On Writing: Laden with Barnacles, Heavy with Metaphor
You wouldn’t know it from the quantity of these posts, but during the past couple months, I’ve been writing.
You might not know it by the quality of posts at Meridian Bridge either.
Adding up the business correspondence and web copy I’ve helped to edit and create, I’m a regular font of letters this spring, but not many are making it to the creative end of the pool. It’s tough to change gears when the transmission isn’t well oiled, or to alter the metaphor, the barnacles are thick on the bow, if not the motor.
Business writing, creative nonfiction, genre writing: they employ a lot of the same basic tools, but the skill set is different.
And when it’s something I haven’t done in a while, I huff and puff like an old man on a hill, flabby and full of Doritos. Maybe we can’t be good at everything. Should we even try? Where can we find inspiration? What would Ernest Haycox do? (That’s him up above.)
Dave Sim, creator of the long running independent comic book, Cerebus, once said about drawing (and I’m paraphrasing from memory): one day away from the board and I can tell, two days away and my fans can tell, a week away and just about anyone can tell.
Knowing Dave and the talent he’s nurtured over decades, I think that’s overstating the case, but I agree with the sentiment. Once you’re away from your board (and whatever it is you do there), it seems like the only way forward is to just get on with it anyway.
In the case of writing fiction or blog posts, rather than confronting the project dead on, I try to sneak up on it, knitting together strings of sentences into whole yards of fabric that I know I’ll probably throw out.
I sometimes give way to stream-of-consciousness, but only sometimes.
I avoid that for the most part.
Around ten years ago, I took a class where we did 2000 stream-of-conscious words every day for two weeks: A bigger, more steaming pile you’ve never before seen.
From me and everyone else.
I know it’s an exercise taught in a thousand creative writing classes, but in my experience, it’s never yielded much in the way of results.
So what about you guys who write? Any homemade remedies for cleaning off the barnacles?
Do you wade into a project guns blazing or take a more stealthy approach? Do you do warm up exercises (One of my old college profs used to knock out haikus in Danish before working on his novel) or just get on with the job at hand?
on March 6, 2010 at 6:22 pm
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Usually I just take off running (or walking or crawling) and see what happens. I might have a vague idea of where I’m headed, but that’s it. Works for me.
on March 6, 2010 at 6:30 pm
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When I have those spells I polish older stories that are waiting to leave the nest. And there are a lot of those half baked in my quiver.
on March 7, 2010 at 9:26 am
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For years as I bugged my husband to take a day off, I didn’t understand. For each day away, it takes that much longer to get going. Now we both get it and try not to let much time pass. And like David, I edit, research and search for words I tend to overuse in finished ms.
on March 7, 2010 at 10:00 am
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I start by putting my hero in an impossible situation, then work like hell to get him out of it. Usually I have some vague idea of the direction of the plot, but not always.
For me, an example of an impossible situation would be:
Wet from the falling snow, his fingertips slowly slipping off the precipice, he watched the Apaches run toward him, death in their faces. Five hundred feet below, another, quicker kind of death waited…the hunting pack of ravenous wolves.
“Well, Dick, old son,” Daring whispered, “you’ve got yourself in a right pickle this time.”
Lightning stabbed viciously at the cliff face, splintering rock into his face. He tasted blood in his mouth and knew fear.
Eek! Write, Joe, write…
on March 7, 2010 at 3:05 pm
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What would Haycox do? That baffles me, too, Richard. I once tried googling and came up with this:
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ohq/104.3/haycox.html
I particularly noted the sentences: “Haycox sought to eliminate distractions, although he was not particularly successful at doing so, being involved in Republican party affairs, numerous community projects, and the activities of his alma mater, the University of Oregon. At the time of his death in October 1950, he was a trustee of the Multnomah Athletic Club, a director of the Oregon Historical Society (where he was put to work writing informational highway signs), and the immediate past president of Portland Rotary and the Oregon Dad’s Club.”
All of these activities would have involved different skills sets from those employed in fiction-writing. And for most of us they would easily be not just distractions but killers to doing creative work. Today, what used to be called “mid-list” novel writers are routinely expected even by the bigger publishers to contribute via web activities to the promotion of their work. Sometimes the author’s own efforts seem to be about all that’s on offer!
Personally, I believe I spend far too much time on producing an ezine and commenting at blogs, though thus far I’ve resisted the temptation and the odd suggestion that I should have a blog myself.
Few writers seem to have the happy knack of “changing gears”, as you put it. One would be James Reasoner who happily turns out his entertaining Rough Edges while maintaining an enviably prolific fiction output. I wish I had the secret.
on March 8, 2010 at 10:36 pm
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Bill, you must realize what a terrific talent that is! Godspeed, my friend!
David, that’s a good point. Editing, polishing, before you know it, you may have written down 1000 words.
Patti, I can’t recall the last time I had a complete day off.
Joe, great comment! What happens next?
Chap, you saw immediately where I was coming from. Writing, editing, promoting –it’s a bunch of balls to juggle in the air. Add rolling pins and glass baubles and there’s quite a challenge.
on March 9, 2010 at 10:57 am
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What happens next?
The Apaches chop poor Dick with a tomahawk and he loses his grip on the precipice. On the way down he gets struck by lightning, then plummets headlong among the wolves.
“Ooh,” says the chief wolf, “barbecued pork. My favorite. Let’s dine.”
THE END