The eerie, yet compelling, music of
Kitaro fills my ears from headphones purchased at Wal-Mart, music played on a
computer bought at Best Buy, while I sit in a rocking chair procured from
who-knows-where years ago. My eight-foot counter came from Home Depot and acts
as my desk and work space.
Why do I talk about these things? I
suppose it comes from the reality that I don’t particularly care where
something comes from, how little I paid for it, or how strange it looks so long
as it functions in the job I’ve assigned it.
A straight counter top, held up by six long
table legs screwed into its underside, is as viable as a desk as it would be to
top base cabinets in a kitchen. It cleans up easily and gives ample work room. Uniform
file boxes, filled with items not in use, stacked to a convenient height and
covered with a tablecloth, functions very well as a table. If I’m going to
stack them up anyway, I might as well be able to use them for something.
Right?
I think most of us think along these
lines at one time or another. I simply prefer thinking like this all the time.
And being a writer only encourages the practice.
Why do I say that? Well, examine our
daily work for the answer.
We create stories. In other words, we’re
cooks disguised as builders. As writers we stake our reputations on our ability
to utilize disparate ideas, words, etc. for the purpose of telling stories or
relating information. That’s our job in a proverbial nutshell.
Except for the verification of
information used within said stories and articles, we don’t care where we got
our ideas. We don’t care where they’d been used before for something else. I’m
not referring to plagiarism here. I’m talking about taking a bit of information
or sparked idea gotten from reading a newspaper, magazine, or another book and
putting together our own idea using that information.
An example here is Matthew Bennett’s
break-out bestseller for expectant mothers, “The Maternal Journal.” He
certainly couldn’t use personal experience for his book since he was male. He
could take information found elsewhere, add opinions and insights from
obstetric specialists as well as experienced mothers, and tie it all together into
an easy-to-follow pregnancy guide. Of course, smart marketing helped sell the
book, but the idea was built on a personal question and information gathered
from elsewhere.
Writing is hard work within the murky,
ever-shifting tides of the publishing industry. There are no clear-cut answers
since many of the deciding factors about who’s published and who’s not stems
from an editor’s gut reaction upon reading the manuscript.
Yet, above all else, writing is taking
tiny particles of dream(s), putting them in a blender half-full with words,
adding dashes of character-driven action, a nebulous theme that peaks out at
the reader at unexpected points in the story, teasingly rambunctious characters
who play with the reader’s mind, and pressing the pulse button until all ingredients
are smooth and ready for the palate.
The end result depends on the cook, not
on the origins of each ingredient. Like the workability of my office with its
countertop, computer, headphones, and workspace, the story has arrived on the
reading table because of how I use the makings I can find and how I combine
them for that purpose.
How do you cook your stories and serve
them up? Care to share? Feel free to tell me how you find your ideas, combine
your ingredients, or market your wares. I’m always interested in learning
another’s techniques.
Until later,
Claudsy
