An art exercise, writing process, Charles Dickens, childhood writing influences, and question of voice...

An art exercise, writing process, Charles Dickens, childhood writing influences, and question of voice...
11/09/11

9:48am
She had had to skip a day's writing - her morning art class the previous day meant she would have had to start her writing so early in the morning, if she expected to be ready for class on time. She had thought she might make it. She'd woken up earlier than she usually did on class day. She'd again gotten herself washed and dressed, with bed made, before breakfast. But there had not been enough time of the kind she still required for a writing session. She would have felt too harried if she knew she would have to stop so soon. She did not even try to write. She was ready early for her students. There had been enough time to try a little experiment with that idea she'd had from the last week's art classes.

The last lesson had been about drawing and painting deer, using for reference the drawings of Ken Hultgren, a Disney animator who had worked on many of the old Disney films. He'd worked on Bambi. His instruction book on animal drawing had a good selection of deer drawings. One of his practices was the way he captured main lines of motion and directions in an animals gesture. He did this with broad sweeping arcs. The idea had come to her that perhaps one could just throw down some arbitrary sweeping arcs on a page and then search for the creature that could be found within the lines - a bit like seeing animal forms in cloud formations, or Leonardo Da Vinci's talking of finding imagery in the crack patterns on a wall. Here though, you attempted to make a random pattern, trying not to direct it with preconceived ideas of what you wanted to find there. She had just enough time to make up seven such arrangements before the students arrived. These were done in sets of four on a sheet. That left one spot empty.

When the students arrived she showed them her samples. The other aspect was that these arrangements were not just arcs. The first one was diagonals that touched two edges of the rectangle format. The next was overlapping triangles. Then overlapping circles, the arcs, perpendicular crossing lines from edge to edge, overlapping rectangles, and overlapping circles covering the whole format. They brainstormed possibilities for the last arrangement. Then everyone set about making up their arrangements in the little rectangle window formats on their papers. The last one they were to choose from the brainstormed list of extras. The students did not know what the final purpose for this was to be. This she knew was risky. They might come up with arrangements that did not hold any figures or creatures. If they knew in advance what the purpose was, they would be overly controlling and working from the habitual part of their mind.

10:16a

They finished their arrangements and she gave them the second part of the instructions - find a figure or creature in each of your arrangements and paint it in in one color. Two of the students took to developing what they'd found into a more literal scene. They went beyond abstracted figures. She would have liked them to see the beauty in the abstraction, but that the exercise had been such a trigger for invention was an unexpectedly good result she thought.

The experimental exercise took an hour. She had never meant for it to go beyond just one page of four arrangements. Making that first set of four arrangements had brought up more categories of arrangements she wanted to try. Having the one blank spot because she had not had time to do it before they arrived, meant that the class as a whole had brainstormed more ideas. Now there were that many more variations to try. Possibilities always seemed to mushroom in that way.

Where and how did 'mushroom' as a verb come into use? It was not the shape of a mushroom. This was a question she wanted to follow up on later.

After her morning class she got the call from the garage that her car was ready to be picked up. They'd been able to repair the leaking tire. She would walk down to collect it before going to teach the afternoon kids' art class. There would be no time for her writing session in between the classes. Perhaps she would get to it in the evening. She suspected that would not work for her. The writing ritual had become a morning practice. it would not seem right to write in the evening for such an extended period of concentration then have to turn around and do it again in the morning. She was not up to that level yet. She had already experienced how quickly one day became the next day when one had to go do this strenuous mental effort again. She would be oversaturated if she turned around so quickly. She would have to find another way to make up the difference. And she would have to find a way to compensate for the lack of time on that double teaching day the next few weeks.

She knew she wanted to continue with this kind of writing session not for the goal of writing this 'novel' that was not really a novel, but for the other unexpected aspects she was discovering about doing this. She did not yet understand what it was about doing this that certainly seemed to be the cause of her getting up early and getting dressed before breakfast. Was it that one had a goal of sufficient challenge yet doable, and at the same time could only be accomplished by doing on a daily basis. She saw how she felt about having to miss the previous day's session. This particular challenge also gave the immediate feedback of seeing the results of one's efforts. One's pile of production grew daily. Because one had a set amount that had to be done on a daily basis, one could see it grow. That was the immediate positive feedback that was so motivating. There was also the self cognicence that one was able to do this and that one was following through on something one had chosen for oneself to do. This was having such a fulfilling and gratifying effect on her.

There had to be a way to apply this to her art too. She worried that it was such a different venue/thing/ beast/

She had gone to the first of the weekly Nanowrimo 'write-in' sessions that the library was holding. She had not really understood that this was more for sitting with others and writing. She had expected it would be for questions and discussions. She'd known she would not have time to go to the meetings but wanted to at least follow up on the first actual November meeting that had come after the introductory preview session - at least to check in to report that she seemed to be taking up the Nano challenge. She'd scribbled out a list of questions - actually a whole page full. Her main question was whether she was cheating by using 'she' as the character of this novel that was not a novel. She had already decided whether it was cheating or not did not really matter. It no longer mattered whether she wrote anything good or not in the final result. She knew she was using this as a 'practice', and already could see the value and effect of doing this practice. She knew there were plenty of valuable ideas, realizations, and insights for herself at least were coming out of this practice.

The group was gathered around the table. They introduced themselves. No one seemed to have any questions. She raised her question - was this format using 'she' as the subject, and its being her own journal in effect, constitute a 'novel', so that she could consider herself a legitimate Nanowrimo contender? There was advice that the main purpose should be just to write and if one did not complete the word count goal, at least one had written that much more than if one did not try at all. But the question of using a character with no name other than 'she' seemed to be a separate question of whether a reader would care about such a character. She had not been at all concerned about a possible reader! Possible readers were in her mind somewhere but she had assumed there would be no audience, no readership for this other than someone who would happen to find it interesting. She had no expectation of this being interesting to anyone else. She was not at that point yet. One of the writers suggested that a reader might be interested to know a bit of the character's background story, perhaps some of her interests.

11:11a

She would have to ponder the question of possible readers other than herself. What other reason had she had for posting these sessions to the new blog she'd started for the challenge? She must have had some reader in mind. Why else would she be posting this material? She was not sure if she would be one of those readers. She hoped to go through afterwards pulling out the insights she found most valuable for herself. She was not sure she would want to slog through all that material again though. She frequently referred to back entries of her journals when she wanted to find what was going on at certain times in her life, or to find accounts of particular instances. But she was good at skimming through until she found what she wanted. Skimming was not the same as reading.

It was seeming from this daily writing experience that she was discovering more that she liked about writing than she'd realized. It was as if this had been a hidden desire - to express oneself in this manner. She knew how much she loved journal writing but that was strictly a private affair. On rare occasion she would photocopy an excerpt, about some event she'd written in her journal, to share with whomever it concerned. That was the extent of it though.

She wondered if writing never crossed her mind as a realistic option for her due to early experiences of her dad's tutelage. When she was in the fifth grade, and her mother was away visiting her own father who was dying, she had to write a report and had left the work til the night before it was due. Her father asked to see her homework. Perhaps they had learned about the outline method and he felt she'd done a poor job of it. He gave her an intense lesson on how to make an outline. She now had to go make this outline, which he would review, and she would then have to correct - until she got it right. The process took a long time. It grew quite late .
When she'd completed the outline, she still had to write the report. Yes, the report writing seemed easier with the outline in hand. There was a lot of writing to do just for the draft. She then had to copy the draft out neatly - no scratching out - so that one could read it. It was 3:00 am before she finished and could go to bed. The pattern of procrastinating on overwhelming jobs had started.

*The junior literature biography book series subscriptions and book summaries.....
11:40am

Later when she was in college and wrote letters home, something she did enjoy doing, she received the critique that a particula letter rambled on too much. Her 18 year old thinking and reasoning often made unsubstantiated or apparently unfounded conclusions according to her dad's critical editor self. One of his responsibilities in his job was as editor of a quarterly publication put out by the company he worked for. He also had to produce reports and speeches for company divisions and leaders. And, for awhile as a sideline he'd taught a college level class in his specialty field. She remembered he'd been dismayed at the students abilities or lack of abilities then. She had gotten involved in art and never considered the possibility of writing. She had kept a diary for awhile in high school but then life got too busy and it was cast aside. When she went off to college she did enjoy writing letters, regardless of her dad's critiques. She always expected to get those.

With this experience though she wondered if novel writing never dared cross her mind because of the formative experience that it was so hard. She had just been so sure that she did not have it in her to make up such a long story with all its required detail and development. Now she was beginning to wonder if this was a skill that could be learned - how to make up a story.

She'd read an interesting book about learning to write sentences. The author said that learning to write good sentences was more about practicing a form than about the content. There were various forms of sentences. One could take a form, give it predetermined parameters, and proceed to spin out variations of it. That was how one learned to craft all manner of sentences. Of course one needed content too, but that was separate from the craft of sentence writing.

12:03 pm
She realized that the business of inserting a time notation into various points in her writing, would be meaningless if she went back in adding more to what she'd already written.

12:07 pm 2279 words

She was only 612 words over her daily quota. She needed another 1000 words to make up for yesterday's deficit.

She wanted to tell about going to get her car. She also did not think she'd touched on any of the things on her little ideas list. And she suspected she was falling behind in the goal/task/exercise of writing continuously without stopping to think. Was this because she was, perhaps foolishly, letting this project evolve to be about writing for what she wanted to say and tell, rather than just for the practice of writing non-stop?

The car. She'd had a pleasant walk down to the garage. This was not where she usually brought her car, but this was a low tire needing repairing and she did not think the car would be ok to drive the seven miles to her usual shop. Sitting waiting for their car repair were two of her dear friends. Finding them here was the unexpected gift of a tire gone 'bad'. She told them her news about the writing challenge, though she knew she should not be talking about it this early. She had only completed five days of writing. But she could not contain her excitement about it because the effects and results of doing this had been so immediate, positive, and big. One of the friends, who had actually written books, told about Charles Dickens and how he had to write so continuously to keep up with demand. He had 30 people to support with his writing. He published his writing serially. It was always due to the printer's for publication. Everything was written by hand in ink. It was assumed he had to keep plot lines straight with some kind of notes and/or outlines but no one had ever turned up any evidence that he worked in such a manner. He had a small notebook in which he collected names, often from gravestones, that might be useful for characters.

Could Dickens have possibly have written his complicated storylines without an overall outline, just making them up on the spot?

12:38 pm 2638 words (697 words left to make up deficit)

The 'write-in' had been a disappointment. She had realized shortly before going in to it that it was meant for sitting and writing rather than for communicating with each other. Whether it was to sit writing in the company of others or just as a way to keep one on track, she did not know. It felt too odd to be in the company of others in such a confined space and concentrate on one's own work with minimal interaction. She could only ask her one question. If she asked more, she would be taking up too much of everyone's attention. This was not the place for that. It felt too closed. They had all been responsive to her question, given their counsel, but they were all there to get down to their writing.

*She did not see how she would be able to concentrate on writing in such close quarters. The presence of the others in that context would seem to much distraction. She would not want to sit in such close quarters and not be able to interact. That alone would distract her from writing she thought. It was not like sitting in the upstairs part of the library where one could be writing or reading in the thick of things. People came and went, others sat nearby writing, and they interacted.

It was not like writing in the privacy of one's house. She had been loving writing in the large sunny livingroom window area, even though the writing was hard to see in that glare. Traffic streamed past on the main thoroughfare below to her right. It was like being on a river because it was a current. It was also like the ocean because the traffic came in periodic bursts, like the sound of crashing waves. It was the endless evidence of man's going about his daily business.

When she worked she needed to have the feeling of being part of the world and interacting with it at some level. She might give the 'write-in' another try though, if she could arrange to use the library's equipment. On the other hand that particular time slot was not good for her because she was under the time crunch of preparing her students the next day - the weekly housekeeping. She could not delay that too late into the evening. She liked that she had to follow a routine for this too now that students were coming to her house for class. For a while that had almost become her motivation for having a weekly class.

1:14p - 3077 words (257 words remaining)

It had just happened - the voice had taken over just for a moment. She caught herself She was reflecting further about how she'd been able to do a catch-up writing stint at the library on their equipment before the 'write-in' session, and had referred to herself in her own thoughts in the third person rather than in the first person. The third person voice had been going non-stop for three and a half hours that she'd become habituated to it. There was only a little bit left to get caught up in the writing - but this had given her pause. This could be too big a can of worms to be opening. She did not know what to make of this sense of a slip in identity.

Something needed to be resolved about the use of pronouns and not using any name or noun for her character, or whatever she was.
The scribbler, the diarist, the writer, the artist, the scribbling artist.

She being an artist, did not have too much trouble staying with the writing. There was not much at stake for her, since she was not a 'writer'. She had no expectations of where this would lead. She had no obligations around it. She could give up the project at any time. She had no one but herself to please with sticking to it.

Was she using it to avoid the art projects and obligations she was supposed to be doing - in the same way the real writers used their tasks and chores to avoid their anxieties of writing?

Perhaps this was all a lot of self-obsessed 'navel gazing'. No, she was learning good things from this. If she ran out of the thoughts and insights she had, she could always turn to practicing making up stories within this 'freeform' diary of the aspiring Nanowrimo participant.

1:38p 3392 words ( yay! over the top! - 58 words above two days quota)