I have a little room, I call it that, not feeling I do enough writing in it to label it my "writing room" or my "study" or other words that mean as much.
Sometimes, on bright days, I pull the shades and block the sun, my attempt to recreate the darkened day, or the edge of morning or of night, and the time and place in which the story can be born.
A lovely essay by Rick Bass. It describes the "hunkering down" that comes with winter. And with the creative process, no matter the medium.
My “place” is a partitioned-off garage (divided not to provide me a place to write, but, a compromised result of my son and daughter-in-law moving back home, and me, therefore, losing the spare bedroom that had been my place).
The High Desert of Southern California is far-removed from the onslaught of the Autumn/Winter you described in your essay. Until this time I had not missed the Indiana winter of my youth; the approach of autumn merely a threat of the impending winter; the budding of spring nothing more than a sure promise of the heat and humidity that would follow. But, today, after reading your essay about the rain and the leaves falling at different speeds, I am desperate for a cabin in the snow. Not because it would induce me to write again, but, because my son is the leaf and I am the rain. And, that scenario doesn’t make for inspiration. . . as the opening garage door roars against the unfinished wall in front of me, and the water sips through the water heater’s pipes behind me, and a flush from one of the women in the bathroom above me breaks my concentration. Thanks a lot, Mr. Bass, up until now I paid it no mind.
But seriously, your essay was, obviously, inspiring. Good job.
I like the idea of trying to find a story between the differing speeds of the hard rain and the leisurely fall of leaves, and of the landscape being unhooked from our usual perception and grinding back and forth on gears. Autumn is always a good writing season for me. I grew up in Canada, where winter comes early and stays late, and although I now live in Southern California, where autumn is obvious only for those who look for it, the chilly autumn winds of the north still blow inside me--it's a season both terrifying and beautiful, the cold rustle of dry leaves underfoot, each stem breaking from the branch a separate death, signaling the season of cold slumber to come.
For all the lateral planning the experience is truly vertical--so well said. I'm especially taken with the feelings of joy, relief, and regret in the end.
So I'm browsing the web early on a Sunday morning, just barely dawn, a thick frost on my California deck, a pale moon still slipping into the canyon. I'm avoiding writing a scene darker than I want to write and harder than I'm capable of writing. I stumble on these words: "You have to go down a set of damp stair steps, into another place: as if lying down to sleep in winter, for winter, perhaps." And these: "How much easier it would be to sleep, or leave, than to stay."
How much easier to leave, I always remember. How impossible to leave, I always forget. And how much I love the descent into another place where another kind of sleep waits.
The stage is set for the onslaught of winter every year and the same drama is set in motion, so premeditated yet so new. Every snowflake carries its own unique story.
I have a little room, I call it that, not feeling I do enough writing in it to label it my "writing room" or my "study" or other words that mean as much.
Sometimes, on bright days, I pull the shades and block the sun, my attempt to recreate the darkened day, or the edge of morning or of night, and the time and place in which the story can be born.
A lovely essay by Rick Bass. It describes the "hunkering down" that comes with winter. And with the creative process, no matter the medium.
My “place” is a partitioned-off garage (divided not to provide me a place to write, but, a compromised result of my son and daughter-in-law moving back home, and me, therefore, losing the spare bedroom that had been my place).
The High Desert of Southern California is far-removed from the onslaught of the Autumn/Winter you described in your essay. Until this time I had not missed the Indiana winter of my youth; the approach of autumn merely a threat of the impending winter; the budding of spring nothing more than a sure promise of the heat and humidity that would follow. But, today, after reading your essay about the rain and the leaves falling at different speeds, I am desperate for a cabin in the snow. Not because it would induce me to write again, but, because my son is the leaf and I am the rain. And, that scenario doesn’t make for inspiration. . . as the opening garage door roars against the unfinished wall in front of me, and the water sips through the water heater’s pipes behind me, and a flush from one of the women in the bathroom above me breaks my concentration. Thanks a lot, Mr. Bass, up until now I paid it no mind.
But seriously, your essay was, obviously, inspiring. Good job.
I like the idea of trying to find a story between the differing speeds of the hard rain and the leisurely fall of leaves, and of the landscape being unhooked from our usual perception and grinding back and forth on gears. Autumn is always a good writing season for me. I grew up in Canada, where winter comes early and stays late, and although I now live in Southern California, where autumn is obvious only for those who look for it, the chilly autumn winds of the north still blow inside me--it's a season both terrifying and beautiful, the cold rustle of dry leaves underfoot, each stem breaking from the branch a separate death, signaling the season of cold slumber to come.
For all the lateral planning the experience is truly vertical--so well said. I'm especially taken with the feelings of joy, relief, and regret in the end.
So I'm browsing the web early on a Sunday morning, just barely dawn, a thick frost on my California deck, a pale moon still slipping into the canyon. I'm avoiding writing a scene darker than I want to write and harder than I'm capable of writing. I stumble on these words: "You have to go down a set of damp stair steps, into another place: as if lying down to sleep in winter, for winter, perhaps." And these: "How much easier it would be to sleep, or leave, than to stay."
How much easier to leave, I always remember. How impossible to leave, I always forget. And how much I love the descent into another place where another kind of sleep waits.
Thanks for the beautiful words.
The stage is set for the onslaught of winter every year and the same drama is set in motion, so premeditated yet so new. Every snowflake carries its own unique story.