I paced the bedroom, practicing a speech, when a red-headed woodpecker lit on the balcony railing. I'd never before seen so clearly the stunning black and white face, topped with a red beret. "Hello, beautiful," I said.
The speech, entitled Stepping Out, focused on the second stage of the creative process. For years I've helped people with the first step: gathering courage and carving out the time and space to get a something on the page. Now, the Publishing Project has illuminated the necessity for a second step: a workshop focusing on the spit and polish of crafting a lucid work out of the raw material. Often people picture editing as a thin-lipped teacher slashing through a manuscript with a red pencil, circling everything that's wrong. While this negative critic must be kicked out of the room in order to begin a work, eventually, he must be invited back in and received as a creative genius who can joyfully enhance the work at hand.
"The best writing is rewriting." E.B. White
I bought a little red digital recorder, thinking that the seven minute speech might be sent to various creative people. I put on my new red shoes and stepped out to Toastmasters. The seven minute speech turned into 8.5 minutes (all you Family Camp folk can just figure that everyone else sent me the snide remark you're contemplating). The recorder worked. I even figured out how to get the speech onto my computer. Someday one of my sons will help me get speeches on our website. Meanwhile, I can email Stepping Out to anyone who is interested.
That night I rested in a post-speech glow--and the relief of kicking off my new red shoes. Every speech (story, newsletter, drawing...) is a wrestling match against a mythical someone who threatens to judge your whole self in terms of a scrap of a speech or story. The fact is that your whole self can't be revealed in a single creative project. It takes a life time, it takes all of eternity, for the amazing creature that you are to be revealed. I thought about the woodpecker who had visited my balcony that morning. All its bright eyed, cocking red-headed beauty is only the smallest scrap of the wonders of God's whole self, the amazing richness of who he is and the magnificent splendor of his creation.
"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." -George Bernard Shaw
We postponed the Memoir Literary Party to Friday, October 2. (Today!) Seems like some people needed to do more living before discussing memoirs. I bought Inventing the Truth; the Art and Craft of Memoir edited by William Zinsser to wave around at the gathering. I read this series of talks by memoir writers ten years ago and totally enjoyed it. (See June 2000 newsletter.) I read it again this past month with equal enjoyment. Given that I'm on a reading-about-writing jag, I suggested to the First Tuesdays Writers (meets at 7:15) that we all bring in books about writing for our monthly meetings. In response I received that glassy-eyed stare which students give teachers in the wake of unpopular assignments. Very odd. I love reading about writing. Much easier than actually writing.
A couple of weeks ago I closed the store and went to the library to get some books on crocheting. I'd had a vision of an afghan--due no doubt to sleeping in the same condo with my daughter-in-law, who is a knitting fanatic. It feels a bit strange (maybe even fanatical) to leave the bookstore and go directly to the library. But Ellen had come by raving about a writing book by a suspense, thriller author that I wanted to check out. At the library, I discovered Worlds of Childhood, also by William Zinsser. Like Inventing the Truth, this book is a series of essays edited from talks by various authors, in this case writers of books for children. I especially loved Maurice Sendak's story about Where the Wild Things Are. He originally wanted it to be Where the Wild Horses Are--but he couldn't draw horses.
"We gather the jigsaw pieces of our experience and put them together in a story we tell and retell until we get the memory right." ~Maureen Murdock in Unreliable Truth; on Memoir and Memory
Tips, Tricks and Tools of the Trade will be an 4-week writing workshop on Mondays from 3 to 4:30, beginning October 26. Participants should bring two copies of a complete work of around 1000 words. There is the possibility we'll have an online class, too. The cost is $25. Suggested (but not required) books for the Workshop are Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Browne & King and/or On Writing Well by William Zinsser. RSVP
"If you are in difficulties with a book, try the element of surprise: attack it an an hour when it isn't expecting it." ~H.G. Wells
I came downstairs after running out of spit and polish for this newsletter and tripped over a pellet gun in the living room. Michael was at war against a certain woodpecker who was pecking away at our house. I'm hoping this has neither theological or creative significance. I'm also hoping he misses.
"I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm." ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
Blessings,
Alliee +