 For Authors: October 19, 2016 Issue [#7924] |
  For Authors
This week: You Are Your Own Best Source! Edited by: Fyn  
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“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
—Ernest Hemingway
“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.”
—Virginia Woolf
“Making people believe the unbelievable is no trick; it’s work. … Belief and reader absorption come in the details: An overturned tricycle in the gutter of an abandoned neighborhood can stand for everything.”
—Stephen King
“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players. … I have 10 or so, and that’s a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.”
—Gore Vidal
“We’re past the age of heroes and hero kings. … Most of our lives are basically mundane and dull, and it’s up to the writer to find ways to make them interesting.”
—John Updike, WD |
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Buried in my port is a folder called Placesettings. Eventually, the pieces within will become something of a memoir of me. I always say that should anyone really want to 'know' me, to know what makes me tick (or get ticked off), to truly get a feel for the person I have been, and now am, they should meander through that folder. It is all true. It has all happened. It is all real. Experiences-- good, bad, silly, tragic, horrific, heart-warming, angry-- they are all adventures and journeys I have traveled and all are, if nothing else, fodder!
Many times have I pulled a snippet here, a fragment there to use in a poem or short story. Now these may or may not have anything at all to do with 'me', per se, but in using them to flesh out a character or situation, I am adding a layer of description, of reality, of nuance that will add depth to the piece I am writing.
Everyone has their collection of stories. Beyond the gems pulled out to share at family gatherings, the oft-told treasures that dissolve the family in laughter, even if they have heard them a time or ten, are the 'hide under the covers' moments, the odd-ball, weird occurrences, the storms of thunder and temperament.The weird phrasings that are so 'you.' For example, the folks you consider 'people' vs 'family' verses 'friends.' Who do you fuss over and who knows where everything is? Special stuff that makes you, you! I like to think of them as place settings: the fork moments eaten delicately, the spoons full of dessert days devoured, the knife-edged hours cutting to the quick. The silverware of our lives define our being,:make up the perfectly laid tables and the spotted stemware of our souls. Fingerbowl memories and bone-dish disasters: these are what make us who we are. As writers, these are also valuable ideas and inspirations that can be twisted, manipulated, condensed, expanded or reimagined and then used in our writing!
We, as people, let alone as writers, are a messy collection of life's souvenirs. Why shouldn't we take advantage of those moments to illustrate a concept, idea, feeling or event? Using a piece of a memory or disaster will only add the ability to describe said event with greater clarity and realism. Pulling from ourselves makes the story more 'real.'
In The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, the Skin Horse is explaining to the velveteen rabbit what it is, precisely, to 'become real.'
“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'
'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.
'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'
'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'
'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
We do not exist in a vacuum. Every day that goes by adds to our collection of things that make us who we are. The more we live, the older we get, the bigger the collection of 'stuff' becomes. We are a veritable library of emotions experienced, trips taken, foot-in-mouth misstatements uttered, klutzy falls flattened and a host of other 'things' we've lived through, survived and experienced. Do not neglect to take full advantage of that which is unique to you to add to your writing!
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Patrece ~  : Thank you for another great and informative newsletter!
Sand Castles Shopgirl 739 : Thanks for the information! Every little bit of insight to the publishing world is helpful.
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