An Abortive Attempt in action

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Last Thursday I was at BackStreet Arts for a Backstreet Writers session, and I had an assignment for anyone who showed up: write a short piece to submit to The Sun magazine's "Readers Write" section.

The Sun publishes short fiction, non-fiction, and poetry of a spiritual/reflective nature, and each issue has a reader contribution section, organized around a theme.  They publish the topics for six months at a time:

Topic/Deadline/Publication Date
Bad Habits/May 1 /Nov 2017
Winter/Jun 1/Dec 2017
In The Middle/Jul 1/Jan 2018
Dating/Aug 1/Feb 2018
What Really Matters/Sep 1/Mar 2018
Upstairs/Oct 1/Apr 2018

The contributions are short, personal non-fiction pieces about any aspect of the (deliberately open-ended) topic. I thought this would be a great thing for our writers to try.

I also thought I should do it.  It was great fun to do, and I think I can use the results as an example of the creative process in the future.

Have a look:

WINTER ABORTIVE ATTEMPT

It is tempting to keep my labyrinth green all year round.  It is a thing of beauty and never moreso when the grass is lush and soft.
Especially xxx in winter
But such a sense of BUBBLE/SHANGRILA is an illusion.  
Instead FOLLOW THE SEASONs. Be true to the cycle of leaf and grass, fern and flower.  Learn to walk the dry, brown blades and feel them beneath your feet XXX
The green will return soon enough.

Things to note:

  • I did in fact write ABORTIVE ATTEMPT at the top of the page.
  • Like most writers, I got a good first sentence but didn't necessarily have anything past this.  This is not a problem. This is never a problem.
  • I had a good sense of what I wanted to say, so I kept going:
    • use xxx as placeholder text when I just wanted to zip through
    • use ALL CAPS to insert concepts that I wanted to make sure to include
  • Don't resist the writing if/when it comes.
  • Nailed the last line.

So I kept working, filling in the xxxs and fleshing out the ALL CAPS, moving, poking, expanding, and always always listening to the rhythm of the words.  GESTALT and SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION, over and over.

Eventually I ended up with this:

WINTER (as of 3/30/17)

It is tempting to keep my labyrinth green all year round.  It is a thing of beauty and never moreso when the grass is lush and soft beneath my feet.  The green ribbon spirals in and out along its path, ending at the glistening black granite center: a coiled promise.

It is certainly possible to have grass year round.  It is called “winter rye” for a reason.  I could sow the seed and water it and watch it spring up, eagerly.  I could come out to the labyrinth at the winter solstice and be greeted by a jewel of glowing life in my back yard.  I could walk the same soft path I did in summer.

But such a sense of permanent life—of eternal life—is an illusion. 

What is truly eternal is the cycle: birth, growth, maturity, death, dormancy, rebirth.   The ferns wither.  The leaves fall.  The grass dies. To try to evade that fact is to evade the true meaning of the path of the labyrinth.

Instead, I must follow the seasons. Be true to the cycle of leaf and grass, fern and flower.  Learn to walk the dry, brown blades and feel them beneath your feet.

The green will return soon enough.

There you go.  Simple and I think effective.  The instructive thing about it is that it took me a lot less time not to write it perfectly, but to start with that ABORTIVE ATTEMPT and let the ideas get out onto the paper—then make it into real writing.  That's a key Precept . Many make the mistake of ignoring it.  Don't make that mistake: do it more crappy.