"The seeds you plant today may take years to blossom, or they might burrow deep and lie dormant, waiting for the right conditions to emerge" is spot on.
I've always used this thought as a license to experiment and take creative risks--to just fling stuff out there. Every reader's soil has a different pH level. What grows for one may take time in another or may not grow at all.
Yes! I like to project some time in the future and consider all the fantastic-horrifying-mind-bending pieces I’ve read in the last year on Substack and wonder…which ones will stick with me, or come back around? For me, it’s never the ones I think will.
So very true. I’m always struck hardest when I least expect it. The same is true (to me at least) on the writing side. The posts I often don’t think will do well often do best.
This conversation reminds me of, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"
Does a pattern exist if no one has seen it before? Do we create order or discover it? That seems to me to be the interface writing (or the arts in general) brings out. As Sharron and J infer, is the shape in the stone or is it the artist's "manifest destiny"? I think a great story can be told by careful planning, but a great story can also be created inadvertently. Is that a dangerous thought?
1. Stephen King had this to say, “Good books don’t give up all their secrets at once.” Here, he means the writing is the revealing of the nature of the story.
2. Tom Waits: “Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers”
It reminds me of Steven King's story about the boy killed by the train. The real story was not about the incident, it was about the author. That experience changed his life.
Dangerous Ideas - beautifully written J.! This touched me this morning: "Words you wrote late at night, half-dreaming, take on a life of their own once they're read by someone else." I am pretty sure my own ideas are not dangerous, but I like to think that readers might find something to think about and interpret in their own way. Funny, sometimes I don't even know what my "idea" is until I finish writing the piece and I have read it a few more times. I hear myself say, "Oh! So that's what this is all about..." I wonder if other writers find this to be true, as well?
Thanks Sharron! I think you hit on a good point: Maybe we don’t always know what the central idea is until we’re done? Perhaps not until much, much later? I’d like to think we’re working it out with words and intuition. The real idea might be hidden as we sculpt, chips falling away as the pose beneath comes into focus.
As for your ideas being dangerous or not: I think they are. Maybe they’re messages meant for someone else?
I appreciate your metaphor of chipping away at the stone to find the gem hidden inside. I find that composing 50-word stories tends to do just that -- just get down to the essence. My own metaphor is writing a full "bucket" of prose and then wait for the cream to rise to the top... That is usually the way of it.
"The seeds you plant today may take years to blossom, or they might burrow deep and lie dormant, waiting for the right conditions to emerge" is spot on.
I've always used this thought as a license to experiment and take creative risks--to just fling stuff out there. Every reader's soil has a different pH level. What grows for one may take time in another or may not grow at all.
Loved reading this my friend
Yes! I like to project some time in the future and consider all the fantastic-horrifying-mind-bending pieces I’ve read in the last year on Substack and wonder…which ones will stick with me, or come back around? For me, it’s never the ones I think will.
So very true. I’m always struck hardest when I least expect it. The same is true (to me at least) on the writing side. The posts I often don’t think will do well often do best.
Oh man! Isn’t that always the way!??
sure seems like it!
This conversation reminds me of, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"
Does a pattern exist if no one has seen it before? Do we create order or discover it? That seems to me to be the interface writing (or the arts in general) brings out. As Sharron and J infer, is the shape in the stone or is it the artist's "manifest destiny"? I think a great story can be told by careful planning, but a great story can also be created inadvertently. Is that a dangerous thought?
Two thoughts on this:
1. Stephen King had this to say, “Good books don’t give up all their secrets at once.” Here, he means the writing is the revealing of the nature of the story.
2. Tom Waits: “Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers”
Both can be true.
It reminds me of Steven King's story about the boy killed by the train. The real story was not about the incident, it was about the author. That experience changed his life.
Dangerous Ideas - beautifully written J.! This touched me this morning: "Words you wrote late at night, half-dreaming, take on a life of their own once they're read by someone else." I am pretty sure my own ideas are not dangerous, but I like to think that readers might find something to think about and interpret in their own way. Funny, sometimes I don't even know what my "idea" is until I finish writing the piece and I have read it a few more times. I hear myself say, "Oh! So that's what this is all about..." I wonder if other writers find this to be true, as well?
Thanks Sharron! I think you hit on a good point: Maybe we don’t always know what the central idea is until we’re done? Perhaps not until much, much later? I’d like to think we’re working it out with words and intuition. The real idea might be hidden as we sculpt, chips falling away as the pose beneath comes into focus.
As for your ideas being dangerous or not: I think they are. Maybe they’re messages meant for someone else?
I appreciate your metaphor of chipping away at the stone to find the gem hidden inside. I find that composing 50-word stories tends to do just that -- just get down to the essence. My own metaphor is writing a full "bucket" of prose and then wait for the cream to rise to the top... That is usually the way of it.