Writing – where do I start?
– Cold feet, cold fingers
Dear Cold,
Surprise! You just did!
You start by writing a letter. It can be to anybody about anything. Write about your day, what you’ve done so far, what you mean to do. Write about something that’s caught your eye. Write a childhood memory. Write as much or as little as you like, it doesn’t matter, because you aren’t going to mail the letter. Not yet. You’re going to sign it and put it away.
Next day, write a letter to someone else. Don’t send that one either.
Let the letters sit in a drawer for a week, then take them out and see what you might like to change or add, and do that. Then mail them if you like, keeping copies for yourself. Or don’t mail them but keep them as material for stories.
Ta-da, Cold, you’re writing!
If letters seem daunting, try postcards.
Your letter to me is perfect: succinct and evocative. I can picture you at your kitchen table, chilly, bundled up, preparing to Write. Are you wearing those fingerless gloves? Your composition book open, your pencil at the ready, your head full of ideas, so many, all barking at each other like dogs. Like dogs trying to scare the mailman! You try to shush them. Finally you do. They stop all at once. The roar in your head turns to silence. You wait for another thought to come. You roll your pencil between your fingers. You start to feel a tiny bit desperate. What do you do?
You write me a letter.
Love,
Cartoon Girl
Cold could also do it the way I did. Go to Whole Foods. Run into an author who says she's going to teach a writing class. Throw several barriers up as soon as you hear that: you can't do it during the day, you only have one night of the week you can do it (Tuesday), you hate trying to find parking, you haven't written anything since college and that was just papers for class. Watch the barriers topple one by one: the class is on Tuesday night, at Meredith where you went to college (plenty of parking), the teacher smiles like "You can do it!" Six years later you look in the mirror and say, "I'm a writer." Good luck, Cold. Hope the barrier buster is in your arsenal.
ReplyDeleteSo many pivotal moments happen in Whole Foods.
ReplyDelete