The other day I posted the following paragraph on Facebook, trying to share a picture with words, of some sights I'd just seen. I don't know if many even bothered to read it because it is kind of long for a post, especially when one liners and quick quips or pictures, or links if someone has the time, are more the norm, but I did get 4 likes. No one bothered to comment on the question I posed, which yes, was only an attempt to share something I found entertaining and more rhetorical than answerable. In my attempts to become a writer again, I have several quests. I want to know why some people are able to pose questions which get many responses (a talent I don't seem to have). I want to know what makes for something so compelling it draws a reader in and makes them feel better for having spent the time. I want to know what I'm writing for or trying to convey. I spent the long drive home the day I went to this festival I'm describing, concocting sentences and scenes I wanted to write about, but most of it disappeared into the ether. I wonder if others can 'see' what I saw on this occasion.
' I went to a big festival called Yarndale, which ended up being held in a huge barnlike structure, lined with concrete flooring and metal bar fencing corralling open spaces, opened up to make room for almost 200 stands of yarn and felt and spinning wheels and creativity and women in rows of awkward fold up chairs, where they sat hunched over with determined looks on their faces, knitting, with needles flashing in and out of small lumps of yarn. Interspersing the stands of colour and fuzzy skeins and crocheted blankets, were a few huge Angora bunnies, handsome, trimmed rams and some alpacas with adorably cute faces. There was also a field right next to the barn, full of sheep, in case we hadn't got the point of Yarn origin. I'd asked Dave if he wanted to drive me there, not to drag him through such a thing, but because the drive is nice and there are other sights he could go to nearby. He declined. When I came out, after a few hours, I was bemused to see a handful of men sitting on the lawn out front. Most of them were accompanied by a white, fluffy dog, of varying sizes and breeds. And I wondered if my husband WOULD have been willing to come if we owned such a dog. Is there a connection?'
After I'd written that paragraph, I went to eat some breakfast and while doing so, indulge in my regular practice of reading the Sunday Times News and Review section, as I do. And as keeps happening lately, serendipitously had another one of my universe appointed writing tutorials pop up. I read an article by Oliver Sacks, a doctor who recently died, who was talking about how he came to write his first book, Awakenings, which was made into a movie with Robin Williams. Apparently his parents were also both doctors and storytellers and this fragment jumped out at me.... " My parents' sense of wonder at the vagaries of life, their combination of a clinical and a narrative cast of mind, was transmitted with great force to all of us. My own impulse to chronicle and describe seems to have come directly from them..." He went on to describe his writing style - which reminded me of my own - too much wordiness, explosive exuberance in overabundant prose, needs extensive pruning and editing - and how he flailed around for some time, trying to figure out what his story was, even though he had extensive material to write about. Yep. He also was put in touch with an editor whom he worked closely with from the beginning - handing over sheafs of pages as they were typed up - who extensively helped him throughout and even more so when his mother died and he fell apart over that loss. I know I have people like this in my life already - I've had one friend - a university creative writing professor - who has been supportive in many ways for years now and would definitely help me in a big writing venture. In fact, I really liked an analogy she came up with the other day - especially as I love doing a good puzzle...
"Not liking today's writing very much, but I'm figuring out that writing a novel is like putting together a 50,000-piece puzzle. You have to do a lot of picking up, sorting out, throwing back into the pile, waiting for a match to rise out of the mess, referring back to the big picture, rejecting, retrying, rearranging, repeating, having faith that of course it will come right in the end and letting the bad days just sort of morph into the better ones. I have to be certain to take my vitamins and get in my exercise, otherwise I lose my temper and break doors. Tip for the day: don't forget the self who conceived this work at its best; don't give in to the lesser selves who sometimes forge forward with shameful inferior strokes."
There are others whom I could hire, as well. Oliver Sacks couldn't physically write at first, due to an injury and hired a shorthand typist to whom he dictated and he found her expressions, as she'd take notes, to be helpful in urging him on. In this day and age of technology and aids - we don't have access or need (?!?!) for such people anymore - have to make up such an audience in other ways. And I guess this is what I was attempting to get, by posting the above on FB.
So in closing this writing meditation, I'll just describe another scene I had at the Yarndale festival, as continued exercise. I only knew about Yarndale from having run across a mention of it several months before and putting it on my calendar then. As the day approached, I had nothing else going on, the weather was gorgeously perfect, must-go-out-and-do-something vibes in the air and there it was. So I looked up how to get there and off I went, by myself. What should have been at most a 1 1/2 hour drive ended up being over 2 hours, of course, as is almost always the way in traveling in England. I was delighted to see many yellow signs directing me to the site, as I got close, saving me mucking around with maps and such. And was directed into a back field, behind a big college campus (Craven College? hopefully not a reference to student's attitudes?!), to park. I didn't even know which direction to walk in after parking but an attendant pointed the way and I set off, literally over dale and hill, around and behind and then down some steep steps, dug into the hillside - with a young woman who had parked right next to me, following closely. At the first mysterious juncture of which way to go?, she took over the lead and we walked the rest of the way to the entrance, chatting companionably. We were amused to discover we were both foreigners, deep in this English Yorkshire countryside. I found out she was French, currently married to an Englishman, living in Lancashire, with two children. I was also surprised when she guessed that I was from northern California - 'the Bay Area', no less - because she had spent time in Sonoma in her past, and had a best friend from there. NOBODY ever guesses where I'm from that accurately, from my accent. She was also fascinating in that she'd met her English husband in Indonesia, so far away from both of their homes - and then we arrived. No more stories. Can I be your friend? Not even a name.
