Avoiding the present in life and in writing (and how to quit it)
October Happy Hour link, Fledgling Newsletter #51
Psst…Your Lunch Break 10/26 and Happy Hour 10/27 links are at the bottom of this email!
Where are you right now? Sure, perhaps you are on the train, or at your desk, or (it’s okay, we all do it) in the bathroom. But where are your thoughts? Were you just thinking of what you are doing at the moment? Or were you thinking of something that happened in the past, something that you anticipate happening later today, tomorrow, or even five years from now? I’m betting you were somewhere other than “here” in your mind.
This month I read, along with some other awesome books, a self help book entitled Stop Self Sabotage. This was not the greatest read of all time if I’m honest, a little lagging for a book of this kind, but one of the exercises really sparked something in me. In it, author Judy Ho suggests you set alarms at two hour intervals throughout your day and when the buzzer goes off observe your thoughts and write down a line of what you were thinking. I didn’t have high hopes for the exercise. In fact, I even wondered if there may be a time when I wouldn’t be thinking anything at all. Instead the experiment left me feeling as though I understood myself more deeply than ever before.
Throughout the day I caught myself making many judgments of myself, usually assessing how a project I was working on might turn out while I was in the midst of working on it. Sometimes I made myself laugh out loud because I was thinking such banal thoughts as “Is Maury still on the air?” or musing on how Jennifer Lopez is aging in reverse. Rarely were my thoughts truly in the present, unless I was deeply immersed in a task that takes all of my attention, like talking on the phone or reading.
Readers pick up a book or an essay or even a poem to be seated in a space that is not their own, a space that is grounded and encompassing—for once—in the present, not to be lectured about one, or provided a summary of the narrator’s feelings. But so often new writers approach me with the draft of a story that avoids the present as much as our own human minds do. (Do not take this comment personally if you are a student of mine, because I believe it’s something many writers struggle with. At least I do!!)
I often speak about the importance of balance in a scene between interior monologue, dialogue, action, and description. This keeps us from spinning off into summary rather than scene. Often newly written work starts in one place and quickly delves into the mind of the narrator, giving us a lecture of flashback and thought, rather than really immersing us in a certain place and time. Next to character, place is most essential to creative writing in my opinion and in Eudora Welty’s too. In her essay “Place in Fiction” she writes:
“Carried off we might be in spirit, and should be, when we are reading or writing something good; but it is the sense of place going with us still that is the ball of golden thread to carry us there and back and in every sense of the word to bring us home.”
In revision consider these questions: Does every page refer several times to the sensory experiences of your main character in the current moment? Can we see, smell, feel, and move in a space for more than a line or two? Even if your piece is in the past tense, even if it is nonfiction, there must be a front-story world where the things that are happening move the plot along. If you happen to be using flashback more often than front story, perhaps you are telling your story from the wrong starting place.
You might even borrow the Stop Self Sabotage trick in a more gentle way as I do in revision. I like to keep major notes or main questions for myself posted in bold letters in the corner of my screen while revising. Working on the revision of my memoir I have the question, What am I seeing, feeling, smelling, thinking, doing in this moment? written in bold letters on a post-it on my screen. When I find my self spinning away from my golden thread, these sensory notes return me home to the place at the center of my scene.
News:
🚨Fledgling’s second most popular workshop, Flight Behavior, a novel planning course, is now open for registration. This unique 6-week course includes weekly generative lessons along with a daily prompt calendar to keep you writing daily. The biggest favor you can do for yourself when starting a book is to start off with intention, so your first draft reads like a third draft and you avoid time-consuming pitfalls. Read more about the course and sign up here.
📝Fledgling’s weekly writers’ hour Lunch Break is tomorrow 10/26 at 1 pm EST and our October Happy Hour is this Thursday 10/27 at 6 pm EST. We’ll be talking suspense and tension to honor my favorite holiday approaching soon! Don’t miss these chances to write with a group before the month is up! Scroll or upgrade to paid to join us.
Prompts:
Turn your phone on airplane mode. Choose a prompt. Write to it for 10 minutes. If you want to keep going, keep going. If you like what you write, reply it back to me and maybe see it in the newsletter next month...
Inspired by Navila’s poem, shared below, let colors lead you to a place. Where might you find the colors in the palette below? Start writing about that place, trying to infuse your piece with each color.
Ancient Greeks believed the world was made up of four essential elements: earth, air, water, and fire. Write a story, poem, or memory where these three elements collide into chaos. Be creative—perhaps water doesn’t appear as the sea, but as a full bathtub, or fire shows up on a kitchen stove…
And lastly, something to read:
an absolutely gorgeous (and grounded!) poem by longtime Fledgling, Navila Nahid, first published in Humana Obscura’s Fall/Winter 2022 issue. Find it here on page 106.
Find out how to join the October Happy Hour focused on Suspense and Tension below!
(Thursday, October 27, 6-7:45 pm EST on Zoom)
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