Muse....oh muse.....where for art thou muse.... Ha, that was rather a-muse-ing. Ok, maybe not. Why is it that some days are full of promise, inspiration, pure unadulterated talent, and others are filled with a monotonous buzzing in the ears and a proverbial echo through the mind.
Hello....Hello....Hello....Hello.......
You know I used to carry around a pen and pad of paper with me so I could write down snippets of conversations I overheard. Sometimes it was pretty good stuff, other times I just liked the way someone worded something. At first I would try to remember it but that never worked. By the time I got through 2 hours of being out in public I'd already made note of at least 10 quotes, and by the time I noted the last one I couldn't remember the first one. In came the pen and paper - like an extension of my hand, ever present, and after a short time, very full.
At some point that changed, I wrote in my note pad less and less. My life got so full I focused internally so much that I stopped paying as much attention to what was going on around me. What my kids were saying or doing became more important than catching glimpses of little used story fodder - to chew on later when writing a book. I'm just now reaizing how narrowed my view became. That's not exactly a bad thing, kids should be at the top of the priority list. The bad part was that I became so used to tuning everything else out, I even did it when my kids weren't around.
I think tomorrow I'll take a pen and pad of paper and go to lunch, by myself, and just listen. I wonder what the outside world sounds like now.......
This is a sequence that many writers find: notebooks full of snippets, fewer snippets, deserted notebook.
ReplyDeleteBut notebooks are not necessary. Writing is writing, notebooks are not.
Maybe it's just a way for a writer to familiarize themselves with dialogue? SO maybe it's not the writing down that matters but more the listening....right?
ReplyDeleteI think maybe that was more the point, my world has condensed so dramatically over the years that I forget to open myself up to the conversations around me. I;m not too bad at the actual words of dialogue, or the sentiment, but more the - what do you put after the quotes (he said, she said, he said with sympathy, **nothing at all**, etc).
You must admit though - people come up with some wonderfully descriptive language when they think no one's paying attention - not even them.
I think writing is divided into discrete skills--some people are good at dialogue, bad at developing plot, okay on descriptive passages, and so on. Dialogue comes from inside your head, from the characters you create, not so much from what real people say, though naturally it doesn't hurt.
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