Always Learning

There is a new television program called THE CRAFTSMAN, and it features Eric Hollenbeck, a master woodworker who has been honing his craft for over 40 years.  

He sometimes says things that are common sense, but rarely said aloud.  Such as, it took a long time to get good at what he does, and that his product is never perfect..."the tree was perfect."  The man also says he's still improving in his art.

I'm in my 50s now, so 20 years younger than Hollenbeck, but I can't remember a time when I wasn't working at being better at writing.  When I was younger, I'd sometimes be frustrated when I would read someone else's work that I knew was better than my own.

Obviously, I still find writing better than my own, and often, but I don't get frustrated anymore.  I don't get disheartened by rejections, either.  This is not to say I've grown numb to the experience; I have not. It's like Hollenbeck says, my writing will never be perfect.

Those who know me, also know I love data.  I wasn't a math kid, but there is something about data analysis that really speaks to me, and while points of data can be fascinating...nothing beats a trend.  An observable, quantifiable, valid trend.  

While I know my writing isn't perfect, and I'm surrounded by people who write better than I, or get more awards than I, or fewer rejections than I do...the trend is a good one.  I can read my work from 20 years ago, and see that it has improved since then.  Looking at short stories from 10 years ago, I scratch my head, and think, "I can fix this," and get to work.

The trend, since I was very little, has been one of improvement in my writing.  

The scary bit?  The trend in my cognitive function is going the wrong way.  I have to make lists!  Not just in my writing, but for just getting normal stuff done!  When did that happen?  With my writing, I have to go back and read so much more often.  I used to be able to hold an entire novel-in-progress in my head.  Now, I go into the next room and, upon getting there, I have to pause and think about why I went in.

I know it's the normal process of my brain becoming less elastic.  I don't learn nearly as quickly as I once did.  However, with writing, what my brain no longer retains, I remember through muscle memory I have acquired by having written so much.  For an obsessive writer like me, with that joy of lifelong obsession, the amount that I have written dwarfs what other people have seen.  I've written a lot of stuff.

Short fiction, essays, novels (in various genres), journalism, legislative bills, advertising copy, how-to, textbooks, screenplays, travel writing, curricula, poetry, a bit of memoir, translation, song lyrics, and of course blog entries.

With some of those types of writing I'm stronger, and with others, I am weaker.  I have been working on my screenwriting, and the generosity of others, teaching me, like screenwriter Judd Richter did last week, is something for which I'm extremely grateful.  

As long as I feel the trend is a positive one, I won't write in a panic.  I'm sure that day is coming, but I try not to panic about the impending panic.  As long as I can keep improving my writing, I'll only love doing it more. 

Once I realize that I have plateaued, I'll only speed up the pace. 

Once I realize that I'm in decline, I'll write only for me.

The Writing Zone

It hasn't happened to me in quite some time, but I've had these experiences while writing.  The last one happened when I was working on my novel, THE TWIN.  

I'm not a plotter, and I'm not a total pantser either.  My books are not completely plotted out, detail by detail, but I'm not just winging it and writing by the seat of my pants.

So these experiences I mentioned...there are times, I sit down to write, maybe with a lunch, a sandwich. I begin to work, following the very loose notes I've made.  I'm working..I'm working...and then suddenly I look past my computer monitor, and the room is dark.  Having sat down at noon, munching and writing, and then all at once, it's evening and many hours have passed.  

I don't mean this in a figurative sense, but instead in a "lost time" sort of thing.  Like an alien abduction, you know, except no aliens and probes and whatnot.

The entire house is dark, with no lights turned on.  My sandwich is gone, and there are 8000 new words in the novel.  Weirder still, I start to go back to read what was written, without any memory of what I wrote, and the quality is higher than my usual first pass AND there are plot points that I hadn't planned.

Then I realize how badly I need to go to the washroom, how parched I am, and how stiff I am.  

As I mentioned, this doesn't happen that often, and hasn't happened in years.  And I miss it.

Anyone have any theories as to what that is? I've already excluded the possibility of aliens. When someone mentions being in the zone, that's what I think of, I think of those times when that sort of thing has happened to me.  I chase it and want to experience it again, even though I have only the memories of right before and right after, with no memories of the actual writing.

I would love to know what you think is happening when that occurs.  Please comment and let me know.

Do Not Underestimate Life Experience

I have been an instructor all told for about 16 years now. What I mean by an instructor is one who, again and again, stands before and among young and/or adult learners and attempts to get everyone to a desired learning outcome.

Like many people who do this work, I have had the opportunity to sample a wide variety of student writing in addition to the innumerable books, articles, newspapers, peer-workshop pieces, websites, email, memos, foreign language materials, billboards, cereal boxes, etc.

I have come to a not-so-new conclusion but one worth supporting. While natural ability and instruction can certainly help a writer with her or his craft and storytelling, it is life experience, rich and varied, which perhaps makes the single largest difference.

Granted if there is no natural ability or a lack of instruction, formal or no, than experience alone will not a writer make. However, I have seen the enriching impact of life-exposure on writing, the thickening and layering within the story.

Perhaps a teen who has traveled widely or the middle-aged survivor of hardship. The words of a man who lost his soulmate to cancer in the early years of a marriage or another who lost his daughter. Someone who decides to study in India rather than Indiana (before I get blazed with emails, I'm sure Indiana is fascinating, I just liked how it went with India- take it easy). Perhaps a young woman who grew up following the Dead, perhaps more quickly than she had planned. Or a woman attractive enough to model who did not know she was because she grew up hidden among the beautiful thoroughbreds her mother raised. A small-town Canadian living for more than a decade in Beirut. A woman who sipped life through a straw leading up to her lung transplant and what it was like to surface afterward. A man who detailed the tragedy and post-trauma healing of sexual abuse. A woman who goes on a search through houses of God after beating cancer. A man who traveled to Thailand to experience the village and find the religion of his mother and continued the search for himself in a sea kayak paddled to Alaska. I have been moved by enough of them to know the examples seem endless.

It can be argued that some of this exposure can come from books, other media, or even oral tradition, but I believe because the sensory-stimulation isn't as rich, the benefit isn't a profound. I also don't wish hardship or tragedy on anyone. Still, getting out and tasting more of life and the world with ears and eyes open and mouth shut seems to provide the best return-on-investment for a writer's writing.