Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Want to write? Here's the best kept secret.

People who don't write at all, will tell you this.

When you decide you're really going to do it, or when you start writing and then get stuck, someone will ALWAYS say: "Well, you should just write what you know," ... as if that's it. 

It's right, of course, but it's also not right. I can't even type the phrase without going back ... about a thousand years ... to when I was teaching junior high. I remember a student moaning ... "BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT I KNOW!" 

And that's the problem.

What you know isn't what you know. 

We get the two confused. People start thinking about things they've read or been taught. Facts and figures. There is a place for all of that in writing, but not at first. What you really know is  much more subtle. 

It's the way air smells, mingled ever so softly with scents of bacon and coffee, early in the morning. It's the way a favorite trail feels under your feet, or how your shoulders loosen and lower as you start along that trail and finally relax. Or, Emily Dickinson's "certain slant of light." 

You probably know that one yourself, a cast of light that uplifts, or completely depresses. 

Start with this: your 'eyelid movies.'

When I was in advertising, I had the great good fortune to work for Bill Hoke, long-time friend, creative director, and a gifted writer (Bill's poems.) A small aside, he's the one who contributed "cut it 'til it bleeds," to my writing vocabulary. Solid advice.

Bill talked about 'eyelid movies,' scenes you remember or imagine. When I picture a scene in one of my books, it's how I start and where I start. I put myself there and know exactly how it sounds and smells ... how it all feels

Those are things I know. Now it's your turn. Go ahead and  write from there. 

That's what you know. Better than anybody. 



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