I have wanted to be a writer since the age of 7 years. Although I have read everything I could get my hands on, I knew at that age I was not very talented or capable as a writer. I couldn't spell worth a darn and knew practically nothing about grammar. What I had in my head never did translate onto the page. Of course, I had the excuse that I was a kid. Over the years, that excuse got weaker and weaker, but I wrote anyhow. It was the passion that kept me going.
I read authors that really have this wonderful gift and of course they work hard at it. I am reading "My Reading Life" by Pat Conway(Doubleday:2010) and he writes about books and writing since they are linked in many ways for a writer. He writes: "As a writer, I would have to walk many strange avenues, staying loose and keeping my eyes open, memorizing the names of streets and the faces of strangers, listening to unknown tongues, exploring severe, tended gardens, being aware of the traffic and the besieged faces pressed against windows in dimply lit houses."
I learned along the way, it was not a matter of just learning the words, grammar and way of putting sentences down; I had to learn to notice the details with my eyes wide open and see where I was and remember the people around me, the sounds of the music of life and the emotions of the moment. When I first started to write in earnest, I remember trying to write about walking on a forest path, on a busy street and although I have been there so many times I could not remember. I could not describe it as a writer. I was a big blank. I read other writers' descriptions and they put me as the reader on the forest path or on that sidewalk. I couldn't. They used words I knew the meanings and word structure I was familiar with but they did their homework by noticing the details of where they were on any given moment.
There were times as a young adult, I withdrew into myself and just worked on school work and did the least on whatever minimum wage job I had to get by. Of course, I did my homework but the world during those times seemed surreal. Noticing people and places were not considerations for me at the time and I noticed this deficient in my writing. I did not have a computer as they were not in vogue at the time. My writing suffered greatly. It wasn't a waste for I got through college and never did stop reading. Still, I would walk down the street and feel as if my feet did not touch the ground.
I have since married, divorced, had children and recorded details in my journals. I have found that worked best for me. I have gotten used to noticing my surroundings and my writing as improved tremendously. I even enjoy it now. When I travel, I pay more attention to my journal than the camera. I even sketch different places and love describing the places and people that I see. I am now a confirmed people watcher. I sit with my journal and just write what I observe. People rarely pay any attention to me especially since I have become a senior citizen. I would think laptops would be a great asset in the art of describing one's surrounding since there are so many people in restaurants and other places with their fingers on the keyboards just typing way and no one pays any attention to them.
I am not an expert on what writers should do but what this writer has done and what has worked for me. I know until I started to watch, describe and record my surroundings I was of no use as a writer. I wrote lifeless prose. I had to be able to describe a brick building and the windows in it as well as the doorway in a story. If I couldn't see it in my mind's eye, the reader could not see it either. If I could not see the character and describe him or her, then the reader could not as well. I often read how other writers do it, but it is actually doing it myself that makes all of the difference. I take what other writers do and apply it to what works for me. Everyone does it differently and there is no right or wrong way of doing it except not to do it at all.
The other day, I finished a murder mystery by Georges Simenon, "Maigret and the Apparition" (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: 1964). I have read many of Simenon's murder mysteries involving Chief Superintendent Maigret. In all honesty, I read this book to discover why his books were vivid and real to me when I read them. I have never been to Paris, but I can see Maigret and the streets and buildings as well as the people of Paris clearly.
It is a simple story involving a shooting of a police officer for an unknown reason. He describes the victim, Lognon, by his nickname, "Inspector Hapless" and he lies in a hospital close to death while Maigret probes the reasons why Lognon was where he was when he was shot. Each time the author describes the food that everyone eats, the buildings they are in and even the clothes they are wearing even the unimportant characters as one woman's husband who works as a night porter. He is sitting in a chair in a ugly purple robe, legs crossed and one slipper dangling from one foot. Yet, the description is not laborious and complicated. Simenon threads his descriptions through a lens that is concise and meaningful. Little does the reader realize that it is the marriages of the victim, Maigret, other characters that are being described. It is not a careless list of descriptions but carefully put together list of details that not only is part of the plot but gives meaning within the story itself. The crime is about art theft and murder but it is about marriage and how marriage differs with different people. There are good ample reasons that Simenon is considered an outstanding writer of this genre. In this case, he did it with details, effortlessly and almost without the reader's notice.
I learned a valuable lesson about the importance about details a while back. I took a speed reading course so I could whiz through my books in college and gain the important information about plots from the books I read. I had to unlearn all of those things I picked up in speed reading because I lost the flavor of the prose and because I missed the details of the book. Now, instead of reading a book just for the plot, I read it for the wholeness of the experience. I am the better for it. The same goes for writing. I put things down slowly and then come back to it with my editing pencil and put the details in it without being wordy keeping in mind the advice about not using adverbs unless my life depended on it.
The only enemy I have in reading is time. Pat Conroy's book is a library book so I have to keep at it and not go at it as slowly as I did with Simenon's murder mystery which I own. I also can't mark up Conroy's book since I don't own it. Still, I don't check out five or six books like I used to do when younger. The most I ever check out is three. I doubt if I will get to the third book before they are due.
I have never taken a creative writing class. I just let myself teach me what I need to know by doing the two essential things every writer needs to do, read and write. Other writers have done the same. When I was writing, I could see I was lacking in that area and needed to fix that hole before I could go on with what I wanted to do. I know there are writers out there that need those creative writing classes, but I am comfortable doing what I am doing now. I leave my options open, "staying loose and keeping my eyes open."
I read authors that really have this wonderful gift and of course they work hard at it. I am reading "My Reading Life" by Pat Conway(Doubleday:2010) and he writes about books and writing since they are linked in many ways for a writer. He writes: "As a writer, I would have to walk many strange avenues, staying loose and keeping my eyes open, memorizing the names of streets and the faces of strangers, listening to unknown tongues, exploring severe, tended gardens, being aware of the traffic and the besieged faces pressed against windows in dimply lit houses."
I learned along the way, it was not a matter of just learning the words, grammar and way of putting sentences down; I had to learn to notice the details with my eyes wide open and see where I was and remember the people around me, the sounds of the music of life and the emotions of the moment. When I first started to write in earnest, I remember trying to write about walking on a forest path, on a busy street and although I have been there so many times I could not remember. I could not describe it as a writer. I was a big blank. I read other writers' descriptions and they put me as the reader on the forest path or on that sidewalk. I couldn't. They used words I knew the meanings and word structure I was familiar with but they did their homework by noticing the details of where they were on any given moment.
There were times as a young adult, I withdrew into myself and just worked on school work and did the least on whatever minimum wage job I had to get by. Of course, I did my homework but the world during those times seemed surreal. Noticing people and places were not considerations for me at the time and I noticed this deficient in my writing. I did not have a computer as they were not in vogue at the time. My writing suffered greatly. It wasn't a waste for I got through college and never did stop reading. Still, I would walk down the street and feel as if my feet did not touch the ground.
I have since married, divorced, had children and recorded details in my journals. I have found that worked best for me. I have gotten used to noticing my surroundings and my writing as improved tremendously. I even enjoy it now. When I travel, I pay more attention to my journal than the camera. I even sketch different places and love describing the places and people that I see. I am now a confirmed people watcher. I sit with my journal and just write what I observe. People rarely pay any attention to me especially since I have become a senior citizen. I would think laptops would be a great asset in the art of describing one's surrounding since there are so many people in restaurants and other places with their fingers on the keyboards just typing way and no one pays any attention to them.
I am not an expert on what writers should do but what this writer has done and what has worked for me. I know until I started to watch, describe and record my surroundings I was of no use as a writer. I wrote lifeless prose. I had to be able to describe a brick building and the windows in it as well as the doorway in a story. If I couldn't see it in my mind's eye, the reader could not see it either. If I could not see the character and describe him or her, then the reader could not as well. I often read how other writers do it, but it is actually doing it myself that makes all of the difference. I take what other writers do and apply it to what works for me. Everyone does it differently and there is no right or wrong way of doing it except not to do it at all.
The other day, I finished a murder mystery by Georges Simenon, "Maigret and the Apparition" (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: 1964). I have read many of Simenon's murder mysteries involving Chief Superintendent Maigret. In all honesty, I read this book to discover why his books were vivid and real to me when I read them. I have never been to Paris, but I can see Maigret and the streets and buildings as well as the people of Paris clearly.
It is a simple story involving a shooting of a police officer for an unknown reason. He describes the victim, Lognon, by his nickname, "Inspector Hapless" and he lies in a hospital close to death while Maigret probes the reasons why Lognon was where he was when he was shot. Each time the author describes the food that everyone eats, the buildings they are in and even the clothes they are wearing even the unimportant characters as one woman's husband who works as a night porter. He is sitting in a chair in a ugly purple robe, legs crossed and one slipper dangling from one foot. Yet, the description is not laborious and complicated. Simenon threads his descriptions through a lens that is concise and meaningful. Little does the reader realize that it is the marriages of the victim, Maigret, other characters that are being described. It is not a careless list of descriptions but carefully put together list of details that not only is part of the plot but gives meaning within the story itself. The crime is about art theft and murder but it is about marriage and how marriage differs with different people. There are good ample reasons that Simenon is considered an outstanding writer of this genre. In this case, he did it with details, effortlessly and almost without the reader's notice.
I learned a valuable lesson about the importance about details a while back. I took a speed reading course so I could whiz through my books in college and gain the important information about plots from the books I read. I had to unlearn all of those things I picked up in speed reading because I lost the flavor of the prose and because I missed the details of the book. Now, instead of reading a book just for the plot, I read it for the wholeness of the experience. I am the better for it. The same goes for writing. I put things down slowly and then come back to it with my editing pencil and put the details in it without being wordy keeping in mind the advice about not using adverbs unless my life depended on it.
The only enemy I have in reading is time. Pat Conroy's book is a library book so I have to keep at it and not go at it as slowly as I did with Simenon's murder mystery which I own. I also can't mark up Conroy's book since I don't own it. Still, I don't check out five or six books like I used to do when younger. The most I ever check out is three. I doubt if I will get to the third book before they are due.
I have never taken a creative writing class. I just let myself teach me what I need to know by doing the two essential things every writer needs to do, read and write. Other writers have done the same. When I was writing, I could see I was lacking in that area and needed to fix that hole before I could go on with what I wanted to do. I know there are writers out there that need those creative writing classes, but I am comfortable doing what I am doing now. I leave my options open, "staying loose and keeping my eyes open."
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