What’s Your Line? June 25, 2008
Posted by Becca in Uncategorized.20 comments
My son is a fabulous story teller – he always has been, even before he could talk intelligbly. He’d stand proudly in the midst of family circle, draw himself to a full 30 inches, and pontificate for 10 minutes in complete gibberish. We all attempted to laugh or looked dismayed in the appropriate places, but mostly we just wanted to yell “What in the world are you trying to say?”
As he grew and developed a command of the language, his stories began to take on familiar themes – there were usually characters doing something stupid and being saved by other ultra smart characters. Plenty of explosions and car chases were involved. The stories got more complex as he aged, yet the basic themes remained the same. He found his line.
I think once you’ve found your voice, your theme, your preoccupation, then your writing life becomes a lot simpler. You begin to focus your vision of the world through that lens, and pretty soon you start relating everything you see and everything that happens to you in terms of that focal point. There’s an old adage every writer is familiar with – write what you know. I’d take that a step further and say write what you care about.
I’m an only child. I’m married to an only child, the mother of an only child, and the daughter of an only child. Does it surprise you that my writing is preoccupied with family relationships? It’s not really even a conscious decision – no matter what kind of idea for a story or essay I come up with, somehow family relationships are involved. I’ve completed NaNoWriMo twice, and both novels involve parent/child relationships and the emotional legacies we pass on to our children. I’m working on a short story now that involves a young man who keeps sabotaging his love life because of an unhealthy obsession with his deceased mother’s little dog (which of course is just a cover for an unhealthy obsession with his mother!)
Perhaps it sounds limiting, to have this recurring theme for your work. But if you look carefully at the work of most writers and artists, you’ll notice a similar constancy of thought. Jane Austen was certainly successful in her portraits of young women discovering life and love in the 19th century. Jhumpa Lahiri has done quite well exploring the lives of second generation Indian immigrants, navigating the no man’s land between the traditional values of their parents and modern American culture.
And Monet did allright with those water lilies, didn’t he?
The real trick lies in having the skill to develop your material in new, interesting directions. Certainly I could write fantasy novels, historical novel, or mysteries and still retain the common thread of exploring family relationships and dynamics. The things I care about.
Sometimes writing about these preoccupations helps make sense of them in a way ordinary thinking cannot. Jhumpa Lahiri said that, in writing about the two worlds she grew up in she “tried to weave them together in some combination that was orderly on the page in a way that it isn’t always in life.”
So how do you find your material? Carolyn See, author of Making a Literary Life, asks her students “What’s your inner voice talking about these days?” What are you thinking about when you’re in the shower, or driving your car, on the treadmill at the gym? If you’ve become accustomed to tuning it out, because it’s constant muttering drives you mad, then perhaps its time to tune it back in. Turn up the volume even.
What do you catch yourself thinking about? What experiences and relationships in your life are the most meaningful? What catches your attention when you’re out and about? These are the things you’re going to know, the things you’re going to care about, and that knowledge and caring will resonate in your writing.
This is where you’ll find your line.
How about you? Have you found your line yet? Do you think you have one? How do you go about expressing it?
Welcome to Write On Wednesday June 24, 2008
Posted by Becca in Write On Wednesday.8 comments
This is Write on Wednesday’s new home, a place to gather if you love playing with words and putting them to the page.
Each Wednesday we’ll explore some aspect of the writing process…how we get those words out of our brains and onto paper (or screen). And what we do with them once they’re out there for all the world to see.
We might look at some of our favorite books about writing…
We might talk about our instruments of choice – pencil or cursor? paper or screen?
We could share secrets about the best places for finding ideas…
Perhaps we’ll explore the process of revision (shudder!) or what happens when the words just won’t come (double shudder!)
Whatever the topic, sharing is the name of the game. Add your thoughts on the subject by writing a post on your blog and leaving a comment with the link to that post. If you wish, you may also simply write your thoughts in the comment section.
So, come join us around the table. Bring your best notebook and a freshly sharpened pencil.
Get ready to Write On Wednesday.
Today’s post is waiting.
Where In the World Do You Come to the Page? June 18, 2008
Posted by Becca in Write On Wednesday.1 comment so far
I love my back porch on summer mornings. A soft breeze whispers through the evergreens, a chorus of birds serenade me with early morning wake up songs, no one else in the house is stirring (not even Magic or Molly), and I can savor the solitude. Still in pajamas and slippers, my first cup of coffee close at hand, I tuck my laptop under my arm, pile my books and notebook on a wicker side table, and settle into the chair. It’s a perfect place to write.
Of course, I write in other places in the house. I’m fortunate to have a “room of my own,” with a writer’s desk and large overstuffed chair (with extra wide arms perfect for propping up a laptop). Most of the time, that’s where my writing happens, seated at the desk or curled up in my chair. There are bookstacks everywhere in that room, and though I keep cleaning them up, more seem to appear in their place. Whether I’m writing blog posts, or book reviews, or even working on a short story, I seem to need bookstacks around. <smiles>
I’m nosy about writer’s desks, aren’t you? There seems to be something magical about the places people write. I readily admit to chills running down my spine when I stood in Virginia Woolf’s study at Rodmell, and Charlotte Bronte’s parlor in the parsonage at Haworth. Every year, I purchase a copy of The Writer’s Desk calendar – photographer Jill Krementz has made a study of writers and their desks, and has published a lovely coffee table sized book as well as these annual calendars. (See, I’m not the only nosy one!) And it isn’t just writer’s desks that intrique me – it’s all the “writuals” that are associated with the writing process.
Stephen King wrote Carrie and Salem’s Lot “in the laundry room of a double wide trailer, pounding away on my wife’s portable Olivetti typewriter and balancing a child’s desk on my thighs.” He advises writers to “have a space of their own,” a place with a door you are “willing to shut, telling the world and yourself you mean business.” (On Writing) Conversely, Natalie Goldberg advises leaving home occasionally, going to a cafe or public place to write. “It’s good to change the scenery from time to time,” she says, “because at home there is the telephone, the laundry, the refrigerator, the dishes to be washed, a letter carrier to be greeted. If you made the effort to get to a cafe, you can’t leave as easily and go do something else, the way you can in your own home.” (Writing Down the Bones)
Awareness of place is important, not just because of nosy friends like me, but to set the stage for all the writing that you do. Before you can convincingly relate a feeling of place to your reader, you must first feel it for youself. If you’re connected to the place you write in, Julia Cameron tells us, the “accumulation of details, the willingness to be specific and precise, the willingness to ‘place’ a piece of writing accurately in context – all these things make for writing the reader can connect to.” (The Right to Write)
How about you? Last week we talked about why we come to the page, now I want to know where you come to the page. What’s magical about your writing spot (or spots!) Free write about the places you put pen to paper. Post pictures if you can – that would be even more fun! (I can’t because the battery in my camera is dead!)
Leave a comment with the url linking to your blog post, and we’ll all come and spy on each other. <more smiles>
Postscript June 14, 2008
Posted by Becca in Uncategorized.add a comment
Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts about what brings them to the page. I was enlightened and insprired by each one of you. (A reminder that Write on Wednesday lasts all week, so if you decide to respond to the prompt anytime during then week, then feel free to do so.)
As a postscript to this week’s WOW (Susan pointed out the aptness of the acronym), here’s a quote from I found this morning on Writing Time - it’s from a man named Frank Smith. I especially like the last two lines…
Writing is for stories to be read, books to be published, poems to be recited, plays to be acted, songs to be sung, newspapers to be shared, letters to be mailed, jokes to be told, notes to be passed, recipes to be cooked, messages to be exchanged, memos to be circulated, announcements to be posted, bills to be collected, posters to be displayed and diaries to be concealed.
Writing is for ideas, action, reflection, and experience. It is not for having your ignorance exposed, your sensitivity destroyed, or your ability assessed.
Happy Writing!
Why In the World Do You Come to the Page? June 11, 2008
Posted by Becca in Write On Wednesday.add a comment
So I got home about 6:00, after fighting my way through rush hour traffic, and what’s the first thing I feel compelled to do?
Write.
Wouldn’t you think that after a frustrating day, a day when every accomplishment, every task was completed with much virtual hair pulling and screaming, wouldn’t you think that after a day like that I’d crave nothing more than a big glass of wine, a huge box of chocolates, and my easy chair?
Why in the world would I come to the page after a day like that?
“We should write because writing is a powerful form of prayer and meditation, connecting us both to our own insight and to a higher and deeper level of inner guidance,” says Julia Cameron, in The Right to Write. “Writing is good for the soul.”
While I don’t necessarily think of writing as cathartic, I do believe it helps me make sense of my world and myself. There are times when a striking truth about my life suddenly appears before me on the screen, complete and utterly honest, coming straight from my spirit through my fingers and onto the page. For a writer, there is a great connection between the heart, the mind, and the pen. The act of setting words on the page seems to open a door directly into my writer’s soul, letting me in on the secrets that are stored there.
Perhaps that why writing is such a restorative act. “Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises,” Anne Lamott writes in Bird by Bird. “The actual act of writing turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.”
Indeed, there was a sense of relief, of reassurance, to come home, kick off my shoes, and curl up in my easy chair with my virtual pen and paper – my little laptop perched precariously on the chair’s overstuffed arm. I admit, there was wine involved too, but the comfort and relaxation which flooded my body had more to do with the words flowing from my fingertips than from the alcohol flowing past my lips.
Writing replenishes my spirit, it rejuvenates my mind, it relaxes my emotions.
And that’s why I come to the page.
How about you? What brings you to the page, and why?
