Prairie Center: In Praise of Senses

 

With a draft of the Texas essay behind me and the end of my time at Prairie Center on the horizon, it's easy to get sidetracked in the studio. I feel torn in multiple directions--pushing to get one more draft complete, preparing for summer classes at Interlochen, and growing my Writer at Large business. (Today's productive procrastination? Three submissions to first book prizes, one submission to a literary magazine, and a little browsing at Sierra Club backpacking trips to the Arctic, among other tasks.)

Days like that, it's really just about tricking the brain into action. In order to write about place, I need to read about place. I know that much. (Hence the amazing Alexandra Fuller book pictured above.) But what I'm also discovering about my process (which is so much slower than writing the war stories) is that I need to ponder and look, and if I can make this experience somehow tactile--all the better.

When I "warm up" for generating new material on the Wyoming essay, I look at photos I took while at Jentel, thumb through my scrapbook to study old maps, and review definitions of landscape terms in Home Ground. Even the simple act of pausing to stare at a photo (sense of sight), un-creasing the folds in an old map (sense of touch), questioning the connections on my bulletin board map (sense of wonder), and studying the story of specific words (sense of history/time) engages me on enough levels that before I know it, I'm jotting down new ideas in my journal. Inevitably, the free-writing leads me to the keyboard and with all that momentum going, I'm just about always able to create something new.

Engaging the senses for inspiration seems as obvious to me now as the age-old writing advice, "Use the five senses!" But even those things we teach, we sometimes need reminding of ourselves. Furthermore, aren't there more than five senses? We're writers! We can make up new senses till the corn is high. That's why sense of wonder counts. That's why sense of history counts as well--because what is history other than a story? And so you see how one thing leads to another, and before you know it, just about anyone can bring an ordinary idea into the realm of the extraordinary.

IAVA Going Silent

It's Memorial Day, a time for many to celebrate a long weekend, drink too much beer, and welcome summer. It's all too easy to forget what this holiday is really about, and while I'm celebrating with friends this weekend myself, I'm also going to take time to pause and join Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America in a national moment of silence. At 12:01 p.m. on Memorial Day, please consider joining the over 7,000 Americans who have already pledged online to pause for a moment of silence. The IAVA website reads:

 

Pledge a moment of silence at 12:01 pm this Memorial Day to honor the fallen. 

6,442 Americans have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. This Memorial Day, we stand together to remember and honor their lives, legacies and last full measure of devotion for our country. At 12:01pm, IAVA will lay a wreath before the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. Gather your friends and family across the country and pause with us for a national moment of silence in their memory.

 

Read more here, and click the "pledge" link to sign your name in support.

Readers who are new to The Writing Life Blog might be uncertain of my connections to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In short, I spent the last 2 1/2 years researching and writing about these wars, completing a collection of short stories involving military and civilian characters in and around these wars. Read more about why I write about war here. Read three of my stories published by the United States Air Force Academy here. Or purchase my latest story in print here. For further updates about my interests in the wars and future publications, sign up for this blog here.

Thank you for taking the time, and for going silent.

Prairie Center: The Four-Fifteen

A few years ago, TRACHODON Magazine published an essay by metalsmith artist Amy Tavern titled "Part of the Process." In it, Tavern discusses a practice she called "The Four-Fifteen." Ever since reading her essay (which can be viewed free, here) I've incorporated The Four-Fifteen into my repertoire of writing rituals.

In a nutshell, this practice involves 1 hour of your time, divided into four 15-minute chunks. Though the commitment is short, the benefits are long-lasting. Whether done on a whim as needed, every day, or once a week, I've found that whenever I set aside time for The Four-Fifteen, my creativity either deepens or takes a positively surprising turn. Being on the road for nearly three years, the sense of ritual I get when practicing The Four-Fifteen provides a stabilizing force in my life, even when I don't know what's next or where to call "home."

The first fifteen minutes is devoted to spiritual reading of any kind. Be it faith-based, self-help, or spirituality and growth--find some kind of book along those lines that piques your interest and read for 15 minutes.

The second chunk of time naturally follows from this: meditate for 15 minutes. No matter what religion you are (atheist, Buddhist, Christian, too busy), meditation is a basic skill that everyone can practice. It does not have to be about a higher calling or perfecting a technique (though it can be). Whatever works for you, just do it.

The third fifteen minutes is for free-writing. I focus on keeping my mind open and my pen moving, even if that means I have to repeat a line or two or interrupt one sentence in order to follow a different thought. It's writing that no one else will see and that you likely may never come back to again. The point is flow, not force.

The final fifteen minutes is spent "filling the well," so to speak, by reading a book or looking at photos/pictures of something that inspires the creative work you do in whatever medium you work in. Since I often critique books as I'm reading them (it's a nearly impossible skill to turn off if you're a writer), I usually turn to coffee table photo books that I can flip through, old issues of National Geographic, or a book of poetry. Whatever book you choose, try to approach your time with it lightly and playfully. The idea here is not to memorize or even necessarily finish whatever text you choose, rather, to just fill up and enjoy it. If you live in a city and a gallery is walkable, spending 15 minutes looking at artwork would likewise suffice--just don't stop to get a latte along the way and get distracted!

Of course, the final step is to turn to your work as an artist and see what happens. Whether you are sitting down at the desk (don't check email first) to a blank page, working on an in-progress painting, re-reading part of your novel that you wrote the day before, or designing a poster for the letterpress, move into this final step with the foundation of The Four-Fifteen beneath you. The results never fail to be intriguing!

Prairie Center: Sunset

Sometimes, even if you have to drive to get to it, and even if you're grumpy, and even if you're not entirely sure you really like the Midwest... Even if there aren't mountains, if there's nowhere to backpack within an 8-hour drive, and the perfect lawns of suburbia are starting to freak you out... Sometimes, it's worth it:

Prairie Center: Writing Cheat Sheet

A few weeks ago I wrote about mapping place, including this photo of the homemade map I'm using to navigate my way through writing new essays based on my recent travels. Any good map should tell a story, but the greatest maps also spark the imagination. Ever so slowly, my homemade map has helped me draft an essay that will probably be the introduction to the book, as well as a newer essay based on my travels in Texas. What I haven't written about yet is my cheat sheet.

The cheat sheet isn't really a sheet. It looks more like this (shown at right). Sometimes formally typed up, other times cut out or photocopied, still other times written on scrap paper, this array of notes and occasional images reminds me about the craft tools I have as a nonfiction writer exploring place through the essay form. Sometimes I use my "cheat sheet" as a warm up drill--reviewing it before I begin writing that day. Most of the time, though, I use it when I get stuck.

This afternoon, for instance, as I worked on my Texas essay, I found myself up against a wall. I had just concluded a section about the different meanings of the word "bayou" in the context of Buffalo Bayou in Houston, Texas. I needed this section in the essay because I was working on a metaphor that compared the borderlands of Texas with the "dreaming water" of a bayou. I used Buffalo Bayou as an example because I often went on walks along its shore. But in order to get these two ideas working together toward the next section (about two street vendors outside the county jail), I needed a convincing transition. 

When I looked at my cheat sheet, I saw a note I had written about a technique often used by travel writers. By my observations, travel writers sometimes reveal an ulterior motive in the midst of their essays. It's a good technique that helps turn ordinary, descriptive writing into something with a narrative. Here's part of the example I used to teach myself this technique, as I observed it in an essay by Ted Genoways, who wrote: "But what drew me to South America wasn't just the adventure of netting bats. I also wanted a chance to take fuller measure of my father..."

Because any good travel writing is as much about the traveler as it is the tale, I knew whatever ulterior motive I chose for my Texas essay, it had to be something personal. And because "to essay" means "to attempt," my essays are always an attempt to understand something more clearly for myself. Within a few minutes, I had my transition: "Though I didn’t have to pass the main entrance to Harris County Jail on my daily walks, I chose to frequently. What drew me there wasn’t just the borderland. I also wanted to take fuller measure of the street vendors—two in particular..."

You can see how I quite literally mimicked Genoways' sentence structure, right down to some of the same words. In a final draft of my essay, that will be replaced by something more wholly my own, but for today's purposes, the cheat sheet did it's job. The transition was the glue I needed to get to my next section, and once I had it, I was able to keep writing.