Tag: Inspiration

FINE PRINT CRITICISM

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

You know that reaction after reading a page that leaves you with a sensation of missing something. A treatise about poetry or art or theology, especially?

If you’re like me and largely autodidactic, you no doubt feel yourself an outsider. So I write from the fringe, in more ways than one. Reading some reviews and critiques, I soon wonder: Am I simply inattentive? Clueless? Ignorant? Is it that such subtlety, speaking only to the highly initiated, will never accept my own efforts? Or is it that I prefer what is simple, direct, grounded in experience and place, over what is convoluted and cloaked – even in form? Without falling into cliche or triteness?

Or am I the one, despite myself, who becomes convoluted and cloaked? How do we reach higher, anyway, in this thing called art, while striving to stay true … to whatever?

How does originality run through it all? And life?

By the way, just who are the critics writing for? Even when we ourselves turn critic.

SOMETIMES I WONDER IF PANDORA WAS A NOVELIST

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Maybe it was a mistake earlier this year to reopen the draft of my latest novel, which I’d put aside in July 2015 to season. But I did. (And then, once opened, something like this can become impossible to close tight again – at least until it’s done for now, whenever it decides.)

For the most part, I’m very happy with what I found – nothing embarrassed me, and some sections struck me as quite exciting, especially when I kept asking myself, “Who wrote this!”

Still, it’s been a very slow process for what was supposed to be a read-through, mostly for continuity and consistency. Admittedly, it’s a big book – about twice the length of a typical novel, or 35,000 words more than my longest one yet published. The challenge has been in finding the blocks of time to tackle each of the 16 chapters, and moving along while I have all of the characters floating around in my head. (That alone can turn an author into a rather distant person within a household, even in the middle of conversations.)

I’d made one decision to shift as many of the verb tenses as I could to more accurately reflect the way many people speak when relating events, but determining which verb to change and which one to leave alone – even in a single sentence – could be slow hoeing. (Or is that slow rowing? Another detail to check out later. Even slow going? Yipes, it gets endless.) We’ll see how successfully the verb strategy works.

And then there were the additional details to better explain the action. Instead of big cuts, which I’d anticipated as a normal part of the process at this stage, I found a need to say more. In one chapter, I found that adding no more than two pages actually makes the section move along faster and feel shorter. Anyone else have that experience?

On top of that, as I’ve found in previous manuscripts, certain words repeat through the story and no matter how crucial their underlying meaning to the emerging theme, they simply start sounding like sour notes. In this case, independent, business, gather, vague, vision, even fit topped the demand for thesaurus treatment. Each synonym then amplifies the message and infuses a wider understanding. Still, that step’s tedious.

At the moment, I’m lifted by elation and can breathe that big sigh of relief. It’s done, for now. I’ve shipped off copies to my two harshest in-house critics and can return to other projects before those two fire back with their caustic reactions, brilliant suggestions, essential additions, more essential deletions, smarty quips for my free use, or whatever.

And when that input has gone into the manuscript, I can send it off to a round of beta readers. The ones I’m hoping will be kinder.

There’s no denying my elation, even knowing how much remains to be done before going public.

AS THE WRITING ON THE WALL SAYS, LOOKING FOR FUN?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

In a recent dream, a former colleague was chastising me for not having fun in my free time.

“But I write!”

“No,” he snapped, “that’s work!”

Well, I do swim laps, but I wouldn’t call that fun. It’s more of a release, I suppose, or healthy routine, back and forth, back and forth, looking at the lifeguard, other swimmers, the water, the clock.

The dream somehow overlooked choir, which is fun, no matter how demanding or even exhausting our rehearsals and performances can be. And then there’s folk dancing, especially as New England contras and Greek lines. And, yes, I do like to hike and hope to get back to camping. As for gardening? Well, my wife says I do seem to have fun with composting. Ahem. And then there are the martinis and wine. Add to the list hosting company for a party or dinner as well as visiting others. Travel with my wife or among Friends has its pleasures, too, and I somehow seem to focus on active fun rather than a passive variety like kicking back with a movie, listening intently to music, reading a book, or roaming through art galleries. Oh, yes, taking the train anywhere is fun, and the station’s only nine blocks from my house. Let’s add playing with a digital camera to the list, too. As for blogging? Curious what the dream overlooked!

Well, what I do remember is that at the end, my colleague wound up agreeing that writing could also be fun. Sometimes.

SECRET PAGES THAT SHOULD REMAIN SO

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Somehow I’ve been recalling an invasion of my journals, way back when there were only a couple of notebooks, or maybe a few more, as my collection.

Decades later, I was told that nobody has any business opening anyone else’s journals – it’s an invasion of not just privacy but personal integrity. A form of abuse, actually.

The reaction at the time, though, continues to haunt me: “These look like they’re for publication. There’s nothing personal!”

Meaning, as I still hear it, no deep feelings or emotions.

This, mind you, was coming from a neighbor and dear friend, not a lover.

She had no business – absolutely none – for violating my psyche. Remember that, if you must when facing a similar temptation.

When I started journaling, about the time I graduated from college, I was attempting to construct a thread to help me identify the scope of “my problem” through a period of rejection and deep depression. What emerged was more a matter of observing the world around me and the many startling new experiences my encounters were presenting. To my surprise, I started recording far more of the highs than the psychological lows. Many of the entries have ultimately worked their way into my fiction and poetry, either as prompts or details. And many other pages remain embarrassing claptrap.

Apparently something similar happened when I was living in the ashram. In reviewing those journals much later, I was appalled to find someone had ripped out whole pages. I wish I could see what I’d written – it must have touched realities too close to raw truth.

Much later, when I was more candid in recording my feelings and emotions, a girlfriend did clandestinely dig into my more recent pages and then, when I came home from the office, turned those confessions to myself against me. This was in something that was a difficult relationship from the get-go, and where else could I pour my confusion and anger, much less look at issues I needed to work on? The underlying message was stifling. Bottle your emotions. Keep quiet. Anything you say or write may be held against you.

This countered an underlying problem I’ve had in that I’ve always had trouble fully acknowledging or owning my feelings and emotions. The reasons are many and deeply buried, but one result is that I live far more in my left brain than the right, at least as far as human relationships go. As for expressing them? A first draft might land far from the mark.

Well, for those who might wonder about those journals – now up to volume No. 188 – I can say you’d find most of them pretty boring. Much of the time my biggest challenge comes simply in trying to track the events of the previous week or so. Unlike my wife, who can remember in vivid detail events from decades ago, my days become blurs. She’s come to realize I’m defenseless in arguments, simply because I have no idea what I meant when I allegedly said or did such and so years ago. (Anyone else have that experience?)

Add to that my penchant for an idealistic outlook and, well, what results is often more an outline to be filled in later, should I get a chance.

ANOTHER TRICK OF THE WRITER’S TRADE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes a way to make a chapter feel shorter is by making it longer. Yes, when an author senses a section in progress is beginning to drag for the reader, a quick fix to speed up the action may be by interrupting the block and inserting a new detail – perhaps something that anchors the section to an earlier concern or pointing ahead to a new possibility. This can be something as short as a sentence or an aside, a flash of dialogue, or even a long side street that reconnects down the pike.

When I’m drafting and revising, I’m always surprised when this works.

Of course, don’t rule out the more common alternative. Drastic cuts may give you traction and get straight back to the action.

Or sometimes it’s even a combination of both.