Sailing

9:26 am    feet on the desk, coffee cup handy, keyboard on my lap---- morning light casting a pleasant glow---- good way to start the day. Been thinking 'bout developing voice, or finding voice might be more accurate.  A writer's voice should be authentic, shouldn't be a trumpet for some cause.  Are some people born with the courage to stand up and speak their mind, or is that trait nurtured by the right environment?  Stand up, speak, write, proclaim, question:  all that kind of activity stirs the pot, the pot of contentment and stability, the pot of appeasement.  This musing led me to remember a story we read in grade school, maybe the 4th or 5th grade, called A Man Without a Country.  I remember the illustration for that story in our reader: a young hearty man looking longingly at a shore,  a shore where he was never to set foot.  From what I remember this man had uttered words of disloyalty to the new brand new United States of America--- I do not recall what he was supposed to have said, but the words, the words, were considered treasonous.  His punishment was to board a ship and sail the waters of the world, never allowed to set foot on any soil.  Any soil.  He was permanently adrift, rootless, homeless, friendless.

We had been studying the American Revolution at the time of reading this story, so my young brain was cast in confusion. On the one hand we were studying heroes who used words to incite the people to Revolution, but once the Revolution was won, the man in this story could not use his voice to proclaim his opposition.  It's been a long time since I read this work, but the diptych of the Glorious American Revolution side by side with this cautionary tale to youngsters to not take their opinions, their voices, their words, too far, has stayed with me through the years.   And taking one's voice too far, of course, will be decided by whoever happens to hold the power.

The threat of being cast off has quite a chilling effect not only on the words spoken, but the thoughts pursued, the dare to color outside the lines kinds of thought, the whys, the what ifs.

Why am I thinking about a story I read so many years ago when I tackle the problem of voice in writing?  I think, dare I say, I think that cautionary tale worked on me so long ago, and all these years since I have been trying to find a way to speak my mind--- whether in writing or out loud--- and still have a place to call home.  At some point, though, I believe, we must be willing to join that man sailing around the world getting no closer than a port to plant our feet.  And that takes a different kind of courage.

Gathering Chi--- Date and Place

Anyone interested in taking a wonderful class to gather the energy to write?  I'll copy and paste Robin's note and if you are in the Dallas area on Sept. 19, please consider joining us----

My tai chi teacher is so excited I may have to tie him to a chair.  He wants to meet writers.  He thinks we are interesting people.  So he's proposed Sept. 19th in his school in Richardson.  Meet at 10 a.m. for lecture and practice of a short version of our form, then lunch and discussion, more review and questions, ending about 3:00 p.m. Those who want to channel the present energy can gather at my house for a writing session.  Cost about $90.

Julie, this is a fantastic opportunity.  He is a direct line descendant from China's third great tai chi master.  Remember how much trouble this was to describe for the Mayborn essay?  But that's correct.  After 8 years of study I can count on my hands the number of times I've been allowed to see him teach like this.  I hope it goes over well and lots of folks sign up."

If you would like to attend please contact Robin at:robinyaklin@sbcglobal.net

Hope to meet you there

Suffrage

Today is the 89th birthday of the American woman's right to vote.  89 years, and still, you have to wonder, what took so long? It is 2009, right?  We are in the twenty-first century, so the calendar says.  So how come Richard Engel of NBC News still has to report on women in Afghanistan who are in prison because they left violently abusive husbands, were shunned because they were raped, are in prison just because they are women? It is a matter of law that a wife cannot refuse sex to her husband on pain of imprisonment and that every 27 minutes (!) an Afghan woman dies in childbirth!!!! The report showed a nursery as part of the prison where the women can play with their children from time to time.  Looking at the young, beautiful faces of these boys and girls it takes little imagination to fast forward 15 or 20 years and see those little girls as wife-slaves to men who were once beautiful little boys, beloved by their mothers.  When will those toddlers be taught that women are worth so much less than men?  When will those beautiful little girls learn that the boys they once played with in a prison nursery have the right to abuse, rape, shun and violate them?

How do we reconcile these images, these stories that we encounter day after day in so many places in this world with what we know to be right and what to be wrong?  How is it possible that people can continue to treat each other with such barbarity?

Over the last several years polite people find it acceptable to downplay the revolution in the Western world of women's rights.  Yes, some of the warriors were shrill, irritating, un-ladylike.  Some were extreme and made us uncomfortable.  But, look what they have accomplished:  educated, intelligent women who are able to speak up for themselves and for thier children and state the obvious:  we are all created equal.

What's taking so long?

Over Analysis

Writing is a strange process.  Yeah, I know you already know that.  But, to the uninitiated, when you hear that someone is taking a year, two years, ten years to complete a book, you think, what a dilettante.  May or may not be true, but it sure does seem that way.  Until you try it yourself. An idea might come to you, like a muse visiting and leaving a gift.  (Ah, the muse---- another time)  Some lucky ducks take that seed of an idea and weave it into some lovely tapestry, or at least something they can sell.  Others of us get a quick start and then stall. And stall.  Characters, plot, narrative thread.  Instead of telling a story like you would around the dinner table or over a few beers in the local tavern, you hem and haw and think, no, there's a better way to start.  Have him say this and her do that and make sure it all makes sense and makes the reader want to turn the page.  And then the words go silent.

Silent is where I end up too much of the time.  Maybe I have mentally beaten up my characters , asking too much for their narrow shoulders.  I have to back off. I have to let them behave naturally, as the human beings they purport to be.  And, for me, that takes time.  I have to leave room for them to tell me what they want to say and who they reveal themselves to be.  Sounds a little tales from the crypt, but the more you write the more you realize you have to be an instrument, a vehicle, let the story happen.  Unless you are writing a legal brief or a propaganda pamphlet, and even then you assume a certain voice.  In writing that falls under the genre of "Creative", whether fiction or non-fiction, the writer has to get out of the way.  Otherwise the reader will know that the story doesn't ring true.

We  (a group of writing friends and I)  have discussed the difference between the person who writes and the writer, or author.  There is a different persona once you commit these thoughts to the page (or screen). The 'writer' is a creation and is not necessarily the  one who looks a lot like you and goes about the daily business of life. There is a difference in that person once he or she starts writing.

I think we stall ( I assume that I am not the only one) when we think too much.  One of my favorite expression is: Over analysis leads to paralysis. Sometimes, we just have to step aside and let the words come.

Tracks

Cold wind pushes against me as I walk through the canyons of lower Manhattan to the subway, tears fill my eyes, leak down my cheek.  Down the hole I go.  And wait.  Subways in the middle of the day are strange and ugly places. The smell of garbage and urine, the sound of rats scurrying under the platform, and the fine black soot that covers the rails and hovers in the air filling my nostrils and coating my lungs seem less personal in the crush of rush hour. The air is heavy with the cast off dust of commuters that have made this descent into post-modern Hades morning and evening for years.  Vertigo warns me while I straddle a tentative foot over the faded yellow line, that I am close, too close to falling into the dark ugliness that I submit to every day to carry out what has become the routine of my life.  I am almost alone.  A man in an oversized stained tan parka sits on a bench under the tile letters proclaiming this destination: Broad Street. Enter by the narrow gate, for the road to perdition is broad. These words come unbidden and startle me. I stand far enough away from him to be able to run up the stairs if he stirs, but not so far as to be rude to the poor man.  He mutters something into his dirty coat then draws his head out of his turtle’s collar and looks at me.  The J train screeches to a halt, the grimy doors open.  I take a seat opposite the man who sits on the platform bench looking at me.  I return his gaze through the smudged window.  When the doors close and the train pulls out, I am relieved to be away from him. And slightly ashamed.

copyright © 2009 J.B. McCullagh: Rose in Bloom (working title)

This is an excerpt from the beginning of the novel I am currently working on.  Working, in my case, is a rather loosely defined term.  Working includes such things as thinking, dreaming, imagining, letting the characters form in their own way, and of, course,they need to reveal themselves.  Working also includes trying out the scaffolding for these characters, their major conflicts and how the pieces and the people fit together.  Since this is my first serious attempt at novel writing I need to feel my way through, letting the many how to write books continue to gather dust on various desks and bookshelves around my house.

There are countless books on writing, some wonderful, some not so much.  Trouble with some writing books is that you have to read them.  Read them and do exercises.  Get out your pencil and papers, children, because it is time to write a theme.  Yes, Sister, we all say in weary unison. Maybe that's it.  My formal introduction to writing in the first grade was something called Theme writing.  It was all very structured and strict, guidelines had to be followed.  A beginning, a middle and an end must be part of the Theme. Punctuation and spelling mattered.  No one would dare call them stories.  Theme writing was an obstacle course that sifted the wheat from the chaff among the first grade crowd.  If you could endure that and still want to write, congratulations.  Considering I was 5 going on 6 when I started first grade, no wonder I hated it.  The stories I "wrote" before that were games and imaginings I made up for my younger sister and brother.  We would play them out and they would be 'written' as we went along, with surprises and meltdowns popping up just because someone needed a nap or had a wet diaper.  Before I went to school I would practice 'writing' in discarded notebooks of my older sibs, but I just wrote what I wanted using words I could guess at spelling.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that best 'how-to' books on writing are all the novels and works of non-fiction I have hungrily consumed these many years.  I think maybe I'm putting myself back in first grade when I set out to work on my novel by getting all jammed up in the rules.  I've got to figure out a way to shake loose all my well intentioned training and learn to trust the sounds and words that want to be on the page.  We'll see how it goes.