Back at it Again

I know it has been a long time since I posted anything here, but feel as if it's time to get back to it even if it is only for me and a few friends who follow my blog. So, here goes.
Lately I have been thinking a lot about writing. Why we do it and why we don’t or can’t. Even though we may have something to say, we don’t always have the discipline and courage to put words on paper. I guess I should speak for myself instead of using the royal “we”. For a time, writing came easily to me. I could sit down at my computer, bring up a blank page and the words would flow. Simple as that. Now that isn’t happening for me.
Favorite authors have published several books while my creativity has lain dormant and I stew about all the time I have wasted which only wastes more time. I try to let myself off the hook by saying that I have been through a rough patch. I had breast cancer in 2009 complete with surgery, chemo and radiation. That got me well into 2010 and some recovery time which brought 2011 along. Then my back hurt and I had lots of physical therapy and drugs to distract me. Things got worse and sitting for any amount of time just plain hurt too much to bear. My concentration was affected. Finally, I had back surgery followed by more physical therapy and drugs.
Now, here we are in 2013 and I feel I am just emerging from a fog of drugs and fear. My biggest fear was that the pain would get worse and I wouldn’t ever be able to think straight or feel normal again. These fears haunted me--another waste of precious time.
Finally, I am reading again. My retention is improving and I am enjoying the pleasure a good book can bring.
When I was a kid, I loved going to the San Mateo public library on Saturdays and checking out as many books as the librarian would allow. It amazed me that you could read books for free. The librarian was amused by my enthusiasm and would often make recommendations of new books or authors she thought I might enjoy. I thought she was the smartest person I had ever met and wanted to be a librarian when I grew up. I would sit behind the huge desk and shush people and talk about books in a quiet voice. I would have all the answers. My dream job!
I could get lost in a book so easily. My mother was always saying, “Get your nose out of that book.” Or “Clean up your room.” Or “Set the table.” Or “Fold the clothes.” It was amazing how many things I could do while reading a book. My mother thought I should put the book down and just do the assigned chore. She was convinced I could get it done faster without the book. I couldn’t see her point. If I finished one chore, she would just assign another. I would rather stay in the imaginary world my book helped me create. Thus began my love affair with writers and their craft.
I have been wondering about the connection between being a reader and being a writer. I am convinced that most writers are readers although the reverse isn’t true. Still, I believe that even the most casual readers know the difference between a writer who captures their imagination and carries them away and someone who just tells a story. Good story tellers and good writers are different things altogether but the best of the best can do both.
I have attended many classes and seminars and had my writing critiqued and repaired any number of times. One memoir teacher stopped my memoir cold. After her attempts to impose her way of telling my story, I was paralyzed. I felt I had lost my voice. I want to go back and write it my way but can’t even seem to open the box where I keep my notes. I’m afraid it will all look like garbage to me now.
I just finished a book by Brian Doyle called Mink River. It takes place on the Oregon coast and is about a small town occupied by Native American Indians and Irish immigrants. The book has no quotation marks, little punctuation, sentence fragments, long run-on sentences, strange lists and it moves back and forth between present and past with total disregard for cues or transitions. Some scenes take place simultaneously with sentences alternating between one scene and the other. Sometimes they have common dialog. Oh, and one of the pivotal characters is a talking crow named Moses. (A bear talks too, but mostly he grumbles). The book was captivating. I only learned later that a reviewer recommended it be read as an epic poem rather than as a novel. So what? He wrote the way he wanted and it worked.
Another difference I have observed between readers and writers is that readers want to get outside themselves—to imagine other lives and situations. They want to enter other worlds and explore alternate lives. They want to see the world in all it’s variety from their armchairs. Writers want to go inside and find the other worlds within themselves and flesh that world out and share it with others in their writing. They create a reality that readers can believe and become part of and share if only for a while. How do they do that? They build it word by word.
A house may be all about its foundation and structure, but that’s not what we think of when we think of a house. We think about the things that happened there and the people who lived there. What’s going on there? Maybe it does matter if the house is dilapidated or well landscaped, but those are just clues to the character of the occupants. That’s where the meat is. No matter how lyrical the descriptions are, it’s the people we want to know about. What they do and why they do it or maybe even “who dun it”. Those things fire our imagination as no description of a meadow or sunset ever can. Not that I have anything against meadows (more interesting if a body is found there) or a sunset (pretty background for an ominous assignation).
I think what really feels good about writing is the sense that you have created something different. You have put words together to express your thoughts in a way that has never happened before--at least not quite this way. So you can sit back and say, “Yes, that’s what I think, that’s how I feel, that’s the way I imagined it.”