natural growth of structures formed in the first two phases; 4) testing: checking the microtext (i.e., the result of microwriting) for its “workability.” In the first and fourth phases, writing is carried out in a dispersed mode (physical, mental, social, geographical, technical dispersion), while in the second and third phases, it is carried out in a concentrated mode. According to these modes, each phase is assigned its own writing methods — fast and/or slow. For each of the four phases of microwriting, there is a characteristic type of danger threatening the historical and geographical transmission (retention) of the text: 1) the danger of not catching or missing a word (self-forgetfulness); 2) the danger of a delayed disintegration; 3) the danger of "eternally" not finishing; 4) the danger of a transient text (death). The phases of microwriting are not clearly separated from each other; they follow one #3 [Translit] in translation (2023) another in an overlapping manner (on a graph, they can be depicted as a mountain range). Movement through these phases is somewhat irreversible: a word “caught” will color the entire growing text, just as the “launching of the arrow,” once it has occurred, will set the direction for the entire text. What is fundamentally important and, at the same time, often remains unrecognized, is that we write in one way or another in each of the four listed phases. The prevailing ideology of writing gives us a false image of process of the creation of the text: this process supposedly begins when we internally and externally concentrate ourselves — “sit down at the table” and start moving a hand across the surface with a tool that leaves marks on it, or compose a sequence of symbols using a button or touch controller (which literally corresponds only to the third phase of microwriting). In reality, the writing process is any material fixation of a word or even just a sign for its memorization (a “hieroglyph” of a word), any slightest change introduced into the sign complex: precisely because these operations are dispersed across different places and media, they do not form part of the common image of a writer (as a concentrated one). Writing is manual labor (potentially, the last manual labor), and it requires its own means of production — a chair, a table, writing devices, etc.; but these means of production are extremely minimalistic, universally accessible, and partly ephemeral (one can write on anything, anywhere, and almost anytime). By squeezing the writing one into the image of “one sitting at the table,” the prevailing ideology of writing seemingly attempts to relieve non-writing ones from the anxiety associated with this maximum freedom of producttion enjoyed by writing ones. III. The first phase of microwriting: “catching words.” Mode: dispersed. Danger: self-forgetfulness. As we know, texts are written not with sounds, colors, schemes, formulas, concepts, images, feelings, etc., but with words. “Only 63 words matter, everything else is chatter” (Eugene Ionesco). “Catching words” as a phase of microwriting begins after we have decided for ourselves: of all media, we deal solely with words (otherwise, we risk becoming the hero of the classic anecdote about Degas and Mallarmé, told by Paul Valery). Words are, in the literal sense, the matter of writing.The writing one as a “word catcher” is like a hunter or fisherman, traversing one of the material elements — fire, earth, air, water (for more on this, see Gaston Bachelard’s “psychoanalysis of elements”). Matter is abundant, it gives itself, and the task of the writing one in this phase is to “spread the net,” to be open to the flow of matter. Each word is related to some material element: there are drop-words, spark-words, cloud-words, stone-words... Becoming aware of one’s own gravitation towards a particular materiality of words is a necessary condition for successfully "catching" them. 64 It is difficult to say exactly how words are “caught”: it happens in a semi-conscious, dispersed, distracted mode. And the importance of this phase of writing is greater the less it is realized. Some words or phrases suddenly become attractors of our attention: we are surprised by them, come back to them, twist them on our tongue, look at them, listen to them. In short, we fall in love. If we do not miss or forget such a word, but let it grow, it will inevitably bear fruit in the form of a text. Where and when are words “caught”? The situations most saturated with dispersed words are, first, conversation, second, reading, and third, the very process of writing. Particularly fruitful for “catching words” are the moments of waking up or been asleep when the familiar world has not yet assembled or disassembled, and you, on the one hand, are more free from practical attitudes, and on the other hand, not yet completely cut off from the reality where these words are to live. Surrealists suggested “catching” words from dreams, but usually, our dreams are trivial or too singular, not common. For creative purposes, transitional states (e.g., between sleep and wakefulness) are more interesting than conscious or unconscious ones. Success in “catching words” depends not only on attentiveness to the world but also on the means of material fixation and the ability to handle them: a word can only be considered “caught” if it has been somehow fixated, retained. Paradoxically, dependence on the material infrastructure of writing makes this most dreamy phase at the same time the most technically determined. The speed at which words are retained and the variety of ways in which they are fixated have been constantly growing throughout history: once it was necessary to tan leather, dip a pen in an inkwell, stock up on paper, etc., but today we almost always have typing devices at hand, as well as sound recording devices, allowing us to retain words even faster than with written means (nevertheless, for transmission purposes, acoustic recording has significant drawbacks — the difficulties in transferring sound information from one medium to another and the ambiguity of its interpretation by different decoders). Thanks to portable controllers (e.g., mobile phones), today it is possible to retain “caught” words in almost any state — on the run, during live communication, in a half-sleep... Therefore, it is necessary to conduct an inventory all the ways you consciously or unconsciously use to retain “caught” words: words are dispersed in the literal sense (physically, geographically, technically) — across different cities and places of residence, across school notebooks and notepads, across documents and group chats — and you must specially allocate time for their gathering. The danger lurking in the “word-catching” phase is self-forgetfulness: as soon as our thoughts make us who we are, and thoughts are retained in words, then missing or forgetting a word that we liked is tantamount to forgetting ourselves. This loss is irreparable. However, the reverse tendency — the manic fixation of everything — is also dangerous, as it translates the “catching” of words into a mode of excessive concentration, hindering the free flow of matter. Moreover, it is worth remembering that if you do not “catch” words, then words “catch” you — as a rule, someone else's. #3 [Translit] en traduction (2023) The second phase: “launching the arrow.” Mode: concentrated. Danger: disintegration. After you have “caught” words or word combinations, you can begin to assemble them into new larger units — sentences, paragraphs. However, if you do not realize the purpose of writing, the words will be assembled haphazardly, without order. The first sentence of the microtext may still hold together solely on the strength of the “caught” words, but in the second sentence, it will no longer be enough — the text will start to slip, seem repetitive, redundant. “Launching the arrow” is an image for posing a problem: the word “problem” comes from the Greek verb proballein, literally meaning “to throw forward.” In the second phase of microwriting, the writing one answers — distinctly or indistinctly — the question for themselves: what problem is bothering me? We cannot know where our word will land, but we can choose the direction in which it will fly. The second phase may be as far removed from “sitting at the table” and from focusing on a specific writing medium as the first phase, but it unfolds in another, concentrated mode.“Launching the arrow” is a special moment: a moment of clarification, insight, penetration into the heart of the situation, therefore we usually remember its place and time — it is not threatened by oblivion like words in the first phase. At the same time, this phase is the least technically determined, the most media-independent, since we are able to concentrate ourselves on the same problem in different material conditions (unlike the first phase, where a change of conditions — for example, the loss of a notebook or even just moving to the next room — can lead to the loss of that which is “caught”). “Launching the arrow” is carried out instantaneously: if you missed it or “shot” in the wrong direction, it will be difficult to correct it later. So, the main danger for the writing one in the second phase is the delayed but guaranteed disintegration of the entire microtext. It can be said that microtexts are written with words, but completed with problems. #3 [Translit] in translation (2023) The third phase: crystallization. Mode: concentrated. Danger: “eternally” not-finishing. It is easy to confuse the third phase of microwriting with the whole act of microwriting, as it is closest to the popular image of writing texts: you “sit down at the table.” Of course, “catching words” and “launching arrows” can happen already “at the table,” but this is not so common, because without “caught” words, you simply have nothing to “sit down” with, and without a posed problem, you will not have enough motivation for keep “sitting.” The notorious “blank page anxiety” is encountered precisely in these two cases (obviously, it is not the "page" but the writing one themself who is "blank"). The crystallization phase is the natural growth of “caught” and then “launched” words, the gradual formation of the crystal of microtext. The boundary between this phase and the previous one (“launching the arrow”) is the least distinct: sometimes we start writing (in the common understanding of this process) as soon as we have clarified the problem that bothers us, and then the crystal of microtext grows quickly and without hindrance. Both of these phases are similar in that they unfold in a concentrated mode, but in the third phase, we are concentrated not just in some place and time (as in the second phase), but on specific writing media and production conditions. The mediology of literature (the study of the influence of the technological conditions of writing) usually concerns only this phase — the other three elude it (while, for example, the sociology of literature is more concerned with the first two phases). This is the phase of which the individual and the culture are best aware of, around which there are many images and myths (“the work of a writer,” the writer's “workplace,” etc.), and which various training courses are dedicated to. It happens that the three phases of writing which we have described coincide in time and place — when the “thought” unfolds in the very process of writing (see, for instance, Heinrich von Kleist’s essay “On the Gradual Formation of Thoughts during Speech”). But with regard to writing at the micro-level, something of an 65 exception: after three to five sentences, you can only start “catching” words or posing a problem for yourself — and the volume limit has already exhausted. It is necessary to separate, theoretically and practically, the first and second phases from the third precisely in order to minimize the “throes of creation” and diminish the writing one's despair. The crystallization phase is a work that is manifest. Even if you have to write just three sentences, you will have to overcome your own inertia and the “resistance of materials.” In the “words-catching” phase, the world finds you by itself, you just need to be attentive to it, “spread the net”; in the “launching arrow" phase, you are driven by the problem, affected by some part of the world — you yourself are “shot”. But in the crystallization phase, the world is silent, it does not prompt you to do anything and does not “shoot” you anywhere — because now it is you who creates the world, now it is you who must prompt and affect with your text. 66 This “silence” of the world and, as a consequence, the writing one's extreme loneliness often cause the the crystallization to cease. The main danger in the third phase is the “eternally” not-finishing the text (or, as a variation, “eternal” rewriting). A crystal is necessarily a whole. You may even write the required three sentences but feel that something has not come together — there is no whole, the crystal has not grown. The reason for the that the crystallization has ceased may lie in earlier phases (in case you started writing without “catching” the word or posing the problem) — then your work, your efforts to finish or rewrite the text will be in vain. An indication of defects in undertaking this particular phase (as opposed to the two preceding ones) is the absence or insufficient elaboration of your personal myths about this phase, that is, about the work of the writer. Perhaps the whole does not come together not because you have not worked hard enough, but because you have not concentrated in the right way, at the right time and in the right place — for the reason that you are under the influence of foreign and alien images of how the writing one concentrates or should concentrate (hence the need to creatfe your own mythology of work). The fourth phase: testing. Mode: dispersed. Danger: death. The key image for the last, fourth phase of microwriting is the machine. You have successfully passed the three preceding phases, and before you is the grown crystal of microtext. Now your task is to check how this microtext works and whether it works at all. In the language of technical specialists, this is called testing: you need to see your text as a machine in the process of functioning. The difference between a textual machine and a technical one is that the results of the latter's functioning are almost immediately visible (whatever they may be — and they can be quite puzzling), while the results of the former's functioning require either a long time (sometimes it takes weeks or even years) or the presence of another reader besides you. In this phase, you must split yourself into a writer and a reader — become the second reader of your text (you were de facto the first reader already in the third phase). Testing is broader than what is called proofreading, editing, correction, etc. Although these procedures can be included in testing, they still imply “sitting at the table”, concentrated on the medium of writing, whereas testing is carried out in a dispersed mode. While we are testing the text, we are writing it too, but we are writing it absent-mindedly, in a dispersed way — literally dispersing ourselves in different places and media: correcting one word in one place, then another in another, approaching the “table” for a moment, moving away again, remembering some mistake in the middle of an unrelated conversation and correcting it on the go, in between tasks, etc. Moreover, general dispersion (e.g., psychic distraction) is necessary for successful text testing. When a text is just finished, it already seems to us somehow assembled, complete, concentrated, and we do not see any obvious flaws in it (“we lost sharpness”, as they say in such cases) — that is why we need to distract ourselves from it, become dispersed. It is useful to disperse the crystallized text across various material carriers and means #3 [Translit] en traduction (2023) of representation (multimediation): if it was written in electronic form, you can print it and read it in paper form (modifying the material carrier); you can also change the application for viewing, the display mode, the font, the page layout, the colour of letters, etc. (modifying the means of representation); or read the text into a voice recorder and listen to the recording (modifying both the material carrier and means of representation). The text should be tested in as many physical and mental states as possible — rereading it in different places, in different moods, in different states of physical well-being. It is known that in the information technology industry, testing software products takes 80% of the total development time; similarly, testing a text can and should take the lion’s share of the writing process. (Note that the testing phase explicitly follows the crystallization phase only in microwriting, while already at the meso-level, testing becomes iterative, multiple, dispersed among other writing phases.) Text is arguably the most complex structure created by humans, as it (even at the microlevel) automatically forms a huge number of connections, which are impossible to track, each and every, with either human eyes or formaltechnical means. Some of these connections are unnecessary, parasitic, and should be eliminated; they can be both semantic and “material” — sound and graphic (repetitions, unintentional rhymes, typographic “rivers of white”, etc.). In this sense, testing is drying, airing, compressing: a well-tested text usually does not increase in volume compared to an untested one, but rather decreases. Absolute testing is unattainable: in any text, even after multiple checks, there will always be some errors (each edit adds another error, as software developers know very well). A text may be perfected, but it is never perfect. The question is always in the “workability” of the text machine, that is, in what it produces beyond the matter of words. The testing phase is often given frustratingly little importance; other times, this phase is distributed among various writing ones (author, editor, proofreader…), thus dividing the responsibility. However, the significance of this #3 [Translit] in translation (2023) phase is immense: if a text is not tested, it will be unreadable. If it is unreadable, it will eventually be forgotten, transient. The main danger in this phase is the death of your text and, consequently, the death of you yourself: the point is not even that as long as we are remembered, we are alive, as they say, but that when it comes to the real restoration of everything and everyone in the future, they would have gladly restored you, but no one will remember your unreadable text, and therefore about you yourself. You wrote an unreadable text — your text was not read — you no longer exist. IV. The phases of microwriting can be considered both as a phenomonological description of the actual step-by-step process of creating a microtext and as a technical algorithm for microwriting. Thus, to compose a microtext, one needs to write 1) the first sentence, which would contain a certain “caught” word, 2) the second sentence, which would set the direction of the “arrow's flight,” that is, would formulate a certain problem, 3) the third sentence, which would naturally grow out of the first two and develop them. That’s it, the microtext is ready! (All that’s left is to test it.) Microwriting Workshop Based on the algorithm outlined in the previous paragraph, compose a three-sentence text (a “tweet”) for one of the following situations: 1. One morning, you wake up and learn that the Kingdom of Heaven has come — or “the bright future of communism”, or the forgiveness of all financial and existential debts... In short, an event that unprecedentedly and irreversibly changes the lives of everyone on the planet for the better. You write a few personal messages to loved ones and friends (writing-reaction). When emotions have subsided a bit, you sit down and write a post for friends and followers — those three sentences (writingretention). 2. You are on a spaceship that is in distress. There is only one way to save the ship and its numerous crew, but to achieve this, your friend / girlfriend will have to sacrifice their life — detach from the ship in an unmanned capsule, with which communication will be maintained for just ten minutes. After you have said goodbye verbally and the capsule has detached, you sit down and write to your friend those three sentences. 67