Recently I decided that a writer is something that I should be. So, I tried to write. Unfortunately, It wasn't working out. I would sit and stare at the blank screen and nothing would come out. I would try to think of things to write about, but nothing came to mind. So I distracted myself by checking my email and seeing if anyone had updated their livejournals since the last time I checked five minutes ago. Obviously, nothing came out of this.
Then, I remembered an interview with Andre Dubus III on Fresh Air on NPR a few months back. On that program he told a story about a trick he used in writing classes that he taught to get his students to write. He would bring in those one-paragraph news briefs -- the ones that said nothing but the very basic facts of a story, not much more than a lead sentence. He would give different ones to his students and he told them to write the rest of the story. There was so much left out in the brief that could be filled in with the imagination of his young students. One of them was about a woman who lost her house to the IRS and wanted it back, but it had already been purchased by an Iranian gentlemen who wanted it just as badly as she did. Dubus turned that into the novel House of Sand and Fog which, of course, became a film starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly.
I began thinking about all the different people I meet everyday. At the hotel I meet people from all over the country and the world. They all come from different places and have different reasons for being in Nashville. And often I get to talk to them for a few minutes and discover a few things about them. I see them come and go and what they act like when they are in a different town. Then, when I deliever pizza, I meet people who live here. I see them only for a moment, but I see their house or the apartment complex they live in. I get to peek in front door and see what their living room looks like, what kind of magazines they keep on their coffee table and what kind of car they drive. I thought that I could write about these people. I could even string life stories together as my characters interact with each other, if only for a moment, one by one.
When I tried this, nothing happened. I got a paragraph, which, when I came back to later, was the worst paragraph I'd ever read. I was rather disheartened. I was lost as to how to get the gears turning and the words flowing. Previously, I had been recommened a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, but had never followed up on it. I looked for it on Amazon, and also found other books that Cameron had written. One in particular caught my interest. It is called The Right to Wright: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life. It was the subtitle that made me decide to buy it.
I received it today and began reading. At the start it sounded like the book for me. It was discribing writing as something that should be done for itself, and not for the lofty goals we set for it. It talked about writers having a hard time because of self-scrutiny and fear. I came to the third chapter (only 10 pages in), which was called "Let Yourself Listen". She says, "Once writing becomes an act of listening instead of an act of speech... I find myself amazed and interested by the sentences that seem to want themselves written."
I began to cry when I read that. Not only did I feel like the self-imposed burden of writing was being lifted off my shoulders, but I fully understood what she meant by the word "listen". Truly listening is a lesson that I've already learned through my years of music appreciation. Listening to music became an artform in and of itself to me. I felt the art of the music come into me and I understood what it was telling me while I felt the creativity of it leaving me -- this creativity I created, but was not able to commit to a medium. It just left me and went out into the air to float above the stratosphere, as if I was giving my instance back to the form. I realized that sensation -- my ability to accomplish two-way listening -- will be what allows me to write. I just need to give my creativity to the page instead of letting it drift off above the clouds.
Then, I remembered an interview with Andre Dubus III on Fresh Air on NPR a few months back. On that program he told a story about a trick he used in writing classes that he taught to get his students to write. He would bring in those one-paragraph news briefs -- the ones that said nothing but the very basic facts of a story, not much more than a lead sentence. He would give different ones to his students and he told them to write the rest of the story. There was so much left out in the brief that could be filled in with the imagination of his young students. One of them was about a woman who lost her house to the IRS and wanted it back, but it had already been purchased by an Iranian gentlemen who wanted it just as badly as she did. Dubus turned that into the novel House of Sand and Fog which, of course, became a film starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly.
I began thinking about all the different people I meet everyday. At the hotel I meet people from all over the country and the world. They all come from different places and have different reasons for being in Nashville. And often I get to talk to them for a few minutes and discover a few things about them. I see them come and go and what they act like when they are in a different town. Then, when I deliever pizza, I meet people who live here. I see them only for a moment, but I see their house or the apartment complex they live in. I get to peek in front door and see what their living room looks like, what kind of magazines they keep on their coffee table and what kind of car they drive. I thought that I could write about these people. I could even string life stories together as my characters interact with each other, if only for a moment, one by one.
When I tried this, nothing happened. I got a paragraph, which, when I came back to later, was the worst paragraph I'd ever read. I was rather disheartened. I was lost as to how to get the gears turning and the words flowing. Previously, I had been recommened a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, but had never followed up on it. I looked for it on Amazon, and also found other books that Cameron had written. One in particular caught my interest. It is called The Right to Wright: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life. It was the subtitle that made me decide to buy it.
I received it today and began reading. At the start it sounded like the book for me. It was discribing writing as something that should be done for itself, and not for the lofty goals we set for it. It talked about writers having a hard time because of self-scrutiny and fear. I came to the third chapter (only 10 pages in), which was called "Let Yourself Listen". She says, "Once writing becomes an act of listening instead of an act of speech... I find myself amazed and interested by the sentences that seem to want themselves written."
I began to cry when I read that. Not only did I feel like the self-imposed burden of writing was being lifted off my shoulders, but I fully understood what she meant by the word "listen". Truly listening is a lesson that I've already learned through my years of music appreciation. Listening to music became an artform in and of itself to me. I felt the art of the music come into me and I understood what it was telling me while I felt the creativity of it leaving me -- this creativity I created, but was not able to commit to a medium. It just left me and went out into the air to float above the stratosphere, as if I was giving my instance back to the form. I realized that sensation -- my ability to accomplish two-way listening -- will be what allows me to write. I just need to give my creativity to the page instead of letting it drift off above the clouds.
i'm sorry i missed this entry when it was originally posted. that has to be one of the most eloquent moments of self-expression i've encountered. and how beautiful to have it be about writing. lovely irony, that.