The art of writing...poetry.

The aim of art is not to represent the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
--Aristotle.

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     Writing poetry.

Hmm. Rarely a profitable job. 

Not commonly read by a wide audience.

Why write it at all?

 

Honest answer: it helps me to look at the world through different lenses.

 

Writing poetry helps me focus more on words, their sounds, their shapes, and their rhythms...hah, that said, I've always liked playing with words, word games, writing doggerel, and playing with long words with the intent to confuse, amuse, amaze, astound, and confound. True story: talking about a somewhat sensitive subject with my boss...with the office door open, I warned him that I was about lapse into "polysyllabic circumlocutory utterances." He laughed, "David, I am certain that I have never, ever heard that word in conversation." He probably hoped never to hear it again, either!

 

 

Writing poetry makes common things a bit less common.

 

Writing poetry forces me to take a step back, slow down, and to think in wider circles.

Phooey on circles.

Spheres!

 

Poetry embraces reality but tries to peel off the outer layers,

layers that may hide, disguise, or merely clothe the truth in easily-ignored togs.

 

 

Clearly see.

Reality.

Sets me free.

Poetry.

 

 

   

    

 



On Grazing.

Little blocks of time and effort may yield great outcomes.
--D. Lyn Wood.

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I was reading this blog, pondering a bit, and wondering how applicable this concept of "grazing" was...no, wondering how generalizable it was. When I was a family physician teaching my patients about dieting, I would often tell them a similar story of grazing as did the author of the blog link above. "Eat a little here, a little there, and make sure it's healthy, avoiding dips and dressings on your fruits and veggies."

I quite enjoyed how that author and the many who commented applied "grazing," particularly to the task of writing. My first book, JOURNEY TO THE HEART OF GOD, was written while I was still working full time, taking my nights and weekends on call, teaching Sunday School, attending board meetings, and giving attention to my wife and three kids...oh, you get the drift. Anyhoo, I wrote that 500 page book in spite of other things going on.

What have you been putting off, "I don't have enough time"? Especially, "I cannot put enough time together at once to be worth it."

Humbug, say the majority of comments on that blog about grazing, agreeing that, as with most things in life, slow but steady still wins most races. It's just a case of redefining "steady" to mean, "steadily coming back to the task and adding another several strides down the road."

Longings.

Do you long for the day when political parties are really parties? With cake? And ice cream?

Do you long for the day, back when a child's birthday party was just the biggest event in the world?

Do you long for times ago, or times ahead?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=   -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=   -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-   =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Reading Mitch Albom's THE TIMEKEEPER, it's an interesting reflection on how we spend so much of our lives wishing for things that aren't, or can't, or mayhaps will be...but, we don't do a good job of being in the here and now.

A good writer captures that sense of yearning, a sense that seems to be pretty much universal, IMHO. Is there something innate in all of us, a yearning for the divine, a "God-shaped hole" that we (sadly) try to fill with everything apart from the one peg that perfectly fits that hole? What's your experience? My experience...well, I think my awareness of a need for God grew and matured over the years, but I never tried very hard to hammer anything else into God's place. Oh, sure, there were other little gods yammering for my attention, often successfully, but they were never anywhere near as good as the God of the Bible at explaining things, at focusing my vision, or at forgiving me when I wandered, wander, and will wander again!

What keeps you grounded in the here and now, the people you are with right now? I'd like to bless you with the thought that Jesus, teaching His disciples how to pray, told them to focus on the simplest, most basic things: daily bread, the tiniest temptations, and forgiveness--given daily and accepted daily. And, to do the simple little things as per "All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten": take care of one another, be nice, always say please and thank you...and, I think the Bible would put an extra emphasis on that part about taking care of one another.

What do you yearn for? What indeed keeps you focused and useful and on task? What is your relationship with God like? Or not? Let's talk.

On Editing.

Are you willing to murder your darlings? Uproot some well-loved plants? Jettison comfy old furniture? If so, you may have a calling as an editor.

--DS.

=-=-=--=
   To write well, one must write a lot.
   To edit well, one must lop and chop and prune and hack and attack...whilst keeping an eye on the good stuff that was masked by underbrush, pretty but crowded flowerbeds, overhanging branches, and the like.

Most of us are hoarders rather'n tossers, eh? So too with writers. Gosh, I hold onto a comma as if it were an oldest friend, and a favorite phrase like a life preserver.

Some internal dialogue as I respond to the editing done on THE ANIMALS OF CHRISTMAS:

---"Hey, I liked that comma there. It made the reader pause for a sec before plowing on, just a breather so that the next phrase is seen as related-but-not-merely-more-of-same."

---"Hey, I liked that adverb, too!" I know, I know, 'Show em, don't tell em' is the right way. You should have picked me up on this chump whom I had "...casting glances greedily at the coin." It's hackneyed. I shoulda said, "His gaze drifted back to the shining gold coin a third time. Then a fourth." The first way tells you what to think...the second shows you the scene and lets you figger out for yrself the guy is greedy.

---"I wish I'd caught that earlier, but now that it's in proof format I cannot make big changes. Otherwise, I'd hack that messy ppgh up into a two or three additional sentences that were shorter and clearer."

---"Sheesh, every time I read this passage, I get a lump in my throat. Sure hope my reader(s???) will, too!"

What books to desert isle?

Yesterday I asked you what books you'd be happy to be marooned with on a desert isle...here's my list:

-Bible
-Tolkien's works
-Lewis' Space Trilogy and Narnia
-Since it is "just" one volume, my COMPLETE WORKS OF WM. SHAKESPEARE.

Interesting, they're all "classics." I guess there's something to be said for "standing the test of time."

Waiting to hear your list....

David

re-re-reading King's ON WRITING

A good book is still good on the second reading. A great book remains great on the third, fourth, and more!

--DLSmith, MD


oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo


Okay, it's a vanity to make up my own quote and then cite it as if it were innately wise and inchoately profound. Guilty.

That said, great books are ones that I reread, by choice, repeatedly. What's on your list of such books?

My list will be posted later this week.

I'm reading Stephen King's ON WRITING yet again. Always both amusing and inspiring. Makes me want to write more, and more vividly. No boredom when the King is at the keyboard...can't say that my writing is always scintillating, but Stephen would be the first to agree. At least, about the first draft. I love the quote from his early boss, a newspaper editor:
   The first time you write the story, you write it for yourself.
   When you rewrite it, you are writing for others. Your task now is to cut out everything that isn't the story.

   Or, as the old-fashioned saying about editing goes, "You need to be able to kill your darlings." That refers to loverly words and well-turned phrases as well as to your characters.

Okay, let me know what books you'll be bringing to your desert isle that'll be good to read and re-re-read!

Talking about creative writing.

Them as can, do.
Them as cain't, teach.
------------------------------ -------------

Hmmm. Saturday was my day to teach about writing, focusing on the large, complex work (novels, screenplays). I suggested that we are grounded by the theology of creativity.

I focused the first part of my talk what creativity means, theologically, drawing a lot from Dorothy Sayers' THE MIND OF THE MAKER. This is a subject that I love to talk about (so bear with me!): since we are created in the image of God...just as He spoke and the world leapt into being...so, too, our creative use of words brings new worlds, new characters, and new stories to life.

I frequently referenced a favorite book, Stephen King's ON WRITING...as in this blog posting: http://davionwriting.blogspot.com/2013/05/immense-possibilities.html


If interested, link to my handout and notes. Link to my own writing.

Okay, enough with the links and references. My talk yesterday was intended to both encourage my fellow writers, and to offer some instruction and (what I hope were) some tantalizing ideas, concrete ideas such as:

--let your characters be themselves, don't force them into a mold of your own making. Just because I like to read doesn't mean all my characters need to be book-lovers. Just because I have a certain belief system I shouldn't force my story line to hew to my own theological preferences.

--let your characters be real: they are opinionated, scruffy, and nobody is ever a hunnerd percent good or evil...even a bad guy still loves his ____ (mother, cat, elementary-school chum)!

--let your story emerge from your characters: trying to predict a story is hard when you have strong characters who mayn't react exactly as expected, desired, or planned.

--write about what you know, sure...but, what you know may be as broad as "love" or "just being doggone human."

--write so that the reader still has room for their own imagination--don't over-describe. If I tell you that the man's charcoal pinstriped suit drapes his slim muscular frame perfectly, and that the pucker in the knot of his pink tie is aligned precisely with the midpoint of his button-down collar soft charcoal shirt, with the glimmer of silver cufflinks appearing as he gestures broadly to accompany his slow, drawling speech...well, I have painted a picture, 'tis true. However, if I told you, "Look up the words 'elegant' and 'gentleman' in the encyclopedia, and you'd find this pin-striped Southerner's picture"... well, I've left you room to see an image that YOUR brain created--you'll know exactly what he looks look without wading through my excessively descriptive prose.

--write so that the reader can see/smell/hear what's happening...but, again, use broad brush-strokes, not fussy fine strokes that, while lovely, slow the reader down.

--chaque-un a son gout...to each their own.

--read lots, write lots.

Have you read a poorly written work lately?--that's one of the best ways to learn good writing, I've discovered. (I'm hoping you're learning bad examples from other than moi!)

Have you read something excellent? Do tell!

Immense Possibilities.

     After reading the story that I'd admitted to basically copying, my mother was disappointed. She gave me back the pad and said, 'Write one of your own, Stevie....'

     I remember an immense feeling of possibility at the idea, as if I had been ushered into a vast building filled with closed doors and had been given leave to open any I liked. There were more doors than any one person could open in a lifetime, I thought (and still think).

 

--Stephen King, ON WRITING.

 

=-=-=--=-

 

I love that "immense feeling of possibility" that is frankly open to any and all creative pursuits. Gosh, when you look at nut-case artists like Jackson Pollack (famed for his "splatter" paintings) or crazy writers or musicians--golly, all we need to do is put up our best effort and then keep refining.

 

Overwhelmed by too many possibilities? Nice problem to have--pick something and get started. Can't get started? Well, take your favorite excuse and stand it on its head. One guy who wanted to be a painter...couldn't afford to. Or so he thought...until he found scrap wood, begged some left-over house paint...and, there he was, painting and having himself a fine time, creating, learning, and recreating.

 

Painting, like writing, is great--don't like it?--paint over it!

I love King's image of that vast building, full of doors. I'd like to find a room with a view and a comfy chair next to a bookcase...and my computer on the library table right beside me. Buh-bye, world...after I read for bit, I'm going to write about a new world, one that I'm creating, right now!

 

Got any immense possibilities looking you in the eye?

Passionate pursuit, or passionless platitudes?

The path to God’s pleasure in life is not to have less fun and serve more.

The path to God’s pleasure is to follow our Lord into the passions He has given us and use them deliberately to glorify Him and to bring others to meet Him there.

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The above quote was an easy pick: it doesn't quite fit with our preconceptions, does it? Too often, worship and praise fall under the label, "Less fun, more work at things that don't wow me." Platitudes of praise are exactly the opposite of what God wants for us. "We are destined and appointed to live for the praise of God's glory!" Eph. 1: 12. Too bad we don't look/feel/act like it.

The real question that needs to be asked is, "Well, what does wow you?"

And, next, "What are you gonna do about it, to please your Creator?"

Beautifully open-ended, isn't it?

My answers include: I love to read and write and sing. I love to learn, to teach, to preach, and to encourage others. As I pursue these passions, I hope that I am pointing others toward the Giver of these gifts...tell me about the passions that you are pursuing.

In Pursuit.

God wants us to grow and discover...and He accompanies us as we pursue deeper knowledge and understanding of Him and His world and His people.
     --Loyola Press, daily retreats.


"...but we have the mind of Christ." (1 Cor. 2:16.) So what? If we don't hone and use the wisdom that comes from spending time in Christ's presence...I repeat, so what? Making any diff in your life? In anyone else's life?

In growing we discover, and in discovery, we grow. If, that is, our internal compass has us pointing in the right direction. Otherwise, our "discoveries" are weeds in the garden.

Okay, and what is the "right direction"? To me, that which creates order out of chaos and logic out of a heap of facts. And, since we know that this universe is running down like a clock you could only wind up, once...then, the order must be imposed, from the outside. Logic only then emerges from order. Otherwise, we're asking that order magically appears out of disorder, that chaos somehow "learns" to organize itself rather than, like your unattended cupboard, closet or garage--it only tends toward one direction: ever-increasing disarray.

Huh? But, I thought evolution was the way order arose from chaos.

Count me a doubter that blind chance, multiplied by any number of years, would somehow result in complex order emerging from raw ingredients. Nope, disorder breeds disorder. Period. Only way to organize anything complex is for an intellect that is even more complex to be there, supervising the order.

When I write, I am taking the disordered thoughts and observations, the daydreams and experiences, the sounds and the smells and the tastes that I can only imagine, and I endeavor to impose some creative order upon them. The thoughts do not sort themselves into a plot, and the letters do not sort themselves into words.

                          * * *                                                

Ahhh, that reminds me of a story.

   The story is true, and, delightfully, involves monkeys and typewriters. Okay, more accurately, macaques and word-processors.
   A researcher decided to actually put to the test that assertion that if you put enough monkeys in front of enough typewriters over enough time, eventually Shakespearean plays would emerge as a product of sufficient randomness over time.

   First, the researcher had to stop the monkeys from destroying the machines with rocks.

   Then, he had to stop the chimps from urinating and defecating on the machines. After eventually training the primates to not destroy the machines, their marvelous output, not unpredictably, looked like this:

q]0ijknqmg vcsz-]j[kpnoqdgasv xz]ipjknqdwafsj'nqdfwk-a;sfnmqrt-]khqdg'jlqt2g2a4gd
jnq3reli4q3-o83iughoafdbn[j{)HIPO*UIE
")FPv
1\FjhÓ14RIT

   But, later, the chimps had a breakthrough, and were quite taken, nearly mesmerized, in fact, by pages and pages of:
    eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Um, so much for order emerging from disorder...the experiment was halted.

Isn't it funny--one assumes monkeys would only type characters, and that randomness would only involve letters and words and not rocks and urine and feces. You see, true randomness is not at all predictable or orderly or productive...and that is why I believe that the order we see in our universe is derived from an Organizer. Indeed, a Creator.


[For more info on monkeys and typing, try page 190 and a few pp before and after in this ref in Google books.--DS]