The Sunless Earth

Thus, when the night comes down in this calm, changeless realm, nothing indicates its approach; the sun pursuing his path of fire, appears suddenly to hear some mysterious mandate summoning him to abandon his dominion, and, drunk with his own glory, he seems impelled to perish as he lived, in radiance unendurable, for, rushing headlong down the steep blue vault, he plunges suddenly below the dark horizon and is seen no more!

One moment his beams stretch across the heaven, like the great bars of the golden gate of paradise, then he draws them after him and leaves the empire to his rival–Night.

She meanwhile rises in her gloomy garments, as though to be his great chief mourner, and ascends with swiftest tread the ethereal vault, devouring as she moves along the ruins of the sunshine, whilst from her deepening shadows, brightest stars are born—in token that the Eternal can cause the darkness to bring forth light. Then when like a queen she has taken her throne in heaven, she stretches out her heavy mourning veil and lets it fall upon the sunless earth, over whose shrouded beauty she sits brooding till the dawn.

–Felicia Skene (1821–1899)

Painting: Claude Monet, Cathedral at Rouen

Composition 101

Random Thoughts, Great Ideas and the Elements of Style

The writing process, by any other name, is the series of steps that takes the writer from a goal to a collection of related ideas, to organized drafts and to a finished piece. If a term paper, an office memo or a blog post is your goal, the process is the same. The exercise is called “composition.”

Good writing has an aim, is structured and must be composed. The purpose, or aim, of a written piece can be any number of things. Some examples are: to instruct, to lay out an argument that persuades, to describe an experience, to flesh out a point of view or to tell a story. To begin writing, you need ideas.

Let’s Collect Our Thoughts. If we were paid for our thoughts, we’d all be millionaires. Our minds are either at work or wandering in aimless thought. It can take great effort to quiet the mind. Yogis spend years practicing meditation so they can still the mind and achieve a state of restful alertness.

It’s easy for us to imagine likely events in the life of the quarrelsome couple who was with us in line at the supermarket. We may have a vivid idea what our boss or spouse will say and do if we can’t keep the big appointment. We know firsthand the unbridled joy of a child’s laughter.

Maybe in some future time, a computer will be able to capture our thoughts, reduce them to writing and save them to a searchable database. This would be an invaluable service for writers. Unfortunately, we’re not there yet.

Let’s Distill Our Best Ideas. It’s a pity how often we dismiss a thought as trivial and unworthy of daylight only to admire the same thought when it falls from the lips of someone we respect. How often do we wonder in amazement to see a sliver of our own notion, or of our own experience, recounted in the writings of another?

Artists Compose. The task of a composer is to organize his ideas into a pleasing and self-sustaining whole, using the elements of his art. The painter is concerned with lines, shapes, figures, contrast and color. The composer of music is concerned with notes, chords, tempo, harmonies and melodies.

Writers also Compose. Most of us can recall a class or an assignment of English Composition. I don’t remember it being explained to me this way, but the goal of composition is to create a piece by organizing related parts.

The most basic unit in writing is an idea in the form of a sentence. A writer's ideas can take the form of facts, impressions, anecdotes and arguments. The writer begins with a list of related ideas, builds on a theme and sub-themes and organizes it into a framework.

Like the composer of music, the goal of the writer is to create a final piece that develops its theme harmoniously and can stand on its own merit.

I always had trouble with the self-sustaining part in elementary school. When asked why I didn’t mention a crucial point in an essay, my very serious reply was, “I thought the teacher knew that.”

The First Draft is Never a Masterpiece. Arriving at the final piece involves time and effort invested in rewriting. The first few drafts can always be improved. Grammar and usage may have to be corrected. Your story may need tweaking to evoke the right mood and to strike the proper emphasis. The argument may need to be restated and made to sound more convincing. You may need to clarify an important point that is glossed over. You may have to reorganize your thoughts so that a unifying theme stands out more clearly for the reader.

Follow Rules and Conventions. It is no coincidence that the most graceful ballerina will be found among those who have mastered the basics of their art. Don’t look at rules and conventions as stifling constraints; rather, use them to elevate your art form. Your talent will shine if you master the basics.

William Shakespeare used iambic pentameter to structure verses in his plays and sonnets. It elevated his art. No one suggests that his adherence to convention limited his art. And no one suggests that he used this meter as a crutch because he didn’t have enough talent.

Painting: Jean-Marc Nattier, Terpsichore, Muse of Music and Dance, Circa 1789

What has your experience with English Composition been like?

Your Natural Voice as a Writer

Clues From How the Caged Bird Sings

A long time ago, I met a young woman and in our first conversation, it came out that she sang with a choir. I told her I couldn't sing, and I confided that I would love to be able to do it. I never forgot her reply.

—Chances are you can sing, first you have to find your range.

Every Writer Has a Voice. Your voice, as a writer, is the style that makes your writing unique. It is the language you use and how you make your point. It's what your readers hear and how it makes them feel.

Discover Your Voice. Just as you have a natural speaking voice, you have a writing voice that belongs only to you. It is shaped by your personality, beliefs and interests.

What you read has a great influence on your writing voice. The genres and authors you enjoy the most are a good indication of the direction where your voice lies. Use your reading to discover, explore and develop your voice.

Become familiar with your voice to put yourself in the best position for training.

Train Your Voice. Writers train by writing. Consider each piece of writing you create as a training exercise. The more you write, the more adept you will become at controlling your voice and the more comfortable you will become using it.

Aim to master your writing voice like a musician masters an instrument.

Your Voice Has a Range. At times, you will have to modify your writing style to suit a particular task. A romance novel, an article for Seventeen Magazine and a query letter each requires a different tone of voice.

Certain types of writing will be outside your range. Your comfort zone and your range are closely aligned. You can expand your range with training and passion.

Outside Influences Can Play a Role. A writer's voice can also be shaped by his social environment and life experiences. Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy both wrote in Victorian-era England and their writings show it.

Mark Twain wrote about life in the United States and it's no wonder his voice is very different from that of Charles Dickens even though both use humor and satire in their writings.

Embrace Your Voice. Your voice is an asset. Once you have an idea where your voice lies, embrace it. Celebrate it. Run with it. Write with style. Your voice is your style.

We are all blessed with a distinctive voice. Even if you model your writing after another's, it will come out in your own voice.

Don't Be Afraid of the Audience.

Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.

— John Steinbeck

Be Yourself. It's a lot easier to be who you are if you're comfortable in your own skin. Allow your writing to give voice to your inspirations. Be authentic.

Put Your Heart Into It. Give every piece you create your best effort. You'd notice if your favorite author, or favorite poet, made a halfhearted effort. The wellspring of great writing is an authentic voice that speaks with passion.




         Have you found your voice? Who influenced you?

Illustration: John James Adubon

Writing for the Love of Writing

I have many friends who are artists, painters for the most part. For them, art seems to be a way of life. They sketch, draw and paint because it is second nature and they love what they do. It seems as though there is nothing else they would rather be doing.

Many writers also love what they do. No one is paying us for all the blog posts we write. For many of us, the reward is the opportunity to share our ideas and talents and to simply belong to our wonderful community of fellow writers. As an added benefit, we also build a following and hope folks remember us.

Reading Is Part of the Job Description
One of the ways that writers develop their voice, prod their imagination and become more agile with language is to read, read again, and then read some more. One of my recent Life List commitments is to read two contemporary novels a month. So far, I’ve been keeping up and right now, I’m ahead of schedule.

My ongoing search to find worthwhile books to read inspired this blog post.

Choice Is a Luxury
I am mostly interested in mysteries and thrillers and my Ipad is filling up with them. Just recently, I stocked my electronic library with an additional ten new titles that warrant a second look. Many of them, I will end up reading sooner or later.

The Value of a Good Read
An important point is the cost of these books and how I find them. I use a very simple method and pay nothing for the books. I find new titles by searching twitter approximately three times a week for “free mystery” and “free thriller.” Among a handful of twitter results, I choose books on Amazon with four and five-star ratings that have well-written and convincing reviews.

During the past two months, I read two novels that are of very high literary quality and two others that were excellent and enjoyable reads. If this experience is any indication, I’ll be able to keep reading quality novels indefinitely and at no charge.

What This Means for Novelists
What does a proliferation of high-quality, free ebooks mean for authors who aspire to write fiction for a living? In my opinion it means you have to be talented and prolific.

Most of the recently-minted, “famous” authors we read about published at least ten books before they achieved their fame. If you are serious about writing for a living, at some point in your career, you may have to publish one or more books a year. You can also get lucky. The book you are working on can become a best-seller that lands you a movie deal. While this is great if it happens, this is not a plan you can take to the bank.

I Don’t Run Into Low-Quality Ebooks
Another observation of mine over this test period is that I didn’t encounter the “lots-of-bad-ebooks-out-there” experience that I keep reading about. Don’t get me wrong, I know they’re out there. The point is: I don’t run into them.

Here is a thought exercise. Do you constantly run into websites and blogs in which you have little or no interest, sites that feature low quality content filled with grammatical errors? Chances are, you solved that problem a long time ago. You’d probably have to pause for a moment if you had to find such a site on short notice.

If you find yourself investing too much time reading bad-quality ebooks, consider modifying how you decide which ones to read.

What’s your reading regimen like? How do you choose which books to read?

Painting: Ivan Olinksy (1878 - 1962)

Creativity Is not Always Child's Play

All you need for an excellent exercise that stimulates a young child's imagination is a blank sheet of paper and a few crayons of different colors. A creative spirit and busy little hands will do the rest. It’s not so easy for us adults! While creativity can be as easy as child's play, for an artist or a craftsman, creativity can mean painstaking work.

Creativity is also an integral part of any work environment, and it’s not surprising that creativity in business drives profitability.

The Magic and Wonder of Creativity
Small clumps of different-colored clay can make a bigger clump of multicolored clay. It’s one thing to mix ingredients and come up with something interesting. It’s quite another to conceive a totally new way of looking at things that leads to an unexpected result.

The work of a creative artist can make us pause in awe and wonder. Creativity can transform the mundane into the useful or the sublime. A talented artist only needs a handful of colors. His ability to create an appealing or emotional effect by combining a few available elements can translate into a magical outcome or the perfect result.

Quantum Leaps of Creativity
Some riddles are so difficult to decipher that we have to make quantum leaps of creativity to arrive at their solution. We intuitively understand that if you apply force to an object it will move. We quickly grasp why we need more force to move a heavier object. It takes a substantial leap of creativity to figure out that if you’re moving fast enough, time literally slows down.

Water emerges from two invisible gases, hydrogen and oxygen. Nothing about those two gases would predict what water is like. Quantum leaps dominate in creation everywhere we look but especially in the startling, beautiful novelty of life-forms on Earth.

–Deepak Chopra

Rules and Creativity: Putting Theory Into Practice
Fortunately for us, most creative endeavors have rules. If you want to write a convincing and emotionally satisfying plot, there are rules you can follow. The theory behind the rules was proposed in 335 BC by Aristotle and they haven’t changed much since. A painter’s knowledge of the theories of light, perspective and color enables him to create a stunning three-dimensional portrait on a canvas of two dimensions.

The Tedium in Creativity: Getting the Facts Straight
It’s a fallacy to think that creative work means you don’t have to deal with facts. Most novels contain narrative passages that require research. The writer has to gather and organize bits of general information, historical events and geographical details. A vivid setting with accurate details can help bring a plot to life and make the story realistic. Even a make-believe world has to be consistent and should be subject to some rules of cause and effect.

Where Creative Insights Come From
If you immerse yourself in the theory of your work and the facts of your project, creative insights will come to you like bolts from the blue when you least expect it. Creative people are those who are most receptive to their own intuitions. They know that insights come from their interpretation and understanding of basic knowledge and available information.

They have faith that a new insight will come to save the day. Every time they get “stuck,” they go back to doing something called for by the basics until they get another insight. They master the basics and stay in tune with their work.

Creativity Requires Commitment
All work requires planning and focus. Creative work is no different. You can’t carry out a plan and you won’t be able to focus if you don’t have time. It’s a valuable asset—and like all valuable assets—you shouldn’t squander time because it’s scarce. There’s never enough.

This is why making priorities and setting goals are so important. Setting priorities will help you manage your time. Having a goal will keep you focused.

What works for you when you need to be creative?


Painting: Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid

Rising to the Surface

— Carmen, a lot of things are not the way we want them to be.

She laughed. She was looking at her bottle of Coca-Cola carefully; I think she was counting the bubbles that were rising to the surface. Then she lifted the bottle to her ear.

"Listen: even my Coke says more intelligent things than you do."

"I'm serious."

"That's even worse."

She covered the opening of the bottle with her thumb and shook it. Then, with poor aim, squirted it, apparently at me. Some women at the next table felt threatened and opted to change tables. The waiter appeared with an angry look and a mop in his hand. Carmen kept laughing.

"Next time I won't miss," she warned me.

"Listen, this is all a lie. My name is Froylan Gomez, I am married, and I have no job."

She shook the bottle again and showered me with Coke. Now she wasn't laughing, she wasn't playing.

"You are Juan," she said firmly, in a holy tone, "you work for a newspaper, the sports section, and you don't need any other woman than me."

I agreed.

I paid the bill.

Carmen insisted on licking the Coke off me as we sped down the road.

—David Toscana, Tula Station

Painting: Francisco Goya

Dawn Kissed her Brow

Phoebe slept, on the night of her arrival, in a chamber that looked down on the garden of the old house. It fronted towards the east, so that at a very seasonable hour a glow of crimson light came flooding through the window, and bathed the dingy ceiling and paper-hangings in its own hue.

There were curtains to Phoebe's bed; a dark, antique canopy, and ponderous festoons of a stuff which had been rich, and even magnificent, in its time; but which now brooded over the girl like a cloud, making a night in that one corner, while elsewhere it was beginning to be day.

The morning light, however, soon stole into the aperture at the foot of the bed, betwixt those faded curtains. Finding the new guest there,—with a bloom on her cheeks like the morning's own, and a gentle stir of departing slumber in her limbs, as when an early breeze moves the foliage,—the dawn kissed her brow. It was the caress which a dewy maiden—such as the Dawn is, immortally—gives to her sleeping sister, partly from the impulse of irresistible fondness, and partly as a pretty hint that it is time now to unclose her eyes.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables

Painting: Jean Francois Millet, Sleeping Nude (1844)