We've discussed beginnings, and to some degree, endings, as well as moving full circle in our writing . . .
The winter holiday season always stirs up additional thoughts about cycles,
the patterns of joy, sorrow, and movement through time that is particularly
noticeable as we review our lives at year’s end and simultaneously look
forward to the New Year with anticipation and maybe even a little dash of apprehension.
This year the stakes are ever more poignant with the infamous Mayan long
count calendar cycle that ends today. For the Maya, this date signified the start of the “World of the Fifth Sun”, in a way, what the New Year has
always signalled in all the world’s cultures of which I have any knowledge – a
transformative day, a time to turn over a new leaf, to make a new beginning.
But this winter solstice, for the first time in 26,000 years, the sun
rose to conjunct the intersection of the Milky Way and
the plane of the ecliptic. This movement formed a cosmic cross, a metaphorical embodiment of
the Tree of Life that is sacred to many of the world’s spiritual traditions. This
alignment of our sun within the heart of our galaxy is said to open a
channel for cosmic energy to flow, raising all beings on our planet to a higher
level of vibration. Perhaps this isn’t such a stretch of the imagination,
living as we do in a world composed energetic particles.
So let the cleansing begin in this sorrow-plagued world. We have jellyfish
days of epic proportion far too often now. Perhaps this is no different in the
present era than in the past – we are after all, living in Samsara, a dimension
of sorrow, suffering, and brief, illusory beauty.
For me, 12/21/2012 is also a meaningful date because the numerological
vibration is clear in the
repeating digits. From a numerological perspective, these digits reduce to the
number eleven when added together, a karmic figure. Eleven is said to be a “master
number” signifying the potential to push human limitation into
higher spiritual perception. Oops, looks like the Mayans could
see this potential for human enlightenment centuries ago through their calendric
and astronomical observations!
As far as the massive natural catastrophes predicted by some self-made
pundits (probably to sell books), I suspect that the global climate chaos
wrought by some combination of human mismanagement and nature is one of Earth’s
most pressing problems and will play out for years to come, perhaps symptomatic
not only of illness but of our planet’s natural tendency to balance and heal
itself.
For the masses of ordinary citizens around our globe, 2012 has been a year
of great trial and tribulation socially, economically, and politically. The
common man has stepped forward to question a world in which the lion’s share of
resources are held by the wealthy, and the perpetual “war on terror” seems to
merge with a perpetual war for diminishing resources. As 2012 began, the Occupy
movement that arose worldwide in 2011 morphed from street theatre and protest to
a quieter and more practical level of grass roots activism. Occupy is alive but
in a transformed state.
Each nation has its particular struggle, and here in America, we are clearly
contemplating our long-time relationship with violence and firearms. In the
past week, the US was thrust once again into the glare of its violent past and present and its
commitment to individual liberties, which seems to manifest all too often at
the intersection of the freedom to bear arms and mass shootings, this time of
young innocents who never should've had to face the terrible demise they
endured. Not very different, as it turns out, than the constant snuffing out of
young lives by drones or terrorists or warfare (legitimate warfare – legitimate
rape?) in easily forgotten, far-away places.
If the current events of the past year are not fodder for storytelling in
both fiction and nonfiction, I don’t know what is. I have not yet been inspired to write about the startling events of past year except in brief
nods on this blog, but I’m sure one event or another, or maybe several, will
percolate through my consciousness and emerge in in my work in the years to
come.
I think most writing is like our long view of life – we begin on a noisy, showy,
inspired level to write the framework of our story, then we progress into the
subtle and quieter levels of revision to polish the finer details, reviewing
our initial journey. Along the way, we’ve endeavored to write a strong hook
and close with a firm and memorable ending that ties in a circular way back to
the hook, answering the questions stimulated by the story opening. If we’re
career-conscious writers, we’ll probably leave some room in our wrap-up for a
sequel, or an expansion of a short story into a novel, or room for an essay to
grow into a longer narrative.
But what about the unremarkable passages in our lives and the narratives
between big events in fiction? These are the memorable jellyfish and sundog
moments of real life, and the big plot points in novels or the highlights of
nonfiction. These middle moments are the daily-ness that provides a balance to life’s
emotionally charged situations and are a respite from those highs and lows. But
these in-betweens serve a different purpose in literature as transitions
that connect the major points or scenes and by necessity, must move a story forward.
In fiction, these quieter scenes may flesh out the story with descriptive passages that explore the character arc or flesh out a setting or a new setting, or
that focus upon dialogue or scenes of various combinations that ratchet up the
tension for the next intense plot point. Some fiction genres like thrillers
or suspense are generally plot-driven and may require almost constant conflict
and action to satisfy readers. Romances and literary fiction often have
slower-moving action and more character-driven scenes. Narrative and creative nonfiction
both require a certain amount of quiet, supporting commentary to support
salient points.
In all writing, the middle of the deal – those quiet moments between
the most interesting stuff – is where it’s easy to get bogged down and put your
reader to sleep. Like this spot, perhaps. What stops the story and what keeps
it going? Sometimes novels bog down because the stakes aren’t high enough. It
feels like the protagonist is just hanging there spinning her wheels while
everything is happening around her. Maybe there are neglected
subplots that need more exploration. In nonfiction, we writers sometimes don’t
dig deep enough into our research and fail to thoroughly explore our topic. In all
cases, the result is a sort of unfleshed skeleton masquerading as a story.
Or perhaps we muddle the middle and don’t discover the mess we’ve left
behind until well after the first draft. I have a first novel like that. I
never quite knew exactly where I was headed or exactly how to write some key
scenes properly and this shows, even after a half-dozen revisions. I’m a “seat
of the pants” sort of writer, driven to discover exactly what the story is as I
write it, which sometimes fails miserably. Some of my novel is clearly salvageable,
but some chapters need to be dragged screaming to the recycle bin.
Don’t be afraid to follow your heart, but beware – we can spin our
wheels in real life and still survive in a relatively normal but unenlightened
way, but this muddling along doesn’t work in writing. Every bit of what appears
on the page must move the narrative forward and keep the reader turning pages.
In other words, we can vary the rhythm of a piece with slow, quiet in-between scenes,
but there can’t be any boring, disconnected parts.
Sometimes what we thought was the story is simply a huge warm-up or an
outline that leads us to dig deeper into the real tale. Maybe we’ve followed
the least interesting slant in nonfiction or told the story from the wrong character’s
point of view in fiction, and a deeper examination helps us find the real story
arc.
Another stuck in the middle point may be writer fatigue – we simply lose
our way in the middle of the piece and must regroup and refocus upon the protagonist’s
dilemma or the essence of our nonfiction to recapture the story, or perhaps slow down to make the necessary
additions or deletions to polish the work.
Like today, the writing process includes
quiet, contemplative moments when the best work is a review, a time to tread water and scope the horizon
for the next good wave . . . I’ve watched surfers paddle around the breakers
for hours on end, surfing only a few times on the very best waves. They are
patient – and poised, waiting in a state of focused concentration.
Sometimes the best wave is yet to
come. Sometimes all we can do is wait and trust our writing process or trust that
we’ll know the proper time to end an old course of action or start a new one. Be aware, keep your eye on the rhythm
of the writing waves, and cruise with the best one when it arrives!
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| Photo by Puja Robinson, 2010 |
