On my first night teaching a young writers' workshop at our local library, I stand in front of a roomful of twenty children and try to describe my writing process.
Writing, I tell the children after a brief discussion about where writers find ideas, can often feel as frustrating as trying to untangle a mass of knotted string.
You take a thread--an idea, perhaps, or an image, or a feeling, or anything, really--and you begin to pull it, teasing it out into the open, to see where it will lead you.
If you're lucky, I continue, that thread will lead to another idea or image. And, eventually, if you pull the thread long enough and refuse to let go, it may lead to a story.
I share some of the threads that have led to my stories... and explain how I came to write these stories... and read a few excerpts, hoping the children might begin to see how to shape their threads into stories of their own.
And then, after reading the excerpts, I explain how these threads--the very ones that they may spend so much time teasing and pulling--may often lead to nothing.
After lots of work, a writer might end up empty-handed, only to find himself or herself searching for yet another thread, another way into a story.
My aim in this discussion isn't to discourage the children but to illuminate the process of making stories.
I want these young writers to understand that the process is often messy: rarely does it follow a straight line but rather an unpredictable, often confusing, path.
Most of all, I want them to learn that only by taking risks and making a mess (mess = lots of false starts, dead ends, blind alleys, etc.) can a writer discover and begin to explore his or her story.
We spend a few minutes speaking about plot and characterization, of course, but not for very long because the children seem to know that a story needs a plot and characters to inhabit it.
Before the end of the hour, we open our journals and start writing... a two minute free-write that stretches to four, then five minutes.
After we finish, I give the children a chance to spend the rest of the session on their own stories or to continue exploring whatever subjects they may have found during the free-writes.
By the end of our time together, a few children come forward to share stories that they've started during the session.
Seeing their notebooks open to pages filled with freshly scribbled words lets me know that a certain kind of magic has taken place in the room. The children have tapped into their imaginations and started to write.
That's all that I'd hoped for, really, when I designed the session... that the children would be able to make a start, a beginning...
But even though the workshop seems to have gone well, the moment I leave the library I begin to worry that the idea of process is too abstract, too squishy, for children to grasp. And I think about how I might explore different aspects of writing stories in the next workshop.
On my way home I ask myself how I might talk about stories in a more concrete way and what I might do differently. I wonder if I should talk more about stories... about how to tell the difference between an idea and a story... and what makes a story work as a story.
Can I explain the basic building blocks of stories: scenes... and can I show the children how a scene works... and how it leads to the next scene... and the next... from the beginning of the story to the end?
And can I show how each scene reveals a change in the character, a progression that brings him or her closer to an ultimate goal?
Better yet, can I show each step a writer takes to create a story... from the initial idea to the burst of words to the messy trial-and-error required to find the shape of the story?
I'm not entirely sure that I can pull it off. But sometimes teaching, like writing, doesn't follow a straight line. The process requires that you take risks.
So, when I arrive home, I prepare a new lesson.
Will the plan work?
Check back next week. I'll let you know.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Skipping Stones
Have you ever tried skipping stones across a pond or lake?
For a few seconds the stone seems to come alive, suspended above the water in a series of invisible arcs, leaving only the memory of flight in the viewer's eye.
It takes practice to skip stones across the water in such a way that the stone barely touches the surface instead of plunking like a lead ball on the first throw.
First, you have to search the shoreline for just the right rock or pebble--not too large, not too small. What works best, I've found, is a relatively flat stone with rounded rather than sharp edges so it won't slice into the water.
Then, you have to throw the rock hard at just the right angle, using a side-arm motion combined with a delicate flick of the wrist, so the stone sustains enough momentum to skim the surface and skip across the water in a series of gravity-defying steps ... one, two, three ... sometimes four, five or ... six... depending on the thrower's skill.
Writing requires the same kind of practice and artistry. If you set the words down at just the right angle, they will pull a reader's eye across the surface of the page much like a well-tossed stone draws the eye skipping from one splash to the next in its flight across the water.
Very few writers can skip stones better than Robert B. Parker, the author of the Spenser mystery novels, who has just written his first novel for children, Edenville Owls.
If you've read any of the Spenser novels, you've already met Bobby Murphy, the main character and narrator of the Edenville Owls, because he resembles a younger version of Parker's successful adult protagonist, Spenser, a valiant sleuth who lives by a chivalrous code of ethics as he pursues criminals in the fight of good versus evil.
Bobby is already grappling with this code of ethics as he tries to figure out a way to protect his eighth grade teacher, Miss Delaney, from a man who appears one day outside his school and begins physically abusing her.
Bright and brave, Bobby enlists the help of his basketball teammates, the Edenville Owls of the title, as well as a girl--Joanie--who gives Bobby the courage and confidence (much as Guinivere inspired Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table) to do what he thinks is right to help Miss Delaney.
Parker is a master of plotting even if, at times, the characters appear to find their way through the thicket of tangled plot-lines with the not-so-hidden hand of the author. (Some reviewers complain that Parker's writing has the feel of a first draft, and while that may be true, he succeeds in getting most of the words right the first time.)
Much like Raymond Chandler, one of Parker's own literary heroes, and Hemingway, whose style is reflected in Parker's own spare prose, Parker crafts sentences that can take your breath away with their elegant conciseness. Again and again, he manages to weave an invisible hook within his sentences, deftly pulling the reader deeper into the story.
Here, for example, is how Parker writes about Bobby after the young boy discovers that staking out a house isn't the easiest thing in the world to do:
And then there is the seemingly effortless way that Parker skips details across the page. With just a flick of his wrist, he paints a scene. The words have a kind of zing, an energy that pulls the reader along, as here:
He's the kind of writer who is always luring readers deeper into the story with words that skim across the page like well-thrown stones skipping across the water.
For more information about Robert B. Parker and his work, visit his blog at:
http://robertbparker.typepad.com/
Or his website, which contains this interview: http://www.robertbparker.net/interview.htm
Or this interview in Booklist Online: http://www.booklistonline.com/default.aspx?page=show_product&pid=1986705
Plus, here's what other bloggers are saying about Edenville Owls:
http://melodom.blogspot.com/2007/04/new-robert-b.html
http://www.mysteryinkonline.com/2007/05/tribute_to_robe.html
For a few seconds the stone seems to come alive, suspended above the water in a series of invisible arcs, leaving only the memory of flight in the viewer's eye.
It takes practice to skip stones across the water in such a way that the stone barely touches the surface instead of plunking like a lead ball on the first throw.
First, you have to search the shoreline for just the right rock or pebble--not too large, not too small. What works best, I've found, is a relatively flat stone with rounded rather than sharp edges so it won't slice into the water.
Then, you have to throw the rock hard at just the right angle, using a side-arm motion combined with a delicate flick of the wrist, so the stone sustains enough momentum to skim the surface and skip across the water in a series of gravity-defying steps ... one, two, three ... sometimes four, five or ... six... depending on the thrower's skill.
Writing requires the same kind of practice and artistry. If you set the words down at just the right angle, they will pull a reader's eye across the surface of the page much like a well-tossed stone draws the eye skipping from one splash to the next in its flight across the water.
Very few writers can skip stones better than Robert B. Parker, the author of the Spenser mystery novels, who has just written his first novel for children, Edenville Owls.
If you've read any of the Spenser novels, you've already met Bobby Murphy, the main character and narrator of the Edenville Owls, because he resembles a younger version of Parker's successful adult protagonist, Spenser, a valiant sleuth who lives by a chivalrous code of ethics as he pursues criminals in the fight of good versus evil.
Bobby is already grappling with this code of ethics as he tries to figure out a way to protect his eighth grade teacher, Miss Delaney, from a man who appears one day outside his school and begins physically abusing her.
Bright and brave, Bobby enlists the help of his basketball teammates, the Edenville Owls of the title, as well as a girl--Joanie--who gives Bobby the courage and confidence (much as Guinivere inspired Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table) to do what he thinks is right to help Miss Delaney.
Parker is a master of plotting even if, at times, the characters appear to find their way through the thicket of tangled plot-lines with the not-so-hidden hand of the author. (Some reviewers complain that Parker's writing has the feel of a first draft, and while that may be true, he succeeds in getting most of the words right the first time.)
Much like Raymond Chandler, one of Parker's own literary heroes, and Hemingway, whose style is reflected in Parker's own spare prose, Parker crafts sentences that can take your breath away with their elegant conciseness. Again and again, he manages to weave an invisible hook within his sentences, deftly pulling the reader deeper into the story.
Here, for example, is how Parker writes about Bobby after the young boy discovers that staking out a house isn't the easiest thing in the world to do:
Standing alone in the dark on the empty street, I felt like a fool. My eyes teared a little. What a jerk, I thought. You thought it would be like the movies. Stake out the house and in two minutes the bad guys show up and the action starts. The movies didn't show you the hero standing around in the cold hour after hour, needing to take a leak, wishing he had something to eat. Getting nowhere. Seeing nothing. Doing no good. And what about friendship? All those war movies where guys were heroically dying for each other. A little boredom. A little cold weather and the Owls flew away in the night. The hell with them. But I couldn't say the hell with them. We had a game tomorrow. I looked at the blank ungrateful front of the two-family house where Miss Delaney lived. There were things you can't do anything about. The thought scared me. It made me feel kind of helpless. But there it was. I turned and headed home.Parker's especially gifted at revealing the feelings of an adolescent boy first encountering the stirrings of love, as in this scene:
Nick was the first one of us to have a regular date, and the first one of us to ever be invited to the Boat Club. The rest of us sort of followed Nick and Joanie at a distance, and hung around outside. I don't know quite why. Wanted to see what was up, I guess.He's also amazingly adept at crafting scenes with dialogue to move the plot forward:
The thing was, I felt funny about it. I felt funny about her asking Nick and funny about feeling funny about it. I didn't exactly wish she hadn't asked him. And I didn't exactly wish she had asked me. I guess I wished she hadn't asked anyone and had, instead, come down and sat on the deserted bandstand with me.
I was with Joanie in the bowling alley, sitting in the back row of benches, having a Coke, watching them bowl.As a result of obtaining the yearbook, Bobby and Joanie can examine not only Miss Delaney's college picture but the pictures of other members of the class in the hope of identifying the man who is abusing her. It's with this kind of sleight of hand that Parker advances the plot.
"I went to see Miss Delaney," she said.
"You did?"
"After school," Joanie said. "The day after we found out about that guy Richard Kraus."
"You didn't say anything did you?"
"Nothing bad," she said. "I told her I was starting to think about college."
"College?" I said. "We're in the eighth grade."
Joanie ignored me.
"And she said that was wise, it was never too early."
"Okay," I said.
"So I told her I was wondering where she went," Joanie said.
"Miss Delaney?"
"Yes, and she told me Colby College."
"Where's that?" I said.
"In Maine someplace," Joanie said.
"Who wants to go to college in Maine?" I said.
"And I said did she have a yearbook or something I could look at, and she gave me hers. She brought it in the next day."
"Her college yearbook?" I said.
Joanie reached into her book bag and pulled the yearbook out...
And then there is the seemingly effortless way that Parker skips details across the page. With just a flick of his wrist, he paints a scene. The words have a kind of zing, an energy that pulls the reader along, as here:
He had been behind the wharf office shed, and now he was in full view in the moonlight walking up toward the bandstand. Tupper was holding his big knife low in front of him, moving it back and forth toward us. When he heard Nick, he pivoted in that direction and waved the knife at him.Or here:
I wasn't as scared anymore. My heart was still beating very hard. But I didn't feel so sick to my stomach now. In the moonlight everything looked pale. But I thought that Tupper looked paler than the rest of us. And even though it was kind of chilly, there was sweat on his face. He backed up onto the bandstand again.So, if you want to study how a writer constructs a sentence, take a look at Parker's newest effort.
He's the kind of writer who is always luring readers deeper into the story with words that skim across the page like well-thrown stones skipping across the water.
For more information about Robert B. Parker and his work, visit his blog at:
http://robertbparker.typepad.com/
Or his website, which contains this interview: http://www.robertbparker.net/interview.htm
Or this interview in Booklist Online: http://www.booklistonline.com/default.aspx?page=show_product&pid=1986705
Plus, here's what other bloggers are saying about Edenville Owls:
http://melodom.blogspot.com/2007/04/new-robert-b.html
http://www.mysteryinkonline.com/2007/05/tribute_to_robe.html
Sunday, July 15, 2007
One Writer's Process: Sarah Weeks
Her wit and humor, as well as her quirky characters and graceful writing, are only a few of the reasons why Sarah Weeks' picture books and novels have found such a wide audience since she began writing children's books in the early 1990's.
Weeks, a singer and songwriter as well as a children's author, has written more than thirty picture books and eleven novels, including her popular middle grade series--Boyds Will Be Boyds--and her Guy novels--Regular Guy, Guy Time, Guy Wire, and My Guy--which will soon be made into a feature film by Disney.
Her picture books such as Crockodile Smile, If I Were A Lion, and Mrs. McNosh Hangs Up Her Wash have been described as "invitingly innovative" (SLJ), "tremendous read aloud possibilities" (Kirkus), and "a storytime must" (SLJ)... and her YA novel, So B. It, about a young girl who lives an unconventional lifestyle with her mentally disabled mother, earned Weeks numerous honors, including a Parent's Choice Gold Award and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults 2004.
Weeks' latest book, Jumping the Scratch, was a 2006 Book Sense Summer Children's Pick, and reviewers have written that "...readers will care about the characters and applaud their well-deserved triumphs." (Booklist)
"I’ve written quite a few books now and one thing I’ve discovered along the way," writes Weeks, "is that the process of creating characters and telling a story is completely different for me with each book."
Weeks continues: "I never know where the idea is going to come from or what will catch my interest and end up becoming a theme or a character or a plot twist in a story. I have tried more than once to create an outline because I have a feeling it might be easier to write if I knew where my story was going ahead of time, but it just doesn’t seem to work for me. The minute I try to make a plan, my mind leaps over the fence and starts running like mad in another direction."
When Weeks isn't writing her songs or children's books, she teaches in the Writing Program at the New School in New York, where she lives with her two sons. Recently, she was kind enough to take time away from her work to share some thoughts on writing with Wordswimmer.
Wordswimmer: How do you get into the water each day?
Weeks: Generally speaking, I'm a morning writer. I like to get up, put on a pot of coffee (hazelnut decaf, actually) and write all morning. I try to keep away from e-mail and phone calls, both of which can easily de-rail me if I'm on a roll.
If I'm in the middle of working on a book, I tend to want to re-read from the beginning before I write further. It's time-consuming, but I always feel like that launches me properly back into the voice of the piece.
Wordswimmer: What keeps you afloat...for short work? For longer work?
Weeks: I really have to like what I'm working on. If I feel like I don't want to work on something, it usually means it's not right. Along the way, if I feel like I'm getting lost in the process, sometimes I show my editor a work-in-progress so that she can help me get back on track. It took me years to get to a place where I could do this. It's the ultimate in trust.
Wordswimmer: How do you keep swimming through dry spells?
Weeks: I recently went through my first episode of writer's block. It was AWFUL. I felt self-conscious and depressed. I took many hot baths, cried, screamed, talked to anyone who was willing to listen to me whine and, finally, I just glued myself into the chair and wrote until the log jam broke. Man, was I relieved when it did.
Wordswimmer: What's the hardest part of swimming?
Weeks: For me, it's the fact that I don't outline. If I could write with an outline, I think the process would be much faster for me. I've tried forcing myself to outline, but I always end up feeling trapped. I like to make my characters talk and see where that leads me. Sometimes the route is circuitous, but eventually I always seem to get there.
Wordswimmer: How do you overcome obstacles, problems, when swimming alone?
Weeks: I rely on my editors for sage advice. Choosing the right editor is kind of like choosing the right person to marry. You have to love, trust and respect that person, and the fit has to be right.
Wordswimmer: What's the part of swimming that you love the most?
Weeks: I love the times when I completely lose track of time, when I make myself laugh or cry. Those are the best. That, and finally finishing a book. That feels AMAZING.
Wordswimmer: Thanks so much, Sarah.
For more information about Sarah Weeks, visit her website at
http://www.sarahweeks.com/or her blog at http://2.sarahweeks.com/
And for a brief summary of her work, visit http://www.answers.com/topic/sarah-weeks?cat=entertainment
Weeks, a singer and songwriter as well as a children's author, has written more than thirty picture books and eleven novels, including her popular middle grade series--Boyds Will Be Boyds--and her Guy novels--Regular Guy, Guy Time, Guy Wire, and My Guy--which will soon be made into a feature film by Disney.
Her picture books such as Crockodile Smile, If I Were A Lion, and Mrs. McNosh Hangs Up Her Wash have been described as "invitingly innovative" (SLJ), "tremendous read aloud possibilities" (Kirkus), and "a storytime must" (SLJ)... and her YA novel, So B. It, about a young girl who lives an unconventional lifestyle with her mentally disabled mother, earned Weeks numerous honors, including a Parent's Choice Gold Award and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults 2004.
Weeks' latest book, Jumping the Scratch, was a 2006 Book Sense Summer Children's Pick, and reviewers have written that "...readers will care about the characters and applaud their well-deserved triumphs." (Booklist)
"I’ve written quite a few books now and one thing I’ve discovered along the way," writes Weeks, "is that the process of creating characters and telling a story is completely different for me with each book."
Weeks continues: "I never know where the idea is going to come from or what will catch my interest and end up becoming a theme or a character or a plot twist in a story. I have tried more than once to create an outline because I have a feeling it might be easier to write if I knew where my story was going ahead of time, but it just doesn’t seem to work for me. The minute I try to make a plan, my mind leaps over the fence and starts running like mad in another direction."
When Weeks isn't writing her songs or children's books, she teaches in the Writing Program at the New School in New York, where she lives with her two sons. Recently, she was kind enough to take time away from her work to share some thoughts on writing with Wordswimmer.
Wordswimmer: How do you get into the water each day?
Weeks: Generally speaking, I'm a morning writer. I like to get up, put on a pot of coffee (hazelnut decaf, actually) and write all morning. I try to keep away from e-mail and phone calls, both of which can easily de-rail me if I'm on a roll.
If I'm in the middle of working on a book, I tend to want to re-read from the beginning before I write further. It's time-consuming, but I always feel like that launches me properly back into the voice of the piece.
Wordswimmer: What keeps you afloat...for short work? For longer work?
Weeks: I really have to like what I'm working on. If I feel like I don't want to work on something, it usually means it's not right. Along the way, if I feel like I'm getting lost in the process, sometimes I show my editor a work-in-progress so that she can help me get back on track. It took me years to get to a place where I could do this. It's the ultimate in trust.
Wordswimmer: How do you keep swimming through dry spells?
Weeks: I recently went through my first episode of writer's block. It was AWFUL. I felt self-conscious and depressed. I took many hot baths, cried, screamed, talked to anyone who was willing to listen to me whine and, finally, I just glued myself into the chair and wrote until the log jam broke. Man, was I relieved when it did.
Wordswimmer: What's the hardest part of swimming?
Weeks: For me, it's the fact that I don't outline. If I could write with an outline, I think the process would be much faster for me. I've tried forcing myself to outline, but I always end up feeling trapped. I like to make my characters talk and see where that leads me. Sometimes the route is circuitous, but eventually I always seem to get there.
Wordswimmer: How do you overcome obstacles, problems, when swimming alone?
Weeks: I rely on my editors for sage advice. Choosing the right editor is kind of like choosing the right person to marry. You have to love, trust and respect that person, and the fit has to be right.
Wordswimmer: What's the part of swimming that you love the most?
Weeks: I love the times when I completely lose track of time, when I make myself laugh or cry. Those are the best. That, and finally finishing a book. That feels AMAZING.
Wordswimmer: Thanks so much, Sarah.
For more information about Sarah Weeks, visit her website at
http://www.sarahweeks.com/or her blog at http://2.sarahweeks.com/
And for a brief summary of her work, visit http://www.answers.com/topic/sarah-weeks?cat=entertainment
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Swimming With My Brother
When we were young boys, my brother and I swam in the surf off Montauk Point.
We spent hours leaning into the strong waves, ducking under as the swirling foam crashed onto the beach, and pulling ourselves back to our feet, only to plunge into the icy water again and swim a few yards before another wave slammed into us and we'd stagger back to shore.
Those were days when it felt like we were swimming inside one of Childe Hassam's sparkling seascapes. The sky was the brilliant blue of childhood, the sea endless and rich with possibilities, and the shore a starting point on which to launch our dreams.
Day after day on those family vacations we sent our dreams sailing out past the lighthouse at Montauk Point, all the way across the wide Atlantic to Spain... and further... never knowing which dreams might reach the other shore and come true and which might evaporate like the mist rising off the sea on a foggy morning.
We swam side-by-side year after year, and we continued swimming together long after our childhood ended and we entered adulthood and our family stopped making our annual summer drive east from northern New Jersey to the end of Long Island.
By then Montauk had changed from a sleepy fishing village to a glitzy town and wharf where tourists could dine in luxury overlooking the harbor or wander through expensive shops, and we had changed, too, each of us setting off on our own journeys.
Yet we continued to swim together... in a sea of words... as we made our way into publishing, working at different houses over the years, and then into journalism, and, finally, into the sea of our own writing.
While I fell in love with stories and books for children, my brother discovered haiku poetry, and some of his poems now appear in a hand-crafted book of his own making called Peace and War: A Collection of Haiku from Israel by Rick Black.
It was in Israel, where my brother worked as a journalist, that he found himself first confronted with these startling images of peace and war. He couldn't write about the ironic juxtaposition of these images in his journalistic reports. But haiku enabled him to capture that sense of irony in surprising ways.
Here are a few samples:
In the book's Afterward, poet (and friend) Kwame Dawes writes that "to see this world, to truly engage this world, the poet has to maintain a dual vision."
Somehow the poems reveal the "contradiction in a land that is at once beautiful and startlingly ugly," Dawes notes, "a world that achieves peacefulness even while war is constantly present."
"There is a plea for hope in the final verse...," Dawes concludes. "In many ways, it will become for you, as it has for me, a deeply felt prayer."
It's been years since I swam with my brother off Montauk Point. Yet holding his book in my hands, I can taste the sea again and see his words rising off the page like early morning mist and hear in his voice the call of gulls and the sound of the foghorn.
His poems contain the feelings that surge within one's heart on touching the sea or, really, any part of the world's mystery. And reading through these poems, it feels as if we're swimming once more off the coast of our childhood, each poem a reminder of the dreams and prayers that we shared years ago... and still share today.
If you'd like to learn more about Peace and War or Rick Black's work as a book artist, visit his website: http://www.turtlelightpress.com/
And if you'd like to make your own book, here are a few book-artists who share their thoughts:
http://www.fiveandahalf.net/blog/2006/07/07/a-book-for-your-thoughts/
http://ashevillebookgirl.blogspot.com/2007/04/book-pix.html
http://www.peculiarplanet.com/books/index.htm
http://cailun.info/
And here are a few places where you can attend classes and discover the pleasure of book-making:
The New York's Center for Book Arts at http://www.centerforbookarts.org/newsite/
The San Francisco Center for the Book at http://www.sfcb.org/
BookWorks Studio, Asheville, NC at http://www.ashevillebookworks.com/
If you'd like to try writing haiku, you might check out these resources:
http://www.worldwidefreelance.com/articles/haiku.htm
http://spice.stanford.edu/digests/Japan/haiku.html
http://haikuguy.com/issa/abouthaiku.html
http://www.gigglepoetry.com/poetryclass/Haiku.html
We spent hours leaning into the strong waves, ducking under as the swirling foam crashed onto the beach, and pulling ourselves back to our feet, only to plunge into the icy water again and swim a few yards before another wave slammed into us and we'd stagger back to shore.
Those were days when it felt like we were swimming inside one of Childe Hassam's sparkling seascapes. The sky was the brilliant blue of childhood, the sea endless and rich with possibilities, and the shore a starting point on which to launch our dreams.
Day after day on those family vacations we sent our dreams sailing out past the lighthouse at Montauk Point, all the way across the wide Atlantic to Spain... and further... never knowing which dreams might reach the other shore and come true and which might evaporate like the mist rising off the sea on a foggy morning.
We swam side-by-side year after year, and we continued swimming together long after our childhood ended and we entered adulthood and our family stopped making our annual summer drive east from northern New Jersey to the end of Long Island.
By then Montauk had changed from a sleepy fishing village to a glitzy town and wharf where tourists could dine in luxury overlooking the harbor or wander through expensive shops, and we had changed, too, each of us setting off on our own journeys.
Yet we continued to swim together... in a sea of words... as we made our way into publishing, working at different houses over the years, and then into journalism, and, finally, into the sea of our own writing.
While I fell in love with stories and books for children, my brother discovered haiku poetry, and some of his poems now appear in a hand-crafted book of his own making called Peace and War: A Collection of Haiku from Israel by Rick Black.
It was in Israel, where my brother worked as a journalist, that he found himself first confronted with these startling images of peace and war. He couldn't write about the ironic juxtaposition of these images in his journalistic reports. But haiku enabled him to capture that sense of irony in surprising ways.
Here are a few samples:
a bumper sticker
by the war memorial
"a time to love..."
just an olive tree
and a peeling mural are left
yitzhak rabin square
off to lebanon
air force cadet absorbed in
Love's Labor's Lost
just buried soldier--
too soon for his mother to
notice the crocus
last clouds--In this book are my brother's hopes and dreams for peace in a land filled with images of war. The haiku are riveting, crystal-like in their sharpness, emotionally arresting in their clarity of overlapping images of war and peace in a land so well-known for its messages of hope.
if only the violence would
drift away, too
In the book's Afterward, poet (and friend) Kwame Dawes writes that "to see this world, to truly engage this world, the poet has to maintain a dual vision."
Somehow the poems reveal the "contradiction in a land that is at once beautiful and startlingly ugly," Dawes notes, "a world that achieves peacefulness even while war is constantly present."
"There is a plea for hope in the final verse...," Dawes concludes. "In many ways, it will become for you, as it has for me, a deeply felt prayer."
It's been years since I swam with my brother off Montauk Point. Yet holding his book in my hands, I can taste the sea again and see his words rising off the page like early morning mist and hear in his voice the call of gulls and the sound of the foghorn.
His poems contain the feelings that surge within one's heart on touching the sea or, really, any part of the world's mystery. And reading through these poems, it feels as if we're swimming once more off the coast of our childhood, each poem a reminder of the dreams and prayers that we shared years ago... and still share today.
If you'd like to learn more about Peace and War or Rick Black's work as a book artist, visit his website: http://www.turtlelightpress.com/
And if you'd like to make your own book, here are a few book-artists who share their thoughts:
http://www.fiveandahalf.net/blog/2006/07/07/a-book-for-your-thoughts/
http://ashevillebookgirl.blogspot.com/2007/04/book-pix.html
http://www.peculiarplanet.com/books/index.htm
http://cailun.info/
And here are a few places where you can attend classes and discover the pleasure of book-making:
The New York's Center for Book Arts at http://www.centerforbookarts.org/newsite/
The San Francisco Center for the Book at http://www.sfcb.org/
BookWorks Studio, Asheville, NC at http://www.ashevillebookworks.com/
If you'd like to try writing haiku, you might check out these resources:
http://www.worldwidefreelance.com/articles/haiku.htm
http://spice.stanford.edu/digests/Japan/haiku.html
http://haikuguy.com/issa/abouthaiku.html
http://www.gigglepoetry.com/poetryclass/Haiku.html
Sunday, July 01, 2007
The Flow of Water
A few weeks ago, as I finished a morning of revisions, I realized that something was different in the way that I felt about the most recent draft of a work-in-progress.
I had reached a new stage in the process.
Often, as I set off on drafts--first drafts, especially--I rarely have any idea where I'm going. I step into the water and let the current take me and pray that I'll find my way to the end of the story.
It takes many revisions before I have a clear idea of where the story is flowing, and even then it's rare that I can find my way further downstream without worrying about the ending.
But this time, with the ending firmly in sight, I found that I could pay attention to the details of scenes close at hand: a bend in the river, an unexpected pool, a steep decline toward a smooth stretch of river, a few hundred yards of rapids.
When I don't yet know the ending, the writing feels like a mad rush to get words on paper before the story dissolves in a crash of waves or disappears beneath the surface.
But once the first draft is done, or, rather, once the ending appears, I can use that draft as a helpful outline of sorts to work my way into the next draft... and the next... so that each draft helps deepen my understanding of the story.
At a certain stage in the process, instead of rushing past scenes to discover what happens next, I find myself spending more time with the characters--learning who they are, what they might do, where they might go.
The time that I spend slowing down and feeling my way into the skins of each character helps me better understand what happens next in a story. Plus, slowing down gives me a chance to focus on details to flesh out a character, as well as on how scenes can be connected and how the pieces of a plot can help build suspense.
When you slow down like this, you can submerge yourself in a scene, swim from moment to moment, and emerge at the end of the scene ... and continue downstream... without fearing that you'll lose the thread of the story.
Here's what Bernard Malamud once said about his revision process:
If you're wrestling with a story, not quite sure about the "exquisite pleasure" of revision, perhaps it might help to think of first drafts as access-roads into the mystery, a way to carve a path into unknown territory that's never been mapped before.
Once you've finished your first draft, you've got a map, a way of understanding where your story's going. And that knowledge can help you deepen the story as you accumulate more and more insights into why certain characters act the way they do.
As you learn more about your story and your characters in each draft, you may find that you can begin taking greater risks without fear of losing the story.
With a first draft in your drawer, you can swim forward knowing how the story unfolds and spend more time exploring the thread that links one scene to the next and how the character's main struggle drives the narrative forward like a current pulsing under the surface of the water.
You no longer have to worry about where the current will lead you. Instead, you can fill in empty spaces, answer questions, deepen characters, and fine-tune the plot.
Each draft is a different stage in the flow of your story, the process of your story becoming... a story.
If you're interested in more information about the revision process, you might visit:
http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/one-pass-revision.html
http://writerunboxed.com/2006/09/28/its-done/
http://www.rachelsimon.com/wg_revision.htm
And for an interview with Bernard Malamud in The Paris Review, take a look at:
http://www.theparisreview.com/media/3869_MALAMUD.pdf
I had reached a new stage in the process.
Often, as I set off on drafts--first drafts, especially--I rarely have any idea where I'm going. I step into the water and let the current take me and pray that I'll find my way to the end of the story.
It takes many revisions before I have a clear idea of where the story is flowing, and even then it's rare that I can find my way further downstream without worrying about the ending.
But this time, with the ending firmly in sight, I found that I could pay attention to the details of scenes close at hand: a bend in the river, an unexpected pool, a steep decline toward a smooth stretch of river, a few hundred yards of rapids.
When I don't yet know the ending, the writing feels like a mad rush to get words on paper before the story dissolves in a crash of waves or disappears beneath the surface.
But once the first draft is done, or, rather, once the ending appears, I can use that draft as a helpful outline of sorts to work my way into the next draft... and the next... so that each draft helps deepen my understanding of the story.
At a certain stage in the process, instead of rushing past scenes to discover what happens next, I find myself spending more time with the characters--learning who they are, what they might do, where they might go.
The time that I spend slowing down and feeling my way into the skins of each character helps me better understand what happens next in a story. Plus, slowing down gives me a chance to focus on details to flesh out a character, as well as on how scenes can be connected and how the pieces of a plot can help build suspense.
When you slow down like this, you can submerge yourself in a scene, swim from moment to moment, and emerge at the end of the scene ... and continue downstream... without fearing that you'll lose the thread of the story.
Here's what Bernard Malamud once said about his revision process:
“I would write a book, or a short story, at least three times--once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to compel it to say what it still must say. Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one's fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to re-form it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.”Lately, the more time that I spend on revisions, the more I'm beginning to understand Malamud's approach toward revision as "one of the exquisite pleasures of writing."
If you're wrestling with a story, not quite sure about the "exquisite pleasure" of revision, perhaps it might help to think of first drafts as access-roads into the mystery, a way to carve a path into unknown territory that's never been mapped before.
Once you've finished your first draft, you've got a map, a way of understanding where your story's going. And that knowledge can help you deepen the story as you accumulate more and more insights into why certain characters act the way they do.
As you learn more about your story and your characters in each draft, you may find that you can begin taking greater risks without fear of losing the story.
With a first draft in your drawer, you can swim forward knowing how the story unfolds and spend more time exploring the thread that links one scene to the next and how the character's main struggle drives the narrative forward like a current pulsing under the surface of the water.
You no longer have to worry about where the current will lead you. Instead, you can fill in empty spaces, answer questions, deepen characters, and fine-tune the plot.
Each draft is a different stage in the flow of your story, the process of your story becoming... a story.
If you're interested in more information about the revision process, you might visit:
http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/one-pass-revision.html
http://writerunboxed.com/2006/09/28/its-done/
http://www.rachelsimon.com/wg_revision.htm
And for an interview with Bernard Malamud in The Paris Review, take a look at:
http://www.theparisreview.com/media/3869_MALAMUD.pdf
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