Wednesday, September 8, 2010


I dedicate the following entry to my friend Erin, who deserves it. She is a creative girl with shoes to match each experience. Hers are shoes few others could fill.


Drop all your words on a page Erin, and rearrange them later.

______________________



Advice from a writing website: start a blog.

Yup. All started...


Use it to talk about your own writing process, to share your ideas and experiences, or to publish your work to a live audience.


I am not interested in my own writing process, but I will share it. I am random. It's not method, but purpose. I had soaked up so much Lily that I needed to wring it out and purge. The blog is my sturdy receptacle.


Ideas and experiences all shine inside the glass walls of my blog. Yup. Everything is visible. I needed a place to put the thoughts and feelings I was having about Lily. The blog's first sentences popped into my head and from that moment, GoodGirlLily began.


The website for writers stated, you are a writer so own up and say it out loud: “I am a writer.”


I say aloud: I am NOT a dork who will chant and cheer for myself.


Own up? Writing is not a drug habit. Maybe it's an affliction, like some obvious itchy rash you can't clear up, but do I really need to own up?


I know the author was aiming to encourage new or timid and uncertain writers who pour crap on the page, then swirl it around with their fingertips.


The next piece of advice is OK. The website instructs the reader to, let go of your inner editor. When you sit down to write a draft, refrain from proofreading until that draft is complete.


My inner editor has my mom's angry voice: that sentence is RUN-ON! Your verb is WEAK and PASSIVE.


My own voice joins this one, reminding me that I hate using THE thousands of times like a railroad tie just to get through a sentence. So I am always reworking things to most concisely express a thought. While THE is unavoidable, I hate using THE like a staircase when a good, strong jump will do.


For anyone wondering why I upended the bucket and dropped commas quotation marks and formal punctuation -- this is a blog, so I am letting my hair down.


The website says that when you sit down to write a draft, refrain from proofreading until that draft is done. OK. Get your thoughts out uninterrupted, then reshape the soppy clay. OK.


Proofreading does not mean grammar and spelling corrections alone. Can I make the thoughts clearer or the phrase better? Is it boring? And I often find a lead or pick up an image while I am clunking around doing laundry and my mind is essentially off. There I stand poised with a cap spilling dark blue laundry soap and I remember Lily with her head draped over the seat as if she were a wet towel as limp as seaweed, looking back at sickness sprinting on nimble bare feet to catch her.


Well it missed. Shithead. You missed. Almost got us though.


I remember a college student interviewing me and asking about writing. Did I follow The Pyramid plan as I built a story? Did I answer who what when why where or how.


I told her, nope.


I am not giving myself credit for a creative approach with which I succeeded. Nothing like that.


A formal news writing course or journalism training never saw me in their classroom. I struggled to write when I convinced a crazy editor to hire me as a reporter. There I sat as a typesetter (who cannot type, by the way. I look at my hands) and wondered how I could become a newspaper writer. It was just a goal without any other thought. I just warned to see if I could do it.


After Crazy Editor had interviewed a few people, she finally called me in.


We talked and admired the nice weather from inside our nice climate controlled building and noted the nice town and nice groups living there when she finally asked, Kendra, do you think you can do this job? Wide-eyed I imagined that she should already have her answer, or I would have never warranted an interview.


So I said, Lorraine, do YOU think I can do this job?


Almost fell off the boat and sunk. But I am here now, writing about Lily who had me blow-my-top angry today. She has got to stop lunging at passing vehicles.


I told Jerry, I was really angry with her. I took her by the fur around her shoulders and sat her down hard, I told him. How long have I been running with her? What is wrong?


The writing site begins by recommending that writers use headlines from magazines for inspiration.


This site I tripped over while adrift on the Internet was today's inspiration.


Erin's post is Lily, numer one hundred thirty five.

1 comment:

  1. SO glad i read this today.. i need a strudy receptacle too. will start today. thank you K!

    ReplyDelete