The Write Spot Blog by Marlene Cullen

Tag: Going to Solace

  • Amanda McTigue Untethered

    Guest Blogger Amanda McTigue . . .

    I’ll confess with some dismay that contrary to the many uplifting articles and memoirs I have read about the serenity of older age, it continues to elude me. Serenity, that is, not the march of years across my face, kneecaps and pelvic floor muscles.

    I’m looking forward to any later-in-life serenity that may come my way. Indeed, I practice all kinds of meditations and mantras and daily exercises, etc., to invite it in. But my emotional set point tends to be what it’s always been: low-level (self)doubt.

    That’s the place whence I write. If that’s true for you, let me offer some slant wisdom here from some fellow artists. Take Tatiana Maslany. You may have seen her in a futuristic TV show called “Orphan Black” in which she plays (gorgeously!) multiple clones of herself. She’s a hell of a young actor, and here she quotes one of the great dancer/choreographers, Martha Graham:

    “It is not your business to determine how good [your work] is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open… There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching, and makes us more alive than the others.”

    Snaps to Ms. Graham and Ms. Maslany.

    Or here’s a writer I love, Peter Schjeldahl, describing the work of the painter Albert Oehlen. I know next to nothing about the visual arts, but I always look for Mr. Schjeldahl’s columns in The New Yorker because I love the ways in which he helps me see things:

    “Oehlen’s process has evinced endless sorts of borderline-desperate improvisation—until a painting isn’t finished, exactly, but somehow beyond further aid. He told me, ‘People don’t realize that when you are working on a painting, every day you are seeing something awful.’”

    “Divine dissatisfaction.” “Blessed unrest.” “Beyond further aid.” These are my kinds of people.

    Good work, great work, and certainly awful work: it all comes out of whatever souls we’ve been assigned. While I wait for serenity to grace my days, I write. Often the moments before addressing the page are filled with dread, needless dread, yes, but it’s my dread. It doesn’t matter. I write. This is something I’ve taught myself. You can too. When my unrest isn’t “blessed,” my rule is, write it, don’t read it. Not yet. If I think things need fixing, they’ll get fixed later, but in the moment, I write. I slap it down. Just the way I’m doing here about slapping it down.

    I’ll cop to a suspicion I carry—really something closer to superstition. I wonder whether my unrest is precisely what makes me productive. You may wonder the same. But let’s let the rest of the world chatter over that one, while we get to the page.

    Confident or not, joyous or dread-filled, I’m going to go ahead and climb into the boat I keep tethered right here at my desk. I’m going to untie that hitch and launch. Some days I motor out. Some days I just drift. But out I go, untethered to how I feel about the work. The feelings may come with me, or not. Either way. Out we go. So be it. I’m writing.

    Citations:

    Dickinson, Emily. Tell all the truth but tell it slant. Poem #1263.

    Loofbourow, Lili. (2015, April 5). Anywoman. The New York Times

    Schjeldahl, Peter. (2015, June 22). Painting’s Point Man. The New Yorker

    Amanda will be the March 17 Writers Forum Presenter: Writing Emotion: How Do You Catch a Cloud and Pin it Down?

    Amanda’s novel, Going to Solace, was cited by public radio KRCB’s literary program “Word by Word” as a Best Read of 2012. She holds the West Side Stories Petaluma championship for live storytelling (2013 and 2014). She also makes regular appearances with the monthly “Get Lit” gathering at Petaluma’s Corkscrew Wine Bar. She’s just returned from Cuba where she was researching her second novel. In 2016-17, she’ll be directing “The Magic Flute” at Sonoma State University.

  • Guest Blogger Amanda McTigue — The Power of Place

    Guest Blogger Amanda McTigue — The Power of Place

    Writing is setting. Indeed, to write is to place (that’s “place” as a verb).

    We writers place readers in worlds. We set them into circumstances, stories, imagery, facts, memories, actions, fantasies, and so on.

    Setting in this sense isn’t mere background. It’s the sum total of every last word we write. And yet, so often we think of place as scenery. What a mistake!

    Place shapes voice. I’m not talking dialect here. I’m saying the ways we writers situate ourselves in imagined (or remembered) worlds give rise to the ways we convey those worlds to others.

    Our first task, then, is to place ourselves so fully that our readers go with us.

    “All well and good,” you say, “but how can we interrupt our action-packed, conflict=drama, page-turning flow to squeeze in some detail of setting? We’re writing to keep readers reading! There’s no room! There’s no time!”

    I feel your pain. We writers are in such a rush. Determined to finish-and-publish, we worry about where to put the “where” in our text before we even know where “where” is.

    But place gathers power when we slow down.

    In my writing process, “where” has a time and pace (that’s not a typo). I do everything I can to remind myself that plot points can wait; endings will find themselves. Meanwhile, when I’m lost, I get more lost. I schedule time for sheer exploration. We’re talking undirected (but focused!) wandering accomplished through short sessions of stream-of-consciousness writing.

    So often, our best work is discovered, not planned. When’s the last time you ambled through your worlds with no agenda? How about sitting still? How about nosing around for nothing in particular? Try leaving your map at home. Paddle. Search. Listen. Taste. Sniff. Find a new vantage point. Marvel. Take a nap. Unpack a picnic, etc.

    Forget writing. Just notice and take notes. The bird watcher doesn’t agonize about her style when she’s out in the field. She scribbles as fast as she can. Who cares if there’s a better word for “red?” She keeps her eye not on the page, but on that tiny splash of color hidden in the branches. She tries to capture everything, knowing the bird will fly off any minute, taking the moment with it.

    Lately, I find such field trips invaluable. I schedule them not only as I’m drafting but also right through my editing process.

    Let’s say I’m polishing a chapter for the umpteenth time and it’s still god-awful. Sometimes I know what’s missing. Sometimes I have no idea why it stinks. Either way, I set the manuscript aside, put on my boots and step out into a wet garden or a fetid alley or a crater on the Planet Zarn with absolutely no sense of how that’s going to help. I just give myself a half-hour and go.

    I take field equipment along to sharpen my observations: binoculars, a camera dolly, a satellite, a cloud boat, a microphone, a microscope, my tongue. I grab every writer’s prompt I’ve ever enjoyed and bring them too—questions or novel points-of-view—to keep myself playful and curious.

    I place myself—and things happen. Setting always brings more than static landscape. Worlds always world, even the quietest of them.

    When I return to editing, I bring the fruits of my wandering. Suddenly an overlooked shoelace suggests a murder weapon, a tree branch holds a charm, or the stitching on a pillow brings a character to life.

    Does that mean that I use every word I write in such sessions? Not even close. But nothing is wasted. What I don’t use leads me to what I do use: richer passages—even new storylines—far fresher than anything my editor’s brain could cook up.

    There’s nothing like a road-trip. Whether staring at a blank page, or yet another re-write, schedule time to explore. Place yourself first (pun very much intended). Shake off your worries about the where of where; you can figure that out when the where is there.

    Go.

    Slow down.

    Forget writing.

    Take notes.

    Amanda-McTigue-112x150Amanda McTigue’s debut novel, Going to Solace, was selected as one of four “Best Reads of 2012” by Gil Mansergh on KRCB’s “Word by Word.”