If you don’t follow the words when they come,

If you don’t follow the words when they come,

if you fail to pay attention or

if you think you can find them later or

if you make the mistake of ignoring them or

if you believe they’re unimportant or

if you hope you’ll be able to draw them out of thin air sometime later, 

maybe when you have the time, 

or maybe after dinner, 

or maybe just before you get into bed, or

if you put off writing just because you’re embarrassed 

to stand still in the middle of the sidewalk 

typing on your phone or jotting in your notebook 

as people pass you by 

afraid they’ll think you’re rude 

not to say hello or acknowledge those around you, 

if you don’t follow the words the moment they appear, 

listen, I’m telling you 

they’ll fade into the mist and disappear 

and it’s rare—if ever—that you’ll find them again, 

they’ll desert you in search of someone else prepared 

to hear their call, someone listening with an open heart 

the way you need to listen patiently for days or weeks or months, 

for however long it takes, for the sound you’ve been waiting 

and wanting to hear, and you—

you, the one who couldn’t spare a moment, 

who pretended not to hear anything—

if you don't follow the words when they come,

you’ll be left empty handed with nothing more than 

a faint dream of what might have been 

on the blank page in front of you .

Out of thin air

It's always hard to let go,

to put down your pen,

to take a break.

You don't want to lose

the connection you make

with yourself when you write.

So you debate with yourself--

stop or keep going?

Keep listening or not?

The thing is you never 

know what you'll find

if you keep waiting.

You never know if something 

will fly across the sky and 

you'll catch a glimpse

and suddenly the words

you need to write 

will appear

like magic

out of 

thin air.

But only if you

stay in your chair

and keep waiting

listening to the silence,

staring at the page

in anticipation of

whatever 

might come 

out of nowhere.

Each Story Begins With a Choice

Every time we sit down to write, we must make a choice.

Do we play it safe or do we take a risk?

Do we create a story that lets us feel safe and grounded, a story that removes danger (and threats of danger) from our world?

Or do we create a story that forces us to climb a high wire and take risks, to reach into the dark box of our hidden (and not-so-hidden) fears and confront them?

For most of us, it’s not a choice that we’re aware of as we begin to move our pens across the page.

In that moment of beginning, we write what we need to write, exploring our imaginations, memories, and experiences in ways that we hope will help us understand who we are and how we came to be who we are.

But by its very nature, the act of writing involves taking risks. 

So, when we set out to describe the world--either the physical one that we inhabit or the one that we see in our imagination--that simple act of description can feel like a risk, an act of defiance.

Perhaps that's because in describing the world in which we live, we are trying to share what someone told us never to share or because we’re revealing stories that we thought always had to be hidden.

  

When we write, we take the risk of showing our true self and letting others hear our voice, our thoughts, our opinions.

When we write--whether we’re writing a novel, short story, memoir, essay, or poem--we end up testing ourselves against the expectations and standards of our field, and risk criticism, negative comments, and displeased readers. 

When we write, we take the scariest risk of all, which involves stepping across a line that has been declared off limits.

We don’t always know why it’s forbidden to cross the line.

And we don’t always know who forbade us to cross it.

We only know that we need to cross that line in order to open the box of secrets inside ourselves and find the hidden stories that are waiting for us to write.

It's only when we take these kinds of risks in our writing and cross these invisible boundary lines that our stories come to life with energy bubbling beneath the surface.

Taking risks is what helps us create and foster curiosity in our readers about how we will deal (successfully or unsuccessfully) with the emotional and psychological fallout of taking such risks.

So, remember: each time you write, you must make a choice.

You can choose to stay safely on the ground.

Or you can choose to climb up to the high wire and make your way across it.

Sometimes, as you write, you might not see the high wire. You may not even see that you have a choice to climb it. But the wire--and the choice--is there each time you sit down to write.

Do you choose to take the risk and suffer the pain and embarrassment of falling from the high wire if you miss a step?

If you’ve spent enough years writing, you know that falling isn’t the end of the story.

It’s only the beginning.

White Water

In Down the Great Unknown, Edward Dolnick writes about John Wesley Powell and his crew of nine men whose exploration in 1869 took them down the Colorado River into the unknown terrain of the Grand Canyon.

As they set off in their wooden rowboats, Powell, a one-armed Civil War veteran, and his men had no idea what they would find because no one before them had mapped the Colorado River.

Each stage of the journey brought them into new and dangerous territory. The men never knew if another raging rapid was waiting for them around the bend or, worse, a waterfall that would plunge them to their deaths.

"Roughly speaking," writes Dolnick, "the danger in most rivers is dodging the rocks, whereas the danger in the Colorado is coping with the force of tons of water forming towering waves and holes ten feet deep and whirlpools like light-devouring black holes."

How many of us feel that we're facing similar dangers as we embark on new writing projects?

Of course, we expect to run into a few bumpy stretches as we push off into an unknown river, don't we?

Yet, like Powell and his men, we set off bravely into the water, letting the current take us.

And we spin downstream, paddling fast, spray spitting into our faces, hoping that we'll manage to evade most, if not all, of the rocks hidden beneath the surface as we navigate our way downstream.

But what happens when we encounter an unexpected wave that threatens to overturn our craft?

Or when we crash into sudden whirpools, like "light-devouring black holes," that can scuttle a project before it's even on paper?

When one of Powell's boats is caught in just such a wicked whirlpool, Sumner, one of the rowers, describes the experience afterward in the journal that he kept during the trip:

"...Dunn and I could not pull out of it to save our lives. It spun us round like a roulette wheel. I thought I saw a chance to get out as the boat spun round past a rock about thirty feet away. Seizing the rope in my teeth, I made a desperate plunge. Good lively swimming, combined with the momentum of my jump, enabled me to make the rock by a scratch. Seizing it with a death grip, I was able to pull the bow of the boat out of the swirl, whereupon it shot ahead like a scared rabbit."

In the same way that Sumner and his crew survive this whirlpool, writers have to find ways to swim through the black holes that threaten to engulf us and our projects.

Sumner relies on his wits under stress, letting the current spin him (because it's futile to fight it), and takes advantage of a rock that appears thirty feet away.

Using only the tools at his disposal--a rope and his teeth--he manages to reach the rock by jumping from the boat and swimming hard, then, once on "safe" ground, pulling the boat out of danger.

Isn't this what we must do as writers?

We let the current take us (especially if it's a powerful current), and, when finding ourselves in danger, use the tools at hand to swim for "safe" ground, even if it's only a rock in mid-stream, so that we can pull ourselves to safety and continue on our journey down the river.

"Such hazards make river running a high-stakes game of pinball, with the caveat that the boatman is both the player and the ball," writes Dolnick.

His words couldn't be more true for writers.

Listen to how Dolnick describes the art of running the river:

"The art in river running consists not in trying to outmuscle the river--no human stands a chance in that test of strength--but in identifying a path that leads smoothly downstream..."

And this:

"The trickiest zones are at the junctions where two 'moving sidewalks' merge or collide or interact in some still stranger way. The catch is that often the boatman must seek out these junctions, intentionally moving into harm's way, in order to maneuver downstream."

Like the boatmen, a writer sometimes need to move into "harm's way" intentionally in order to find the path that leads deeper into the story.

"The important thing to remember is that you're dancing with the river," John Running, a modern-day boatman, tells Dolnick, "and you're not leading."

Writing is a high-stakes game, too, and it's only by our wits and luck that we manage to make it down the river without capsizing or losing our boats against cliff walls or rocks threatening to break them apart.

Just like Powell and his crew, we're likely to find ourselves in trouble simply because it's the nature of the writing process.

Here's how Powell wrote about the dangers that he and his crew faced at a particularly troublesome spot on the river called Sockdolager (a 19th century expression for a crushing blow or knockout punch):

"Down in these grand, gloomy depths we glide, ever listening, for the mad waters keep up their roar; ever watching, ever peering ahead, for the narrow canyon is winding, and the river is closed in so that we can see but a few hundred yards, and what there may be below we know not."

He had no idea what lay beyond his sight, yet he kept going...

So, the next time that you find yourself gliding through the "gloomy depths" of your own project, not knowing what waits ahead, don't give into despair.

Think of Powell and his crew as they explored the "mad waters" of the Grand Canyon, not knowing if the next bend would lead them to their deaths or to the next rapid or to their goal of reaching the end of the canyon.

Somehow they found the inner resources and physical endurance to reach a place beyond which they'd never gone before.

And, like these early adventurers, you can find your way, too.

As for Dolnick's book, it's as suspenseful as any adventure novel, and written with as much grace and power as the Colorado River itself.

Not only is it a fascinating account of one of America's great expeditions, it's a sobering reminder of the risks that explorers--whether boatmen running unknown rivers or writers rafting down the unknown corridors of their imagination--take every day.

Most of all, it's an important testament to the perseverance, skill, luck, and courage that anyone needs when setting off into the unknown.

* * *

Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell's 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy Through the Grand Canyon is written by Edward Dolnick, the former chief science writer at the Boston Globe. He has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, and the Washington Post. To hear an NPR interview with Dolnick about the Powell expedition, check out: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1136665

Taking Risks

Two writers--Jack O'Rourke and J. Irvin Kuns--were kind enough to share their thoughts on risk-taking in response to my comments about taking risks in our work and not backing away from fear. (See "Diving Off the Edge," Nov. 13, 2005.)

Jack O’Rourke started the conversation:

"Chris Lynch ... takes a lot of risks in some of his work. Freewill comes to mind. Also a very early one, Gypsy Davy. Even a less literary one, Extreme Elvin, takes chances. For the joy of reading, Gold Dust scores high, even if less risky."

His comment--about a work that he felt required less risk--prompted J. Irvin Kuns to respond:

"I would like to address ... the element of risk involved in a book like Freewill vs. a book like Gold Dust, both written by Chris Lynch. I disagree with Jack’s implication that Gold Dust is less risky than Freewill mostly because I know a little bit about the impetus behind each of these books.

"Freewill came about in part as a result of the Columbine shootings and the placement of crosses for each of the victims, including the shooters. Gold Dust was written after Lynch ran into a former baseball teammate, the encounter forcing him to re-examine some rather uncomfortable childhood memories.

"To me, writing about the events surrounding something personal, especially one I’d rather not revisit, takes as much if not more courage than writing a book about an event that was somewhat more removed. But I also know that it was risky for Lynch to 'go there' with Will in the writing of Freewill and to live with him in his depressed state for the duration of the writing of the book.

"I haven’t had that much experience in novel writing, but I do know that each book I write changes me somehow. In light of that, I think it would be very scary indeed to write a book like Freewill. As a writer I think I would fear that I might never recover.

"So, I had been thinking a lot about Jack’s comments and finding myself unable to articulate exactly what was bothering me about them when I had the good fortune of meeting up with Chris Lynch at the recent NCTE convention. He was there to discuss his most recent young adult novel, Inexcusable, another very risky book as well as a National Book Award Finalist, no less.

"I asked him then which book, Freewill or Gold Dust, he thought was riskier. He immediately asked, 'For the reader or the writer?' My knee-jerk response was 'for the writer,' but after I thought about it, I realized that this was the distinction that was bothering me about Jack’s comment.

"Freewill may seem riskier for the reader, partly because it is written in second person and immerses the reader, from beginning to end, in Will’s depression. Gold Dust, on the other hand, might be easier on the reader, but I’m sure felt every bit as risky for the writer as did Freewill or any other book, for that matter."

For O'Rourke, though, the notion of risk is inherent in the choices an author makes in telling the story, such as those Lynch made to tell the story of Will in the rather unorthodox second-person point of view:

"I still have to say that Freewill is the riskier, both for the reader and the writer.

"For the writer there's the rarity and difficulty of writing in second-person point-of-view and keeping the reader engaged, demanding the reader interact with Will all the way through his depression, risking losing the reader who doesn't want to have Will lean on him/her all that terrible distance. It's my own salute to Lynch that he succeeded with me, but it was hard.

"Gold Dust, though, was an engrossing, spell-casting story all the way. There is rarely a character portrayed as fanatical about baseball and as likeable as Richard. Lynch's words propel this character through life in his Boston Ward with all the ease of last Olympic's gold medal girl who took her sledboard through all those pipes, half-pipes, and full flights with total confidence. I don't even like baseball, but I enjoyed Richard.

"Sure, Richard (white) has to face down racist talk/attitude from some locals about his friendship with Napoleon (West Indies black), and about Napoleon's friendship with the redhead, but I don't think that's taking very much risk with the reader today. I can't imagine anyone except maybe dispensable, non-reading Fifties retrogrades having problems today with such issues and how Richard navigates the situations.

"It wasn't delivered in the form of 'messages' either, it flowed smoothly with the story. Maybe I'm being too casual about the literary risk (not the story interest) of this conflict theme today, but I hope not. Kudos to Lynch."

But for Kuns the risk involves something different, not so much the stylistic risks that Lynch took but his willingness to risk exploring his feelings about a difficult, not entirely positive experience that he had in his life.

Here's what Lynch has written about the genesis of Gold Dust. (His comments appear in a HarperCollins flyer that Kuns shared with us.)

"The idea for Gold Dust came to me very slowly. In fact, it gestated in the back of my brain for 25 years. There are just some things, I think, that we bury among the trillions of small, important, and routine events of adolescence. And sometimes we bury them for significant reasons.

"The story here, and the character Napoleon, were based on my friendship with a guy named Michael Gray, who did in fact move to Boston from Dominica when we were about twelve. This was in the 70's. I was a catcher, and he was a pitcher who threw so hard I had to pack an extra inch of material inside my glove to protect my hand from the swelling. He'd learned the game by looking up the rules in a book the night before sign-up for the Regan Youth League. He joined because so many of us were doing it.

"That was the good stuff. The bad stuff, almost all of it, I had blocked out for years.

"In the 90's, Michael turned up in my life again, this time as the manager of my bank. One day during one or our banking conversations, Michael brought up the past. Didn't I remember? he wanted to know. Didn't I realize? He was talking about the one time the two of us got in a bit of a scrap. It hadn't come to much, but was unpleasant enough to attract the attention of all our mutual friends and admirers.

"Only the friends and admirers turned out to be not all that mutual. Not for him, anyway. Didn't I realize? he wanted to know two decades later. Didn't I notice?

"Michael turned into the invisible man after that fight. He was placed outside a glass wall. Inside the wall was almost everybody in my class, and me too. And there he was, the outsider. Totally ignored. Didn't exist.

"And I think I was the one who started it.

"After that, I started remembering. And I remembered that I remembered a lot more than I wanted to. And so, as a writer, I knew I had to go back. And that's Gold Dust."

Many thanks to Kuns and O'Rourke for pondering the nature of risk-taking as writers (and readers), and to Lynch, of course, for having the courage to "go back" and develop a seed of memory into a powerful work of fiction.

Have other Wordswimmers read or written stories that they feel take similar risks?

How would you define risk... for the writer? And how would the definition change, if at all... for the reader?

Do you think books that take risks are more significant than those that avoid risks? Why? (Or why not?)

Let Wordswimmer know when you get a chance.

Diving Off The Edge

Staring down at a blank page on some mornings can feel like standing on the edge of a high-diving board afraid to leap into the unknown.

From such a height the surface of the water can look more like a sheet of steel than a shimmering liquid. Rather than dive, you want to inch backward and tell yourself it's much more prudent to climb down.

But... you can't back away from fear.

Why not?

Because taking such risks--free-falling, diving--is the essence of writing. That's the goal: to plunge into uncharted territory and explore new, forbidding landscapes.

Diving into the water... cracking through that illusion of fear...is exactly what you must do if you expect to find what's hidden beneath the surface.

But how do you step off that high-diving board into ignorance and uncertainty?

John DuFresne suggests in The Lie That Tells A Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction that failure and uncertainty are simply part of the territory that come with writing. People who invent things, says DuFresne, are always failing.

"Only a fool does not make mistakes," writes DuFresne. "You need to take chances when you write stories, and if you're afraid to fail, if you're afraid to take the wrong road in the story, then you won't ever write anything worthwhile. "

But your ability to take risks, explains DuFresne, depends on how you perceive mistakes. "James Joyce said that there are no mistakes, that an error is a doorway to discovery."

To find that doorway, it may prove helpful to begin diving from a lower height... to establish your faith in the process of diving.

To learn that the air will support you in your free-fall, and that the water will be there to welcome you when you reach the bottom.

Each time you dive, taking greater risks, you learn what it feels like to leap off the edge... and recognize the fear that accompanies risk-taking... and ultimately overcome it. The more risks in your writing that you take, the more likely you'll learn how to dive into riskier and riskier terrain.

It's important to remember that diving isn't about success or failure. It's about learning to find that doorway past fear... to let go of your fear and then let go again... and again. Each dive helps you see through the illusion of fear.

It was Chris Lynch, one of my teachers, who taught me about not shying away from fear. He came over to me one night as I was standing with a group of friends, waiting for the program of readings to begin, and said, "You're reading your story, right?"

Lynch (author of Shadow Boxer, Gold Dust, Freewill, Iceman and the 2005 National Book Award finalist, Inexcusable) looked at me with his blue-green eyes, and in that look was this message: If you back away from fear, it will devour you, and there will be nothing left of your guts or your soul with which to write the next day or the next week or the next year.

Give into fear, he was warning me, and you're done as a writer.

Not giving into fear, in other words, is one of the requirements of the job.

Another one of Lynch's students, J. Irvin Kuns, alludes to this fear in the acknowledgements section of her book, While You Were Out (Dutton, 2004), summing up the process of learning to dive in a poem by Guillaume Apollinaire:

"Come to the edge," He said.
They said, "We are afraid."
"Come to the edge," He said.
They came.
He pushed them... and they flew.

Learning to dive past the risks--to fly past our fear--is part of the writing process.

It never gets easier.

But, once you've done it... once you embrace uncertainty and trust the process of diving and plunge past your fear... you'll be surprised at the worlds that you'll discover hidden beneath the surface of the blank page.

(For more information about John DuFresne and his thoughts on writing, check out his blog at http://www.johndufresne.com/Dufresne%20Blog.htm. )