Day: June 25, 2022

Here in the woods I have discovered more than a little of that inspiration I wrote on yesterday. It is easy to be inspired in a place of such beauty and calm and in this sacred space I discovered a truth about myself and my writing. What I write is often about the idea of truth—more specifically it is about the subjective nature of truth and how people react to their truth being questioned and how far they are willing to go in order to defend it.

Generally speaking, I have written about this throughout my career/life. However, I’ve done so without recognizing the core of what I was attempting to argue. My latest independent work challenges two fundamental truths: one about racial perception and one about the power/uniqueness of the human construct. Both are questions I carried with me since I was a boy growing up In Harlem and going to a wealthy midtown public school where the few other black kids were all dynamically special in some sort of way, while I was just an out of place kid. I should have recognized it then in my earliest works; in Horace Treefellow and Liefer Shadowseek, elves who were apart from their people largely because of perception and position. I didn’t.

In higher level literature classes the focus is often on what is the author trying to say with this work vs. what does the work itself say as a reflection of time and place (often regardless of intentionality). As a writer, knowing what you are saying helps to quietly carve the borders around the action of what will be in a story. Inside those lines your characters will paint your story for you. Inside those lines the individual motivations and interconnections can grow into relationships that shape and direct a tale. I am now aware of what it is I say overall. I am also aware of how dramatically large and wide that umbrella of meaning truly is.

As a takeaway, try to consider what it is you are saying and thinking about when you are shaping your stories. Try to envision in your palette of characters and scenarios just what it is you feel about the world you are creating and or writing about. That theme should form the canvas upon which those stories find their form.

*note* this and the following blog were written in the Olympic National Forest and significantly out of internet range.

I am sitting near the shores of Crescent Lake in Washington and realizing that a number of writers have come this way, seen the beauty, and rooted their stories in this space. Perhaps I am going to be the next to do so. The beauty of the space is undeniable. The calm of the space is so encouraging that I was excited to be able to come back to the page and write about it. I love being here. I love that I can be at the shore staring into crystal waters and moments later be so deep in forest that I cannot see anything but trees and undergrowth. It is a powerful location; one that the first people viewed as sacred and one that I must as well.

All of this is to say that inspiration is my topic for these ten minutes. A writer without inspiration is a writer winding down the clock of their literary existence. We cannot write without having that fuel that fires us. We must find inspiration in our own ways. It may be place or situation—even desperation. Many athletes rely on their physical craft to get them out of their dead-end living situations. Many artists are the same. I believe writers are no different. If you are hungry—if you are desperate—you are encouraged to pour your soul down the tip of that pen or out the end of your fingers on to a waiting keyboard and let the world feel your want and your message.

Like a double-edged sword, inspiration has a second side—it is also a promise. If you are inspired you are then required to use that inspiration and turn it into something of value; even if only to yourself and even if only a stepping stone to a greater project or realization. In short, do not waste what inspires you, because inspiration is temporary and fleeting.

I am inspired. I do not mean to waste that. I expect to write hard over these next few days and weeks and produce work that is worth reading.

All writing is politics. It doesn’t have to be an overt thing, but the situations you place your characters in and how they react to those situations and the world around them are reflections on your ideology. This is not to say your characters beliefs what you do—often they do not and this too is a reflection. It is, therefore, important to be aware of what you are doing in this respect and namely to make sense of what you are saying or actively avoiding in your writing.

I worked with a writer for a time who was adamant about not writing about typical straight relationships. It was important to her to showcase non-traditional couplings. That was political — even if not overtly. She was aiming to bring new into the light. It was a good move. My last novel was incredibly multi-ethnic. Also a Choice.

these choices are rocks thrown into the ocean with the potential to stir the waters. I for one believe the waters need to be stirred. In the wake of ROE being overturned we should all be aware of what we need and how we can voice those needs through our words.