This challenge is even steeper than the one faced by the blind men as they try to describe the Elephant. For the blind men can at least TOUCH the Elephant. "It's like a Wall ! It's like a Rope ! It's like a Pillar ! It's like a giant Leaf ! It's like a Spear ! It's like a Tube !" ( No one ever asks what the Elephant thinks of all this intimate groping ! )
Yet the practice of creating VOICE and the engaging of invisible engines that we barely have names for is like trying to cast a spell without a grimoire, joining a poker hand without knowing the stakes or the variation being played, or attempting navigation of a spacecraft in three dimensional space without coordinates, a window to look out of, or controls to use. "Here. Here's a stick."
Regarding being twenty and knowing it all. I couldn't make such a claim at the time. Instead I offer a quote from the film Nadja : https://youtu.be/7Av2Yz_Lw5Y?t=920
I definitely feel at times like I am trying to navigate the choppy waters of writing with only a stick! The more I read of the Method Writing book, the more I am convinced that at some point everyone understood these invisible processes, so much so that they forgot to write them down because everyone just knew....
Excellent quote (and David Lynch making a straightforward scene?!). I feel like she is making the same point I am--if you count experience as a kind of knowing.
"I guess the question really is, what is the writer’s version of breathing?"
What a question to carry.
This whole piece makes me think about what a container for emotion a song can be. I always listen to lyric because I am a writer and I love the story. I also have had that experience where the lyrics don't necessarily tell me anything and yet I FEEL what the meaning is. I've often said I don't pay attention to the music so much, other than "This has string instruments in it and I like the vibe they bring" or "These drums make me want to shake and stomp and jump and so I will", but of course that is part of the emotional story of the song too!
I remember lying on my bedroom floor as a teenager, listening to 'Stairway to Heaven' or basically any song from the aforementioned 'Fumbling Toward Ecstasy' (Very funny exchange, that. Oh to be 20 and know EVERYTHING) and letting myself cry. Something about these songs opened up an emotional vent I absolutely needed at a time when I was mostly numbed by depression and loneliness. And looking back, it was not just the lyrics, despite them being the part I paid the most attention to.
Poor Sarah McLachlan! I don't do her right, I know. Even though later on in life when I was less snotty I actually bought her next album, Surfacing, and enjoyed it quite a bit. 😊
It's really amazing how songs can just yank your insides around, isn't it? And how when you listen to them again, you don't feel them as Right Now You, you feel them like First Time You Heard The Song You did. And you get to hold space for that you.
I know we can do the same thing as writers with stories. Even with just words, there has to be more than the just words at work. What is it??? I will ferret it out.......!
Right? Like anything Mary Oliver has written. She gets something about emotions that is so relatable across such a broad swath of humans.
Also, re: music. Every song ever about a broken heart. Both P!nk and Sarah McLachlan released "break up" albums the same year my first long-term relationship ended and MY GAWD was it soothing. Like, oh, yeah, I'm not the only one.
I just inhaled all of that. All of it. I haven't even ever listened to any Tori Amos before, despite knowing of her. But it was so good to have Winter playing whilst I was inhaling your writing. Your voice :D
I am fascinated by all these processes and those that have spoken on them, and this article has some amazing lines: "I guess the question really is, what is the writer’s version of breathing?"
This resonates. All I can say (from a perspective of zero training/understanding) is that the closest approximation to that that I have experienced is when I am feeling raw, on that verge of emotion, be it good or bad, sitting right on the edge and then just sinking into it and letting it fuel a fire. I think that's when you look back on what you've synthesised and allow yourself to marvel at it (and then doubt, and re-marvel, and then doubt, etc etc).
OK I'm going to stop rambling now and go listen to more Tori.
Thank you Elnora. Your pieces are inspiring and come right from the heart.
Thank you for reading Nathan! And for your comments 🥰 I'm so glad this piece resonates. I'm just convinced there is a deeper layer that I am missing....the quantum mechanics of writing, if you will. Or, how to take these things I can express personally and dress them up in a jaunty fiction hat 😉 I absolutely think you are on to it that centering the emotion and writing from that place has got to be part of it. Right??
I think -- I know -- you have it already. Your ability to write these pieces and have the reader just fall into them and tear through them. That takes skill and talent.
I'm not sure what perspective you're writing from for your fiction, but can you try embodying a character and becoming them and writing from that POV as though you are simply expressing feelings like you are here? I'm sure that's likely naive of me to put it like that, but the way you write makes me confident you can translate that to fiction. Just got to find the doorway 😁
Yes, that's exactly how I feel! I just have to find the doorway. Thank you for saying it like that! And also for your kind words of support. 😊 I'll have to try your suggestion, and I've also started reading Method Writing and it might be the doorway I'm looking for....? 🤞
Good musings Elnora.
This challenge is even steeper than the one faced by the blind men as they try to describe the Elephant. For the blind men can at least TOUCH the Elephant. "It's like a Wall ! It's like a Rope ! It's like a Pillar ! It's like a giant Leaf ! It's like a Spear ! It's like a Tube !" ( No one ever asks what the Elephant thinks of all this intimate groping ! )
Yet the practice of creating VOICE and the engaging of invisible engines that we barely have names for is like trying to cast a spell without a grimoire, joining a poker hand without knowing the stakes or the variation being played, or attempting navigation of a spacecraft in three dimensional space without coordinates, a window to look out of, or controls to use. "Here. Here's a stick."
Regarding being twenty and knowing it all. I couldn't make such a claim at the time. Instead I offer a quote from the film Nadja : https://youtu.be/7Av2Yz_Lw5Y?t=920
Cheers.
I definitely feel at times like I am trying to navigate the choppy waters of writing with only a stick! The more I read of the Method Writing book, the more I am convinced that at some point everyone understood these invisible processes, so much so that they forgot to write them down because everyone just knew....
Excellent quote (and David Lynch making a straightforward scene?!). I feel like she is making the same point I am--if you count experience as a kind of knowing.
"I guess the question really is, what is the writer’s version of breathing?"
What a question to carry.
This whole piece makes me think about what a container for emotion a song can be. I always listen to lyric because I am a writer and I love the story. I also have had that experience where the lyrics don't necessarily tell me anything and yet I FEEL what the meaning is. I've often said I don't pay attention to the music so much, other than "This has string instruments in it and I like the vibe they bring" or "These drums make me want to shake and stomp and jump and so I will", but of course that is part of the emotional story of the song too!
I remember lying on my bedroom floor as a teenager, listening to 'Stairway to Heaven' or basically any song from the aforementioned 'Fumbling Toward Ecstasy' (Very funny exchange, that. Oh to be 20 and know EVERYTHING) and letting myself cry. Something about these songs opened up an emotional vent I absolutely needed at a time when I was mostly numbed by depression and loneliness. And looking back, it was not just the lyrics, despite them being the part I paid the most attention to.
So thank you.
Poor Sarah McLachlan! I don't do her right, I know. Even though later on in life when I was less snotty I actually bought her next album, Surfacing, and enjoyed it quite a bit. 😊
It's really amazing how songs can just yank your insides around, isn't it? And how when you listen to them again, you don't feel them as Right Now You, you feel them like First Time You Heard The Song You did. And you get to hold space for that you.
I know we can do the same thing as writers with stories. Even with just words, there has to be more than the just words at work. What is it??? I will ferret it out.......!
Right? Like anything Mary Oliver has written. She gets something about emotions that is so relatable across such a broad swath of humans.
Also, re: music. Every song ever about a broken heart. Both P!nk and Sarah McLachlan released "break up" albums the same year my first long-term relationship ended and MY GAWD was it soothing. Like, oh, yeah, I'm not the only one.
Mary Oliver is a treasure.
Gosh just wonderful wow!
I just inhaled all of that. All of it. I haven't even ever listened to any Tori Amos before, despite knowing of her. But it was so good to have Winter playing whilst I was inhaling your writing. Your voice :D
I am fascinated by all these processes and those that have spoken on them, and this article has some amazing lines: "I guess the question really is, what is the writer’s version of breathing?"
This resonates. All I can say (from a perspective of zero training/understanding) is that the closest approximation to that that I have experienced is when I am feeling raw, on that verge of emotion, be it good or bad, sitting right on the edge and then just sinking into it and letting it fuel a fire. I think that's when you look back on what you've synthesised and allow yourself to marvel at it (and then doubt, and re-marvel, and then doubt, etc etc).
OK I'm going to stop rambling now and go listen to more Tori.
Thank you Elnora. Your pieces are inspiring and come right from the heart.
Thank you for reading Nathan! And for your comments 🥰 I'm so glad this piece resonates. I'm just convinced there is a deeper layer that I am missing....the quantum mechanics of writing, if you will. Or, how to take these things I can express personally and dress them up in a jaunty fiction hat 😉 I absolutely think you are on to it that centering the emotion and writing from that place has got to be part of it. Right??
Enjoy discovering more Tori! 😊
I think -- I know -- you have it already. Your ability to write these pieces and have the reader just fall into them and tear through them. That takes skill and talent.
I'm not sure what perspective you're writing from for your fiction, but can you try embodying a character and becoming them and writing from that POV as though you are simply expressing feelings like you are here? I'm sure that's likely naive of me to put it like that, but the way you write makes me confident you can translate that to fiction. Just got to find the doorway 😁
Yes, that's exactly how I feel! I just have to find the doorway. Thank you for saying it like that! And also for your kind words of support. 😊 I'll have to try your suggestion, and I've also started reading Method Writing and it might be the doorway I'm looking for....? 🤞
Yay. That's great. I should check that out too. 🤗