I was an English major in college. I was an ok student. I didn’t do very well in the traditional literature classes: Shakespeare, Victorian Novel, British Literature, Colonial Literature, etc. I was a solid B/C student in those classes. Every once in a while I might surprise myself with an A or with a D. I chose creative writing as my area of focus. I took at least six creative writing workshop style classes – poetry and fiction. Most of our focus in our writing classes was on technique and practice and critiquing each other’s work. The critiques weren’t very helpful – everyone was afraid of hurting the author’s feelings or they were simply looking for things to critique. You couldn’t get away with telling part of your story – my fellow students were relentless on the show, don’t tell aspect of writing. I think as a person, and writer, matures, they learn that some telling is necessary or that not everything needs to be shown in exquisite detail. We, as a group, were also relentless on ridding our writing of cliche and easy sentimentality. Though we often slipped back in to both.
We did not focus much on the act of creation, the practice of it, the art of getting from point a to point b. I think most of us waited for inspiration to strike and then followed it. My professor for advanced fiction writing was adamant about practicing everyday. He didn’t want us waiting around for inspiration – it’s too easy to fall in to a pattern of waiting and not writing. He was lightly mocked in the movie “The Stones of Summer” for being a writer that will produce hundreds on unpublishable pages (I think I’m approaching 400 blog posts in under a year). What we didn’t talk about was how to keep the momentum going within the work. How to work through something of length. To be honest, I’m not sure that can be taught. Some writers begin at the end of the story and write to that conclusion. Other writers have a rough outline and detailed character sketches and then fill in the details. Yet other writers just write and see where the story takes them, building character and setting along the way. If I align with any of those approaches, it’s probably with the “see where it goes approach.” I don’t think this is the best approach. I often find myself stuck and with nowhere else to go. I wish I knew a little more about how to do this stuff.
Today I started another vignette. I have a sense of a moment that I might build towards. I even have a sense of of some middle stuff that I could write about. I just don’t know the best way to do any of this. I began writing. The words flowed. As I felt a story unfolding, I stopped. I thought about Faulkner’s story-board. I’m not sure I have a longer form in me. I have slices of life. I have moments that I like to try to show and explore. I don’t know what to do with any of them.
Here’s the slice I started today:
It’s seven am.
The sky is gunmetal gray with small patches of thin clouds gauzy and translucent. The tide is heading out. Down by the water, not more than thirty feet away, two gulls pick apart a crab washed up and tumbling in the low surf. It’s Tuesday. The beach is empty but for a few people walking the shoreline slowly – couples holding hands scanning for soft-edged rocks and unbroken shells, joggers all earbudded up with morning rocket fuel tunes, an old man with his shirt unbuttoned standing near the edge of the water, his feet cooled by the sea-foam ebb and flow.
I like to get here early.
I like the purity of sound the early morning waves carry in from their long night at sea. Way out, almost blurred, a thin line separates sky from ocean top – each seemingly reflected in the other. Inching across that tightrope line of horizon the black outline of a ship moves from right to left. And as if carried in on the southern wind, a memory, mostly clear, floods my mind. I can remember, as a young child, maybe five or six years old, sitting on the edge of a hole dug wide and a little deep on a beach not too unlike this one – different coast. It was bright and hot under the midday sun. My feet and ankles and chubby toes swept and circled the cool damp sand floor. My hair was wind tousled and curled and my cheeks dotted with patches of sandy grit. I remember looking up and squinting, using the back of my hand and wrist to block the sun as mamma pointed to the horizon and the slow boats coasting below low hanging clouds and summer haze. “Look at the boats, Andrew. See them out there? You have to look waaay out.” Her voice was the voice of all mothers, dripping soft with sweetness, affection, and curious attention. She wanted to show me the world. She wanted to see the world through me.
The two gulls pull at the crab in opposite directions. A third gull lands close by and quickly saunters up squawking. Their high-pitched squabble fades in the wind and surf. Just before the childhood vision drifts away as quickly as it came in I can almost hear mamma laughing – her voice rising and familiar and comforting.
That’s the last childhood memory I have of my mother. Her pointing to the big wide world just beyond the breakers. My brother was there too, somewhere. He helped with the hole. He might have been in his beach chair eating from the ziploc bags of grapes and pretzels mom dutifully packed for the day, or he might have been down by the water punching at the incoming waves – a boxer practicing for teenage bus stop scuffles. Whatever he was doing, he was at the periphery, off camera, a silent shadowy part of the background. Two days later my mother would be taken away. Committed. My brother and I moved in with our dad and his girlfriend Michelle in Muncie, Indiana. Our dog Petey went to live with our aunt Trish, my mom’s sister, in North Carolina. Mom knew this was coming. In exchange for getting help she asked for one last weekend with her boys, one last sun-kissed memory scented by the warm salt air.
That was a long time ago.
Dad passed away three years ago. Michelle is still in Muncie, staying close to her kids, my brother’s family, and all the grandkids. Mom got better, and got out, but for a long time she had relapses and bouts with depression and alcohol. We didn’t see her for a good ten to fifteen years, and when we did, it was strained, sporadic, and awkward. The official diagnosis was schizophrenia, and so technically she never got better, but learned to manage. Six or seven years ago she married a painter, Rob. He used to be a school teacher, then dabbled in photography, then turned to painting – seascapes and lighthouses, mostly. Rob is probably the kindest most patient man on earth. He’s good for mom. I was at a bar in St. Louis when he called. A place covered in mosaics with a small outside courtyard and three or four rusty fire pits. This was two weeks ago. His voice was calm but concerned. “You’re mother’s not doing well.” Those were his exact words. “You think you could come out for a visit?”
I have no idea where, if anywhere, I’ll go with this – or more precisely, I think I know where it goes, but there’s a whole lot of in between I need to figure out. I have a short attention span. That doesn’t bode well for the prospect of finishing this. I’ll look at it a little later. If I got a few good lines, I’ll be happy. Chances are, it’ll sit here and soon be forgotten. But maybe one day, some of this will amount to something – a slice of life compelling, detailed, touching. For now, like so many things, I just kinda look at it and wonder, where do I go from here?