Do you have the burning desire to write? Do you think you’re your story is worth telling? Of course you do; and so do she, and him, and her over there- look around you, because we ALL desire to write. The flaming lust to be inkslingers is stamped on our DNA; and for good reason:

No matter how hard we try to convince ourselves otherwise, we don’t want to be islands. We are social creatures by nature and have a genetic need to connect with others. We need to tell our stories- to define who we are.

That is only half of the story; because we want so very badly for people to read, buy, publish, or just plain ol’ care about what we have to say. Connect is a two way street that is symbiotic in nature. If we put ourselves on the line, we want the reward of acknowledgment in return.

Here’s the deal; as writers, we are charged with the task of making our pennings alive and vibrant enough to compel our readers. We have to hook them, engage them, and wow them. Otherwise, our works just become more blurred black and white kindling that gets tossed on the pyre of banality.

Leave those Lazy Boys

The lessons in Color Swatches, The Art of Words, Spike Those Verbs, and those yet to come, provide great tools to aid us in wrenching our writing up a notch or 43. But unless we actually experience the emotions, or see the images we want to paint, we have no story to tell and the tools will fail quicker than a sandbar against a dam burst. We need to get off our asses—pry ourselves from the Lazy Boys—and smell the bread baking, hear the music on a warm summer evening, prick our fingers while reaching for a rose, and feel the pain of heartbreak before we can tell the story with any conviction.

There are times that we won’t have to travel far from our comfortable place setting to find an experience impressive enough to write a killer passage about. I have my front porch- with the bayberry attacking the north end of it, just as Ray Bradbury had his window. Feel how refreshing the first day of summer in the description at the opening of Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine:

It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer.

Do you seriously think Bradbury could have written that precise description if he hadn’t witnessed it firsthand?

Right here is where you would typically get a sermon about always recording your observations in a notebook and flossing twice a day. However, I can’t pound that pulpit because I do neither. But I do use the tape machine that whirs in my mind; a practice I don’t recommend, even for myself- it is a measure to exercise my brain against the onslaught of aging rust. No matter how we choose to do it, we want to recall the fullness of the experience, because this is where we writers live and breathe.

Dive into the Pool

This is the whole of the Natalie Goldberg—a true Goddess— message; take the plunge inward so you can write with effective richness outward. We must go down the rabbit hole, and into that Alice-In-Wonderland dream world where we really live. We will see the good and the bad…even the indifferent. This is where we can find rubicund blisters that are sore to the touch, yet beg to be lanced. When we pierce those sacs, we find why certain music draws us in; we feel the reasons we yearn for gentle touching; we know why we cringe at various sights; and we understand the motivations behind the joys of specific smells.

We writers need to live two lives. One that is a husk we parade around for the pleasure and pain of every day living, and the other life…well…it is the one steeped in the reality of who we are and why we feel. Learning to masticate the former for the personal journey to the latter is quite a trick.

Again, this is where writing practice comes into play, and I won’t harp on the particulars, but I will point you back to the first post in this series- Practice. Just know that rigid practice will open you up as if you were a flowering lotus.

Take A Risk

We can stuff our pockets full of penny candy, and eat until we puke when it comes to talking about risks in connection with our writing. But unless we go to the dime store and smear the display glass with our snotty noses, we will never get the joy of the after vomit second helping.

There should only be one fear when it comes to writing- the fear of sending our readers woefully down the path of lassitude.

Our readers are bombarded every day with word after word after bleeping word. The competition is so stiff that I saw three writers at the publisher’s giving away toaster ovens (paraphrasing Rodney Dangerfield), so we have to step up our game if we want to truly bask in the warm afterglow of the hot, sultry intercourse that plays between us and our readers.

Write like Satan is breathing down your neck. Tear down every shred of decency you have; spend your vision with primal force. Then…and only then, go back and massage what you have written. Use every sideshow stunt you know, but never make your writing anything less real than John Merrick- acclaimed Elephant man.

Be edgy, not vulgar. Aim for that apple, but if you shoot low, well you have lost a handful of readers; if you miss high, there is no thrill; nothing to keep them coming back to wear the apple. Snake your readers in and out of extreme visions by choosing words and phrases that fall of the tongue with edges of fear, suspense, or candy apple flavoring.

Take a trip with a character from Philip K. Dick’s Confessions of a Crap Artist as he fumes about buying a feminine hygiene product (an edgy phrase itself) for his wife:

What happens? he wondered, if she doesn’t get it? Do they bleed to death? Tampax a stopper, like a cork. Or— he tried to imagine it. But he did not know where the blood came from: One of those regions. Hell, I’m not supposed to know about that. That’s her business.

Never take a risk for the sake of taking a risk. You will only load your pages with hollow tension that collapses at the weight of a breath. Take chances to engage and thrill your audience. Make them nervous, but not flighty. Here is where you can compete against those words backed by toaster ovens.

Get out of your easy chairs, climb out on the thin limb, and take a dive into your inner pool. The water is just fine.

Next week we will play the Name Game with the All Time Champion: Mr. Noun.

© 2011, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

Last week we talked about the Art of Words and the fact that writers use words as colors for their paintings. Our colors define the image we project, and we choose those colors with care so that our vision is clearly broadcast.

We are continuing the discussion of colors this week as we look at one of the most often used tools to describe and define our objects and subjects. We can’t stop at the girl’s hair or the moon overhead; we must give the girl’s hair and the moon overhead some volume or reference for our readers so they can feel what we see.

So, we may use the girl’s yellow hair and the yellow moon overhead to achieve definition, and this may work some of the time, but the Crayola definitions fall flat and lifeless if we are describing something of focus; an object/subject we want to be well defined. Unless of course we want to say, the girl’s Crayola yellow hair, which sparks an image of waxy, randomly highlighted with specks of darker color. What about you? What does that image project?

Arthur Plotnik, creator of the must have book Spunk & Bite: A Writer’s Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style
, writes that we should delight our readers by providing a squirt of surprise. These mini-jolts from our cattle prods smack the readers between the eyes of their ventral tegmental areas because they deviate from the expected and anticipated. Basic visuals become loaded with gestalts and occasionally need a spike driven in to wake ‘em up a bit.

There are many ways we can spruce up our colors so the canvas beckons our readers into a deeper understanding of our image. The basic way, and often effective, is to use adjectives, or emphasizers.  Bright yellow, gleaming yellow, shiny yellow, and so on. And, we can also use adjectives as a counter play. We trick the defense into thinking we are running the ball one way, but the play attacks the part of the field the defenders just vacated. Dark yellow, dirty yellow, streaked yellow, and I think you get the idea.

My personal favorite ways to define exact color is through metaphors and similes; images drawn that don’t mention color (yellow, red, blue, burnt sienna, etc.), but if used with great effect, give the description a three dimensional depth. A warning: Don’t take your metaphor too far out on the limb that it comes crashing down like the fabled baby.

In the last week, I used metaphors for the color yellow in two different instances. One was in a Twitter update; The straw moon mocked me as it moved from one rip in the winter clouds to the next. The other came in my memoir response; I’ve Not Met Her, But I Love Her, and reads, ‘…and whisper into her daffodil hair that we will together walk through the darkness.’

Use the comment area below and tell me if I nailed it. I think I did, but I believe (maybe foolishly) that I am good.

Look around you; you will see color metaphors everywhere. Golden Delicious yellow, Fort Walton blue, Old Brick red, just to name a few of the ones I envisioned while writing this sentence-insert smiley.

Oh hey, check out the Sherwin Williams web site and their color charts. I think you’ll find some interesting metaphors there.

Go ahead and write up a small, colorful description in the comments.

Next week ~ Be brave and get out of the Lazy Boy.

© 2011, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

In the past few weeks we have traipsed on the playground of our writing, learning to use gizmos to spark images from our words. One such gimmick we talked about was spiking our verbs, or using unusual verbs to make the subjects/objects pop to life. Another was the use of over the top metaphors, or megaphors, to paint suddenly obvious images or vast contrasts.

What lies at the core of all our tricks and teases is our choice of words. Words are the oils, chalks, clays, notes, and charcoals of our art. The words we choose dictate the images we impress upon our readers’ minds. They also regulate the flow of our work. Or, they can be all possible shades of dangerous; especially if we choose wrong.

A one of a kind close friend told me recently that she could taste the image in a piece she had just read. All of us, at one time or another, have feasted on toothsome words that were delicious enough to taste, smell, and/or hear. When we encounter aromatic passages sprinkled with words that charge our emotions, we are being treated to art. Writers who know how to infuse just the right amount of dopamine successfully express their innermost thoughts and emotions so that we live them as well.

Writing is art.

My favorite painter wasn’t always my favorite painter. Vincent Van Gogh’s work intrigued me early on, but many years yawned before I came to fully appreciate why his work impressed me. Well… Kirk Douglas also had a hand in my climatic realization of Van Gogh’s prowess as an artist. Douglas gave an honest and gut felt performance of the tormented artist’s life; a life plagued with the baying hounds that gnash their teeth against those who are bi-polar.

How I envision Vincent’s work is like this: He was the subject that employed broad, violent strokes to animate objects that were often superficially gentle, soft, and swaying. But the real subject was himself. Every painting he created was in some way or another a self portrait and the colors he chose accentuated his emotional states that fluctuated between brutal internal rage and near catatonic serenity.

Of all the paintings that Van Gogh created, The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum (the image for this post) is most beloved by me. The simple blues and yellows and the manner in which Vincent played them out speak to me about the calm moments in his life that he yearned for, yet couldn’t reach in their totality because his dark monster always loomed overhead.

Now, read this passage from Hermann Melville’s Moby Dick and feel the assembled crew of dregs that Captain Ahab has gathered for the grim task of hunting ‘The Whale’. Smell the sweaty, unbathed musk of men who have long ago given up the desire to be anything but seafaring drifters. See the tones and hues that Melville painted with:

Here, then, was this grey- headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals – morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right- mindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man’s ire – by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be – what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life, – all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick?

I am uxorious in my total dedication to the art of writing. I will always submit to her wants, needs, and desires because she is the one lover that has never turned her back on me at some point.

There are days I want to take her to the cold, wooden floor and savagely rip, tear, choke, and thrust at her as I drool and bleed on her. My fingers, like hammers in a mad game of Whack-A-Mole, play to her whimpers that come on the edge of trust, begging me to bend her, but not break her; and when I am finished with my primal assault, there are no apologies, just soothing words of love and respect.

Words can be dangerous.

There are other times I make love to her all day, teasing her with smiles and thought out articulations, and when the slow boil of hours turns to the moment I strike, I take her to bed and slowly whisper my words to her; my fingers stroking long and soft across the keys. Together, we journey to a point of glorious, passion filled release that only she and I can fully live.

Write to Invite, Not Impress

We want to invite our readers into our world and let them roam around, feeling totally at home. We don’t want to assault them by trying to impress them with our color choices every third word. This will put our guests off as they are likely to think we are snobs.

Dribbling writer’s words in here and there can help regulate flow, clarify images, and weave our tales in a way that is intriguing and tempting. We never want to choke our readers with nothing but rich servings of verbosity.

Remember: flow and image. It is never a bad thing to have our readers wanting to look up the definition of a word; especially if the lexeme enhances the painting. But never throw alternative morphemes in because you want to impress with your knowledge.

Creative writing ain’t an SAT exam, dude.

Two Cool Ass Resources

For my money, there aren’t any resources for finding writer’s words than the Word of the Day at Dictionary.com and the bookmark on my toolbar for Thesaurus.com. I will cruise these hotbeds every day, often several times a day, in search of shiny new toys I can play with, learn about, and become intimate with.

Word of the Day ~ just as it states, a new word is published daily. And there are obvious links to previous Word of the Day entries, so you can go a few days without looking and find a list of colloquies to pick and choose from.

Thesaurus.com ~ this little gem is a complete and concise thesaurus. What I really enjoy about this site is that a bookmark can be created a browser toolbar that when engaged will open in roughly one third of the current browser window. So I never have to leave the page I am browsing if I suddenly have the urge to frolic with alternative words.

Your writing is YOUR art. You know exactly what colors to paint with; what notes to string together to achieve your expression. You will know if the flow is correct and unhindered. Make love to your art.

And keep writing. Never believe that every clean-up batter parks one each time he steps to the plate.

Next time out we are going to look at color swatches. Oh what fun.

© 2011, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.