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The Dog-Paddling Feeling that Fuels Writers

Posted by: Laurel | Comments (4)

Monday, April 20th, 2009

In defining the qualities writers need to succeed, persistence is often cited. Actually, though, it is beside the point.

The ability writers possess to doggedly pursue their writing doesn’t come from an abstract quality of character. It comes from love. Writers love the experience writing gives them. And they love their vision of the writing that’s mesmerizing their attention right now. But the primacy of love for writers may be easier to see in a story that mirrors it, however indirectly.

An Australian dog made minor news some months ago, after being washed from the deck of a yacht in rough seas. Shark-infested rough seas. His owners risked their own lives searching for him, but after many futile and desperate hours, they sadly returned to shore.

Meanwhile, their much-loved family dog kept dog-paddling, until he reached an island five miles away. There he lived for four months, before being found by the few people who also lived there. In time, they arranged to return him to the mainland. And his astonished family had a tearful, tail-wagging and face-licking reunion.

How did this otherwise ordinary dog manage such a feat of suvival? Was it the instinctual will to live? Was it pure luck? Maybe. What’s more likely, though, is this: here was a dog who really wanted to return to his family. They loved him, and he loved them. He had a reason to survive. And it pulled him through the ocean for five miles, and got him through four months of survivalist ingenuity.

Love allows us to do amazing things. It is stronger — in non-human and human animals, both — than anything else. By comparison, persistence is no match for, say, shark-infested rough seas.

Love, on the other hand, keeps dog-paddling, driven by the need to return to what it loves best. Whether that’s a family of doting humans. Or the all-consuming and enlivening effort of putting words on a page.

Categories : Facets of Writing

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Turn Your Writing Bloopers into . . . "Blooperade"

Posted by: Laurel | Comments (3)

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

As a writer . . . you probably know

there are creative ways of handling

just about anything. Anything at all.

What you may not know, maybe not yet, is that all those “bloopers” (which arise when you are working on something new, and perhaps never before seen) can be cause for exhilarating inspiration. If not hilarity.

Here’s an example from another pursuit entirely. On the wall-mounted television at the gym the other day, a gaggle of Famous Old Golfers (names you’d recognize, even if you know nothing, and don’t care to, about golf) were ceremoniously putting, and driving, and walking across an immaculately maintained, bright-green course. They were surrounded by hundreds of onlookers, politely lined up on either side of their grassy line of play.

And then, it happened. Famous Old Golfer squinted off into the distance, sighting the next drive, and loomed briefly over a tiny ball perched on a tinier tee. He swung smoothly and watched confidently as his ball soared upwards into a majestic arc, plummeting perfectly. Into the lake.

No one laughed. No one reacted at all.

Which is too bad. We all have these moments, no matter what kind of work we do. And I, for one, would have liked to see those famous old guys have fun with something that, while embarrassing, was pretty darn funny. Given the ultra-serious circumstances, and all.

Because it’s a question of giving in. To the rock-bottom humanity within all our effortful endeavors. Saying Okay to whatever results. And turning our bloopers — like the proverbial lemons into lemonade — into, well, “blooperade.”

But. How do you make something good out of a wrong turn in your writing?

First, you laugh. Then, you see if there isn’t some way to turn the miscast part on its head. Or inside out. Or even just start all over again.

Jump into the lake. Retrieve your ball. And see if writing from a different perspective doesn’t salvage the day.

Maybe you’ll get a brand new insight — one you never would have had — were it not for the miscast section that’s staring up at you, right there on page 82.

Blooperade. Don’t write anything without it.

Categories : Facets of Writing

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The Evocative Language of Things

Posted by: Laurel | Comments (0)

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

For poet T.S. Eliot, April was famously “the cruelest month.” But it’s National Poetry Month, now — a month to pay attention to poems. In other words, words. Here are a few.

On the grass, the pigeons are still gathered where they were nested for the night. Though a few early risers are up and wandering the flagstone walks of the square. The dew sparkles. The sun dapples through the leaves of tall trees. The benches simply sit. They are waiting for someone among those rushing to work to give in, sit down, and simply be.

In lyric writing, and in poetry, we feel the evocativeness of words more intensely.

That’s why it’s helpful for writers to study poems — to understand how they do what they do.

One thing poems do is convey meaning viscerally, through the language of things. Poems name things, not abstractions. Trees, not nature. Bench, not public seating. Big difference. It’s the naming of what’s real. And we have a visceral response to such names.

Whereas, abstract language keeps us wandering around in our heads, unengaged, uninvolved with what’s on the page. We step back. Soon, we’ll wander off, like pigeons exploring the park. We’ll be looking for writing that offers a world we know viscerally, through the evocative language of things.

To separate from the stampede, pick a bench apart and sit, is to allow the gradual enfoldment of an observing calm. It is to notice the air: a euphoria of humidity and heat. To see the pigeons give flight to the park, space defined in the lucent span of their long, slow glidings from here, to there, to there. To realize there is a presence in the trees, alive in the earth — lifting, lilting, drifting — an eloquence with which branches grow.

Categories : Facets of Writing