Lois Lowry has a recent wonderful blog post on July 24th. In a short paragraph she pulls together everything I love about writing: transforming the world into a magical place with imagination, a few twigs and stones, and a paper crane. She condense it all into a few beautiful sentences, ending with her acknowledgment of the ephemeral nature of the process.
Really, this isn't just about writing fantasy. It's about any writing. It's what I do when I'm doing non-fiction: take myself back, back, back there, write with emotion and passion, holding tight to the facts, to what people have said they felt, to how it smelled and looked and sounded. When it goes well, I'm not in the present, sitting hunched over my keyboard, a flurry of paper scraps all around me. I am there, as much as I can be there. I come out of those great writing sessions slightly confused and blinking, like an owlet exposed to sudden bright light.
Check out Lois Lowry's post. She's brilliant. Scroll down to her post, "All Kinds of Narrative."
Thursday, July 24, 2008
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5 comments:
I can't find the LL post. Followed the link. Any more information on how to find?
Feelings while in the flow of illustrating are similar. I think the acute focus on visual information in the world around me, gives me a little high and makes me feel more alive.
KT
Thanks KT -- scroll down to see it. LL went on a blogging rampage since that post-- other long lovely posts on top of it!
also, I love your comment about looking at the world as an illustrator -- that feeling of being more alive, more aware, is so true!
Thanks for sharing the Lois Lowery post. Love it! And KT's comment, too. That wonderful openness, playfulness, focus on detail; these are not only the way of being creative, they are also the source. More alive, yes!
Really true, Anna, the source. And that great place of being actively open to receive it, since it's all around.
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