Art and Writing Archives - Writing Like a Dancer

WRITERS AND THE FEAR OF WRITING

Posted on April 8, 2016 by writ7707 Posted in Art and Writing, The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Writers and the Fear of Writing, Writing, Writing Emotional Moments, Writing Muse Leave a comment

Writing Practice and Meeting up with your MUSE

Writing Leap #65

Hi Writers,

Have you ever seen a little baby flip from deep wails of despair to a sunshine grin and happy gurgles in less than two seconds? I feel that way sometimes when I’m in the middle of a writing project. I wake up at dawn with a queasy feeling in my stomach. I turn over and moan, “I am afraid of my book.” It’s so unsettling and perfect terrain for the inner critic to dismiss everything I’ve written so far. Then, a few scribbles in my notebook on my night table, fresh thoughts, hooray! And I’m all excited again. I clutch the notebook page and dash for my computer.

I am illustrating my picture book-in-progress with an artist friend. I have an official art background. But I have been creating with words not paintbrushes for a long time. My studio is my writing studio, not my art studio. My desk, my computer and my books dominate the space. Except—-I have a long white table along one wall of my studio covered with drawing pads, pastels, drawing pencils, snippets of wallpaper, tissue and rubber cement for collage. I sneak in small art projects from time to time. But illustrating my picture book is not a small art project. It’s a big art project.

Now I’ve been waking up terrified of my illustrations as well as my writing. But just like babies I can go from “Help!” to “This is me. This is what I was born to do,” in two seconds. I don’t know what part of my heaven is better. The part with the beautiful sentences or the part with the beautiful colors.

Am I the only one who feels this way? Frightened/Elated?

Let’s treat our muse with lots of love and gratitude.

Happy Writing Everyone,

Henry Miller’s landscape

H.G. Welles’ Self-Portrait

WRITING EMOTIONAL MOMENTS

Posted on January 9, 2016 by writ7707 Posted in Art and Writing, Character Description, The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Writing Emotional Moments 1 Comment

Writing Practice and Meeting up with your MUSE

Writing Leap #62

Hi Writers,

Did you ever re-read your writing and cry because you were moved? Are you ever caught in a moment when a line of a play, the resonance of a melody coming through a bell-like voice or the reach of a new skyscraper makes you suck in your breath and blink back tears?

I’ve become increasingly emotional when I encounter something beautiful, something conceived by a person. I feel the deep creative energy, the inspiration and long hours poured into the work.

I got teary-eyed when the curtain went up on the new Broadway production of “An American in Paris.” Dazzling colors and atmospheric lighting and genius design sprung up in one moment.

I saw this photograph online and my eyes misted over.

What if we took some of our own emotional moments and put them into our characters? Altered to suit our character’s personality? It could be a good way to add another layer to his or her persona. Especially if it’s a surprise.

My character, Samuel H. Mellow, has kept his emotional responses pretty muted. Not by design. He just seemed to be programmed that way. His wife, Sunny, didn’t seem to mind. He was very easy to live with, she said.

Samuel H. Mellow sat down on a bench in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and sighed. His wife had dragged him here and he’d had enough of walking around rooms filled with paintings that all looked alike. His bench was facing Rembrandt’s, “Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer.”

“That man looks like my Grandpa. Kind,” said a small boy sitting next to him. Samuel looked up at the painting. His eyes went to the elderly man’s face and stayed there. He felt himself expand inside. “That’s strange,” he thought. And to his surprise his eyes misted over.

“What’s the matter, Mister?” the boy said. “Don’t you like him?”

“Yes, yes. Of course I like him. I love him. Thank you son, thank you,” Samuel whispered and hurried off to find his wife.

Happy Writing all you talented writers out there! Let’s savor our emotional moments.

WRITERS AND LOOKING AT ART

Posted on October 15, 2015 by writ7707 Posted in Art and Writing, The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Writing Inspiration, Writing Inspired by Art, Writing Muse, Writing What You See Leave a comment

Writing Practice and Meeting Up with your MUSE

Writing Leap #58

Hi Writers,

Isn’t it extraordinary how so much in our world can nurture our creative souls? A hill of sun bright orange pumpkins piled up next to haystacks on a farm. A small sculpture of a whimsical horse by Picasso. A warm table setting with crystal sparkling in candlelight next to soft blue napkins.

As writers we can be open to any experience that expands our creative sensibilities and helps us write with a ripe imagination.

For those who are inclined, viewing a work of art is one way to continue developing our instincts as an observer, to own our experience and reinforce our repertoire of emotions. Simply for the feeling of being moved.

Philippe Delaunay, a French art collector and connoisseur, cajoles us to do just that. Enter the world of the artist, he says, and just feel. Without any preconceived notions about style, technique or an artist’s repertoire. He writes:

Is it useless to try and explain a work of art?

Or is a work of art sufficient unto itself? More than ever we are subjected to a flood of literature by art critics and art historians attempting to show us the where and the whys, seeking to interpret what an artist has felt or to reveal what the work “means.”

This makes no sense…..

Let’s let a current work of art live for itself, without filling up the air with artistic explanations that are so often superficial. A work of art must be allowed to breathe freely and defend its own existence just by being. True artists are visionaries. They unconsciously approach that which is invisible and try to make it visible. It is difficult, if not impossible, for anyone other than the artist to affix his own words or sentences to someone else’s vision, without often becoming guilty of misguided or biased interpretations.

Through his own writings the artist himself may explain his creative vision and offer his thoughts in words. Here words and images do become a cohesive whole.

What is important for the observer of a work of art is to approach the work with his whole self without asking questions, without having read or listened to commentaries—and simply let himself be pulled into the world of the artist, bringing about moments of communion, moments of silence.

A work of art speaks for itself and if words are necessary to explain it then it is no longer a work of art.

Translated by Cynthia Magriel Wetzler

***

So writers. Don’t look at the plaques next to the painting for titles and dates. Jump in and find your own experience. Maybe the feeling will inspire a story totally unconnected to the facts of the painting itself.

What do you think? Agree wholeheartedly? Disagree violently? Let me know!

LINKING THE ARTS

Jackson Pollack

I looked at this painting for a long time. Got inside of it. It frightened me. Then I wrote a story about a lost child.

Good word: Uncluttered. As in a pure state of mind open to authentic experience.

No books on artists or art criticism. So you can have your own time with the work of art. Not someone else’s.

WRITING THE MOMENT THAT TICKLES

Posted on January 11, 2015 by writ7707 Posted in Art and Writing, Literary categories, The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Writing, writing funny, Writing Inspiration, Writing Muse Leave a comment

Writing Practice and the Muse who is ALWAYS THERE

Writing Leap #50

Happy Creative New Year Writers! May you have many spontaneous bursts of ideas for your writing. And the discipline (ah yes) to sit down and turn some of your sparklers into articles, stories, plays and poems.

An unexpected moment can tickle and delight us. Writing about it (as close to the moment it happens as possible—carry your notebook with you at all times) can be great practice in capturing a revealing aspect of you the writer or your characters. In fiction, the moment may not tickle you the author, but if it tickles your character the reader will get to know him better.

Here’s mine.

Teddy is almost five months old and he is going to Paris. What will his eager little face take in when we, his grandparents, send his parents off to a café and push him in the stroller down the Boulevard St. Germain? I can’t help the ripples of delight I feel each time I imagine it.

And the funniest thing? Teddy needs a passport! His mother texted me a picture of this passport. He is smiling one of his new grins and he’s all official now. I stared at the passport, shook my head, enjoying lots of tickles around my funny bone.

Here’s to your tickle moments writers! Maybe your own passport picture will inspire a funny story?

Warmly,

LINKING THE ARTS

An Old Master Painting

Franz Hals, Dutch, 1582-1666. Tickled by an owl?

Good Word. Delight As in the kind that bubbles up like a well.

WRITING THE VIGNETTE FURTHER THOUGHTS

Posted on January 16, 2014 by writ7707 Posted in Art and Writing, Character Sketch, Literary Genres, The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Writing, Writing Inspiration, Writing Moment to Moment, Writing Muse, Writing the Vignette, Writing What You See 2 Comments

A WRITING BLOG About Playing Around with a Story Line in Different Literary Genres and Different Literary Categories

Writing Leap #34

Hi Writers,

Are you ever walking or talking or sitting on a train and your mind alights on a writing idea? It hovers there, a sparrow touching down on a telephone line, apt to fly off at any moment. Grab it! (Apologies and gratitude to the wonderful former U.S Poet Laureate Billy Collins whose metaphor this is. I’m so sorry I can’t find the poem for an exact quote.)

But the essence of the poem is a part of my writing self. Write down your impressions and reactions as they are happening. Otherwise as Billy Collins implies the sparrow will probably fly away forever. Gone, swoosh.

Later the spontaneity of the thought will have vanished. Or you will be growling because you can’t remember any of it. Just that it was great.

I carry a small journal and my cell phone to jot down ideas. Later these small jottings can turn into vignettes. Writing vignettes is great writing practice. Just for the sake of writing them. Writers write and edit. As much as possible.

From The Book of Literary Terms by Lewis Turco. “The vignette is a finely written literary sketch emphasizing character, situation or scene.”

So writers, tackle the vignette!

The story line is: What does chocolate evoke in you? Fiction or Non-fiction.

Here’s mine. A vignette inspired by the painting below and something I jotted down. While eating a chocolate truffle as pictured above. Let’s watch Becca.

Oh, how Becca loved chocolate bars. The extra dark velvet kind. Thick and smooth in her mouth. Just sweet enough.

“Afternoon Becca,”

Becca nodded at the old lady, bundled up in three threadbare coats. Her legs were wrapped in scarves and she was settled on a broken chair outside the door of Mr. Palkowski’s newspaper shop.

Becca pushed open the door to the shop. The loud bell on the door made a jangly, jarring noise . She jerked back. She always did.

“Hi there Becca. What can I do for you today?” Mr. Palkowski said.

“Um, not sure. Just want to look, thank you,” she said.

“Right,” he said, and turned his back to fuss with something behind the counter.

Becca grabbed a small chocolate bar from a box on the shelf opposite the counter and slipped it in her pocket.

“Bye Mr. Palkowski. Nothing today.”

There was no avoiding nodding again at the old lady outside.

“You take care now, Becca,” she said.

Becca started to hurry home.

“Wait,” the old lady called. “Think about this. What are you really hungry for? It’s not chocolate dearie.”

Becca kept walking. That lady was crazy.

Mr. Palkowski stepped outside his store. He watched Becca turn the corner.

“Well Minna. That’s about the tenth time now. I haven’t got the heart to say something to her, poor child.”

“You want my opinion?” Minna said. “You are doing her no favors letting her get away with stealing. No favors at all.”

“Hmmmmm,” he said and went back inside.

When Becca reached her stoop she peeled the paper off the chocolate bar and ate the whole thing. She made sure to put the wrappings in the trashcan in front of her building. She wasn’t going to add to the garbage on the sidewalk.

Becca really did know what she was hungry for. She was hungry for her mama’s chocolate cookies. Her mama used to make them for her a lot. Mama didn’t make them now. If she did, Becca thought, the cookie dough would be full of Mama’s tears.

Next afternoon after school Becca pushed open the door to the news shop. Jangle, jangle. Her heart began to flutter in her chest.

“Afternoon Becca,” Mr. Palkowski said. “Ummmm, now look here. I’ve been thinking. I could use a little help around here, straightening up the stock and such. Would your mother let you do that for about an hour after school? I could pay you a little or you could take it out in merchandise. Like chocolate bars.”

Becca stared. He knew. He knew and he was still being nice to her. She fought back tears and let herself hug him.

Here’s to vignettes and your jottings!

LINKING THE ARTS

A Painting

Homeless

My inspiration for Minna

A Poem

“Lines Lost Among Trees,” in Billy Collins collection, Picnic, Lightning

A Good Word

Jot As in to write quickly in the moment

WRITING WHAT YOU MEAN

Posted on September 1, 2013 by writ7707 Posted in Art and Writing, Literary categories, Literary Genres, The Writing Life, Writing, Writing Inspiration, Writing Muse, Writing what you mean 1 Comment

A WRITING BLOG About Playing Around with a Story Line in Different Literary Genres and Different Literary Categories

Writing Leap # 28

Hi Writers, Readers and Movie-Goers,

Writing What You Mean

As all of you writers know this is not easy. No, no, not easy at all. We may think that the reader experiences our words just like we did when we wrote them. Not always the case.

A writing friend, Bob Zaslow, implored me to read Several short sentences about writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg. It has brought some diamond clarity into my writing life and I bow down deeply to both of them.

We have to close our eyes and let our thoughts focus on one sentence at a time, Mr. Klinkenborg said.

Letting new thoughts happen.

Writing the words down and changing them until we get that delicious deep down feeling. Yes, these words evoke just what I mean to say.

So writers. Let yourself ponder your descriptions, your opinions, your character’s voice until you get that feeling that says, “I’ve got it.”

Don’t stop thinking and changing until the moment you can say, ‘This is why I write.’ It can feel like the ringing of a beautiful clear bell.

Try the same story line as the last post: Heaven

Here’s mine.

“42” is a movie about the beginnings of Jackie Robinson’s career in major league baseball. In 1946 Branch Rickey, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, signed up Jackie Robinson, a first for a black baseball player. There were never-ending humiliations, lots of hate and boycotts. A Cardinals player spiked him in the calf with his shoe. On purpose. Robinson played incredible baseball throughout.

Rickey stuck with him and never wavered under the negative pressure from the baseball world.

Here’s a slightly paraphrased scene from the movie where the words evoke just what the screenwriter intended. Granted Harrison Ford who plays Rickey breathed life into them. But he had the words.

Robinson asked, “Why you, Mr. Rickey?”

“We had a victory over fascism in Germany and now it’s high time we have a victory over racism,” said Rickey.

“Naw. C’mon. Why you? Tell me.”

“I love this game. I love baseball. Given my whole life to it. Forty odd years ago I was a university coach in Ohio. My catcher was a Negro. Best on the team. Great guy.

I didn’t do enough to help him. Told myself I did. But I didn’t. There was something unfair at the heart of this game I loved and I ignored it.

Then you came along.

You let me love baseball again.

Thank you.”

Happy Writing Everyone,

LINKING THE ARTS

A Painting of Jackie Robinson by Stephen Holland.

The writer says what he means with words, technique and heart. The visual artist says what he means with color, light, shadow, technique and heart.

A Good Phrase: Settle in. As in settling in to the truth.

A book to carry around with you to help you find that “I’ve got it” feeling.

WRITING THE PROSE POEM

Posted on August 12, 2013 by writ7707 Posted in Art and Writing, Personal Writing, The Writing Life, Writing Description, Writing Inspiration, Writing Muse, writing the prose poem 5 Comments

A WRITING BLOG About Playing Around with a Story Line in Different Literary Genres and Different Literary Categories

Writing Leap #27

Hi Writers,

The Prose Poem

It’s written as prose but reads like poetry.

You can sit down and dismiss traditional poetry rules. Like metered rhyme and specific groupings of words.

There’s an emphasis on the narrative but the prose poem helps itself to the techniques of poetry like vivid images, heightened emotions and fragments. I often find writing in fragments frees up my writing. In the editing process I may change them to sentences or not.

I remember grade school when we were not allowed to use sentence fragments in prose. We ignore that teacher.

What’s the difference between prose poems and free verse, I wondered? Typography it seems. Free verse tends to look more like a poem on the page with shorter lines. Prose poems often, not always, go from one side of the page to another—like prose!

So Writers. Have fun with fragments and write a prose poem.

You can try this story line

Heaven

Here’s Mine.

The Twelfth of August Every Year

Happy Birthday my beloved Auntie

Up there in Heaven for a long time. One hundred plus plus plus years old.

In the way of angels are you aware how your ever-flowing love was the sunshine to my blossoming? Still is.

When I’ve floundered about who I am

I remember and feel your loving hand holding my child’s hand

Giving me grown-up manicures. Talking to me with tenderness about my Cynthia-ness.

I become happy with myself.

There were a never-ending collection of little moments, some faded in detail

That became huge with the love that created them.

You found me beautiful early editions of War and Peace.

All leathery, book-musty and tissue-papery. We both loved books.

You knew my passion for this Russian story.

How excited you were to find the grown-up me the entire collection of My Book House. Fairy Tales you had read to me over and over long ago.

I was Dolly in the Grass or Snow White.

You insisted.

My adored Auntie Ceil.

I feel who I am, Auntie, because you felt who I was.

And most of all, you told me.

Happy Writing Everyone,

LINKING THE ARTS

A Prose Poem by Walt Whitman (first two stanzas)

From A Family of Poems, compiled by Caroline Kennedy, 2005

Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,

Healthy, free, the world before me,

The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune,

Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,

Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,

Strong and content, I travel the open road.

A Word

Many of us might say the best word in the dictionary is LOVE, here thought of as ever flowing generosity of spirit.

A Painting

Perhaps all paintings can be considered prose poems. Vivid imagery, carefully chosen details, flexible techniques.

Here’s a watercolor my Auntie Ceil brought me back from Paris when I was sixteen. She had asked the artist to paint in a young girl—me.

THE WRITING LIFE

Posted on May 14, 2013 by writ7707 Posted in Art and Writing, Personal Writing, The Writing Life, Writing, Writing Inspiration, Writing Moment to Moment, Writing Muse 2 Comments

A Writing Blog About Playing Around with a Story Line in Different Literary Genres and Different Literary Modes

Writing Leap #21 The Writing Life

Hi Writers,

Writers are all part of the same tribe and for me it’s exhilarating to connect with members of my tribe in person, in their books and on the internet. We all share a lot of deep joy and angst.

Many writers have written about their writing journeys. To name just three: Annie Dillard The Writing Life, Anne Lamott Bird by Bird and Jill Krementz The Writer’s Desk, a collection of photographic essays of writers and their thoughts.

Writing about the writing life is not just about technique and “how to scribble right.” (Crucial to the writer as those books are.) Writing about the writing life is about your personal flight to the moon and back or aspects of that trip.

So writers, out with your pens!

Find some of your writing moments; highs, flops, your inspirational triggers. Be true. Don’t fuzz over the hard times. They may lead to new insights about your stories.

Here’s mine.

Chaos

Gabrielle Roth was a dancer, author and sublime muse. She created a movement practice that follows the path of our innermost rhythms: from flowing to staccato to chaos to lyrical and finally to stillness. Dance journeys with Gabrielle through these five rhythms have in some mysterious way paralleled my writing journeys.

I am at this moment in deep writing chaos with my middle-grade children’s novel. My creative self is darting here, running there, going nowhere. Help me out again Gabrielle!

Flowing is lovely. Like the feeling I had dancing through my first draft, my imagination graceful and never-ending. That first draft exhilaration now seems far away. I read it now and sigh. So many flaws. So much to fix. I wake up these mornings with an ache and a certain dizzy dread. Will I get myself out of this hurricane?

I have all 28 chapters of my book spread out end to end on a very long table in a pathetic attempt to interweave plot lines, cut (should it be most of the book?) make my characters compelling. The chapters blur. I try setting them up on the left of my computer screen and a work in progress blank document to the right. The Rules of writing technique, all of them, are bossing me around, hammering me on the head. OK you Rules. I’ll make Maggie, my main character, less sensitive so she will be likable. I’ll bring in more conflict for her, I’ll create a more threatening antagonist. I’ll bring in more details about the setting.

But Ha! There is a personal perk that comes along with my painful revision. I must go back to Nantucket, my locale for the book and search out more unique physical details of the island. Don’t shake your head. It’s not a vacation. I must! I really don’t want to lose my original thrust, in this case a lyrical voice and magical realism. I leave tomorrow.

Here’s what I’m telling myself.

1. Revision IS writing. I know that, of course. And I know what to do. When I make a revision work it takes me to Gabrielle’s clear stillness that allows my creative self to move. Back full circle to flowing.

2. The love for my story and for Maggie is herculean and doesn’t waver.

3. What I know from my writing tribe is that most if not all writers get caught in riptides. But most rescue themselves. Will I? I will too, right?

LINKING THE ARTS

My Dancing and Writing Muse

Sweat Your Prayers by Gabrielle Roth

A Good Word Chaos. In the sense of not finding the path out of many swirling possibilities.

This painting by Mark Berson is called Chaos

WRITING FUNNY

Posted on December 28, 2012 by writ7707 Posted in Anecdote, Art and Writing, Literary Genres, Personal Writing, Writing, writing funny, Writing Inspiration, Writing Muse Leave a comment

To my email subscribers. Click on WRITING FUNNY above for complete blog and color

Hey there Writers and Readers,

Writing funny is funny. If you overthink it–it falls flat. If you try to sound like someone else who is funny, it won’t work. But if you just happen to think of a situation or comment that makes you laugh everytime it pops into your mind–that’s it! Write about that.

Bonni Brodnick is a wonderful friend. She is also a dynamite writer who has a spot-on sense of comedic timing that brings on the big laughs. Bonni is my guest blogger, an end-of-the-year treat for all of you. She writes a very snappy, sassy column for the Huffington Post.

The New Storyline is

Moments

Home For the Holidays: Children Back in the Nest

It was 12:30 on Friday night when the telephone rang. Panic jolted my heart as I picked up the phone. Who calls this late?

“Hi, Mom,” my college-age daughter said.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

Laughter ensued. (On her end of the line. Not mine.)

“Everything is fine,” she said. It sounded like her head turned to the side as she yelled, “Quiet!! I can’t hear!”

“Is everything okay?” I asked again.

“Yes, Mom. I finished my final exams and a bunch of friends and I decided to drive home tonight rather than tomorrow afternoon,” she said.

“It’s almost one o’clock in the morning,” I said. “Aren’t you tired after finals?”

“My friends and I thought we’d save time,” she said.

(Although there is never [n-e-v-e-r never] traffic on the roads it takes to get to her school in upstate New York.)

“We took the wrong turn though and we’re lost in the Poconos,” she continued. “But I have the GPS on.”

This was pathetic on a few levels:

1. My daughter is in her senior year and has driven from home to school to home to school about 500 times.

2. She had the GPS on and still got lost.

“Anyway, we should be home by about two,” she said. “Also, it’s sort of late to drive my friends home. Do you think everyone could sleep over? Do we have any extra sleeping bags we could use in the guest room? Would it be a pain to fill up the air mattress, too?”

Just what I was in the mood for at what was now almost one o’clock in the morning.

“Sure,” I said. “Just drive carefully.”

I raided the linen closet for sheets and towels. Sleeping bags were laid out and the air mattress was blown up — (which is what I literally wanted to do with it).

It was well past three in the morning when five sleepy-eyed college kids dragged into the house. Driving through the Poconos at night looked to have been as challenging as their exams were earlier that morning.

But finally, my 22-year-old daughter was home for the holidays. As she fell into my big mamma bear hug, I was brought back to her being my little girl. I looked at the shape of her fingernails and remembered watching how adroitly she picked up Cheerios with her thumb and pointy finger. I remembered the feeling of dropping her off at preschool and my son at kindergarten and thinking, “I have three-and-a-half hours to myself.”

I remember the feeling of having what felt like a broad horizon of time before me.

Life truly flies by in a second. As fast as my children were babies was as fast as they were teenagers, is now as fast as they are in college. It goes by in a snap and a flash.

Embrace the little moments of your children being home this holiday week. Don’t fret at the 100 pounds of laundry they lugged home because they didn’t do it all semester. (Now I know why my daughter kept saying she had nothing to wear.)

Leave their room alone. Don’t get udgy if their suitcases are left unpacked the entire time they are home.

Soon, once again, you’ll have all the time in the world when they take flight and return to school. With your nest newly emptied — once again — you might even find yourself yearning to do their laundry.

(I didn’t actually write that, did I? Cancel, cancel.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bonni-brodnick/empty-nest-home-for-the-holidays-college-children_b_2362659.html

So Writers–give yourself, your computer and others a chuckle or two and write something funny! Didn’t you just laugh about something really hard in the past few days?

Happy Ha-Ha Writing and a New Year full of wonderful writing inspirations and Sparkles.

Warmly,

LINKING THE ARTS

Classic Funny

A Good Word

uproarious, as in can’t-catch-your-breath laughing

Funny Writing from Woody Allen

(feel free not to laugh–funny is different for all of us)

“I think crime pays. The hours are good, you meet a lot of interesting people, you travel a lot.”

“I had a great evening. It was like the Nuremberg Trials.”

THE VIGNETTE

Posted on December 2, 2012 by writ7707 Posted in Art and Writing, Literary Genres, Writing, Writing Inspiration, Writing Muse 4 Comments

To all my email subscribers. Click on THE VIGNETTE above to view complete blog with color.

Playing Around with a Story Line in Different Literary Genres

Hey Writers and Readers,

Writing Leap #14 The Vignette

In The Book of Literary Terms, Lewis Turco defines a vignette as, “A finely written literary sketch emphasizing character, situation or scene.”

For me, vignettes have endless possibilities. They are deeply impressionistic, like a Monet painting that startles you into the moment. With a trimming down of words vignettes float gracefully, like Isadora Duncan’s dance.

In my vignette, Tiffanys, the struggle for me was to avoid cliche. No generic characters. The way I try to do this with my characters is to imagine them in the setting I am creating. I feel what they are feeling, not what I might be feeling.

I thought about Dougie and Addy a lot before I started writing my vignette. Scribbled notes about them. What were they doing, going through, in other parts of their lives? At moments I really became them. Then they just started talking in their own voice, right there in Tiffanys. I stepped back and I/they wrote it down.

Vignettes are fun. So writers, go ahead and try your own! What’s helpful for me to remember is–Aim for Impressionistic.

The Story Line is

When We Discover Something That Sparkles

Here’s mine.

No Power in the apartment for eight days. Surely icicles were forming on his long, gangly eighty-seven year old bones. Walking helped. He needed to take a break from his sister-in-law’s place. She chittered and chattered nonstop like some cawing crow. But at least Addy was warm there.

He walked as briskly as his swollen knees allowed, all the way up Fifth Avenue, not caring a fig that he looked ridiculous in his floppy fur-lined hunter’s hat, given to him by the Red Cross Worker. Bless the earflaps. He felt his cold, gray mustache, the only thing on his face that showed.

Since his retirement awhile back Douglas Moody avoided subways. After fifty-six years of driving them in dark, dank underground passages it was light he craved–especially anything that sparkled and dazzled. On an impulse he pushed through the revolving door of Tiffanys and he felt a thrill ripple through him. An astonishing, large yellow diamond set in clusters of white diamonds glistened in its own case smack in his line of vision.

Oh, he’d walked around Tiffanys before to drink in the brilliance of the rubies, emeralds, sapphires. But this? He turned and left. As fast as he was able he walked back to get Addy. He wanted her to see this. He wanted to see it together with her.

“But I can’t walk that far Dougie, can I” Douglas helped her on with her coat while she insisted on buttoning it. She pulled on the thick Red Cross ski hat with the pom-pom. She pushed some of the gray wisps of hair under the hat and put her weight on her cane. She looked absolutely adorable, Douglas thought. Addy was round and one and a half times his width. She came up to his shoulder. His wifey for sixty-four years. They walked back to Tiffanys and their excitement helped them along.

The mesmerizing yellow diamond flickered with brilliance.

“Oh my. Oh my stars.” Addy put her hand on her heart. The sign read 128.54 carots. Douglas slipped his hand in hers. They moved closer together and leaned over the case with the yellow diamond, set off as a necklace by smaller white diamonds that shimmered.

Addy whispered, “The sparkle is reflecting off your glasses, Dougie. I’ve never felt beauty like this.”

“It does have a way of getting to you,” Douglas said, putting his arm around her.

Dollar signs never entered their minds. They went straight to the magic of their closeness that the beauty of the diamond was stirring up in them.

“I love you Addy.”

“I love you too Dougie.”

They said this to each other a lot. But in Tiffanys? Now that’s something, Douglas thought.

They left by the side entrance on 57th street to avoid any mishaps in the revolving door.

“Careful on these steps now Addy.”

“I’ve got it Dougie. I’ve got it.”

***

So Writers, Let the story line sparkle your wonderful imagination and write a vignette–like the Impressionists painted, impression by impression.

Happy Creative Moments,

LINKING THE ARTS

A Favorite Book

The remarkable Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings includes a vignette about a certain Miss Duling.

A Good Word

Astonish In the sense of taking your breath away. To be used sparingly, only when it is truly warranted as in one’s reaction to the Tiffany Yellow Diamond! Otherwise “astonish” will lose it’s zing.

Works of Art

The Tiffany Yellow Diamond

Sigh

Claude Monet “Sunrise”
A vignette with color instead of words