“If I can write just one decent short story, I’ll be satisfied.” –Donald Ray Pollack
If you have an opportunity, listen to this interview with author Donald Ray Pollack. It’s a hopeful yet grounded story of self-discovery, self-discipline and reinvention.
And on a personal note, I love the borrowed advice he shares for aspiring writers: type out short stories to learn their rhythms and textures.
I’m re-reading Writing Down the Bones to get myself pumped about the practice of writing. That word — practice — has been bothering me lately. I think my disgust is at least one part laziness and another naivety. What I mean by that is that when I see someone soar — in their element, doing their thing — I fail to acknowledge all they hours they put into it. I assume they take the stage and magic hits. So many artists, writers, athletes, performers, etc., when they tell their stories, recount how they’ve been doing whatever it is they do since they were born, or so it seems. Born to do what they do. Somehow I hear this and mistake their lifetime of practice for a mysterious gift. The truth is that it is some gift and a whole lot of practice, at least in most cases.
In Writing Down the Bones, the author suggests practice is like composting. As we add material to our pile, turn it over and apply heat, we develop a rich soil that will nourish the growth of new things. This was a helpful metaphor for me for a few reasons:
Along these lines, I’ve been feeling the need for more material for my pile -- or rather, the ability to recognize it. A full day in a downtown office can leave me feeling as sterile as the building I work in, my thoughts as monotonous as the offices filled with identical furniture, and as emptied as the streets here after 7pm (this is downtown Los Angeles, after all… some cafes here don’t even open on the weekends!). So I’m brainstorming ways to add to my pile. I made a short list to remind myself of where I find inspiration:
And now I turn to you, dear readers: How do you find material to nourish your craft or your life? Please share anything and everything! Let’s get some piles turning.
Another update: You can find the reading from the book here.
Photo free-write is regular feature on revisions blog. Each post includes a photo that inspired me in some way and the story, memory or reflection it prompted. These entries are as un-edited as I get here.
Thunderstorms are one of the best parts of East Coast summers. A Pennsylvania girl until I was 24, I was shocked when a friend who had moved from Southern California told me there were rarely thunderstorms where she grew up. What was summer without the frenzy of booms and bright flashes of lightning in the afternoon or evening? One time I drove to the airport to fetch this same friend when she returned from a trip to visit family, and not 10 minutes from our apartment a thunderstorm started, and the rain became so thick that I had to pull over until it slowed. In the parking lot where I stopped, water flowed like a shallow stream around car tires. And then, like that, it was over.
What I love most about thunderstorms is what comes after. The air that had been thick with humidity just minutes earlier is torn in two, like a veil. End even with sticks and leaves strewn about, torn off trees by winds and rain, a dead calm comes around. If we’re really lucky, the sun will start to show, giving us a rainbow or gleaming drops on green grass. It only lasts a minute, but if you’re still long enough to catch it, the moment is like a meditation. I guess you could say that thunderstorms remake us.
(photo by Melissa at boo21smom and darbysdaily.blogspot.com, spotted on Poppytalk summer color week. She says, “The photo was taken on a road outside of Fredericksburg, VA during a thunderstorm in early June.”)
Those of us who read the books we read, fiction or non-fiction, because we want to get into another character’s brain — I think we’re voyeurs, and that’s what we’re looking for in our books. -Nancy Pearl, NPR interview
This morning I wanted to share with you this short spot from NPR about good summer reads. All of the books sound fabulous, and the cover art and titles alone make me want to rush out and buy a few of these.
The quote came at the end of the radio interview, and I totally resonated with the idea of wanting to get into somebody else’s brain or life. (A few months ago, helping a friend pack up her things for a move, I happily busied myself wrapping photo frames and packing books, allowed passage into new territory in this friend's life.) Thankfully, Ms. Pearl's observation encourages me to channel my voyeuristic tendencies into reading a few of these books instead of romping around facebook.
On my summer reading list: The Chronicles of Narnia (already finished the first two books), hopefully some E.M. Forster, and I've been meaning to read Silent Spring. Hopefully also some poetry.
What are you reading now, or this summer? And what are your goals in reading? Purely educational, escaping into a new story, getting into someone else's skin?
