Why do I write? Boy, what an easy topic. I can rip this blog off while watching Court TV and eating a tuna sandwich.
Or so I thought. I had such lofty thoughts about The Muse and such. Yet, there was something vaguely familiar about them. And not familiar in a good way. Like in a plagiaristic kind of way.
Then I realized who was being so philosophical in my head. Peanuts. Charles Schulz's Peanuts. Snoopy who fancies himself a writer (don't we all?). Linus, the thumb-sucking, blanket-dragging philosopher. And of course, Lucy the Critic. I have always been a huge Peanuts fan, but to admit they inspired me to write...well, then I'd also have to admit that I took my blankie with me to college. (Seriously.)
Couldn't I at least claim Eudora Welty as my muse? She lived several blocks from my elementary school and I often saw her around town. I could. . .but it wouldn't be true. However, once I got over my writing pretensions, I found my artistic connection to Charlie Brown and all the rest.
The daily Peanuts strips were among the first things I read as a child. I read the other comic strips too, but I never mused over them for days and weeks the way I did Peanuts. Somewhere around eighth grade (slow muser that I am) I figured out why Snoopy and Lucy and Linus seemed closer to me than most flesh-and-blood people.
The Peanuts gang are small children. Schulz never says how old his characters are, but I assume they were somewhere in the K-2 range. What do kids that age do? Ask questions. Lots and lots of questions. So do the Peanuts characters. Oh sure, there is usually a punchline, but a lot of deep and even religious questions appear before the tree eats Charlie Brown's kite( again), or Snoopy steals Linus's blanket.
When I re-read my third grade journal, I see that I was asking questions, and trying to find my own answers. This sort of soul searching evolved from simple question and answer format to the way I write today. I write to figure things out. (And I could have said that about 250 words ago.)
Mostly, I use my stories and journals to work out the kinks in my own life. For instance, Jimmy's Star began as a journal entry in which I was trying to figure out why something that had happened to me at age eight still enraged me as an adult. Now understand that my original incident doesn't appear at all in Jimmy. But in my journal, I wrote my way through that eight-year-old's rage, and discovered the true name and nature of this emotion.
Yankee Girl began as a not-very-good memoir, and ended up as a catharsis. After I finished that one, I truly felt as if I had toted bags and bags of memories and emotions and thrown them in the Dumpster. Those characters and events are based in reality, so it really was like taking out the mental trash I'd been hauling around for forty plus years.
Why do I write? To figure out life (good luck with that one, MA!) To get rid of my own demons and to honor the beautiful spirits I've had in my life. In every one of my books, I am still trying to help five or seven or eleven-year-old Mary Ann understand why things are. The funny thing is that just as you know Charlie Brown will never get his kite to fly, I see the same questions asked and answered over and over in my work. Charlie and I have had a lot of kites consumed by that kite-eating tree, but we keep trying. Wondering. Hoping. Trying to figure it out.
Posted by Mary Ann Rodman
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I read one of my favorite writer blogs this morning. Kristen Lamb talked about a writer’s dreams and how they might/might not differ from the other people’s. Now, this is a subject that I’ve had on my mind a time or two but from an entirely different angle.
Kristen talked about the types of dreams that she’d been having and the interpretation she placed upon them. I have no argument with anything she had to say. Far from it. There are nights I’d like to know why something so mundane from my early childhood had been dredged up and force fed to me with enough twists and terror to drop an elephant.
I used to have a recurring dream from my elementary years about a spiral staircase and a door at the top. For some reason, just reaching for that doorknob sent terror racing through my body and screams through my mind. I always woke up sweating, reaching for something invisible, heart pounding and skipping. I hated that dream because I had it several times a week for years.
When I was in my thirties I was talking to a friend of mine who was a shrink and we got on the subject of dreams. I told him about this one and how it had morphed into an even worse version when I hit about 25. He looked at me and said, “Would you really like to be rid of it?”
Color me excited. Of course, I wanted to be rid of it. He and I went to an unused room in the building and he had me re-enter the dream while I was awake. After walking through it, answering his question as I recited my journey inside the dream, he asked me who it was who kept me from leaving this building filled with stone staircases with only picture windows for a view of the world.
Only one face came to mind and I told him who held the key to this fortress which entrapped me. That’s when he gave me my own key, which I used to escape that prison of a dream.
It was a simple thing really. Nothing complicated, but I’ve never had either the original nor morphed dream since. I have to hand that friend kudos for showing me how to set myself free. Another great thing… it hadn’t cost me a dime.
As a result, I see my dreams differently now. They are stories I can use for my writing. I can fly, explore, discover, go on quests, and much more when in dreamland. I no longer need permission to write them down and make something of them. They are there for my use since they are of my mind’s invention.
I’ve always dreamed in Technicolor — HD, 3D — and surround sound. I’ve had one dream in black and white in my life and it scared me witless. I didn’t find out until much later in life that the studies show that a majority of people dream in black and white.
So for those vivid dreamers out there, these nightly excursions into wild adventures have more purpose than keeping your eyes moving while you sleep. They do solve problems, bring catharsis, help us handle problems, and give writers great storylines for that next book or short story.
I have to applaud Kristen on her choice of topic for her Free-For-All Friday blog posting. It allowed me to dissect last night’s episode and use a glaring spotlight on something that had been a subconscious stewing pot for several weeks now.
If you’ve got the time pop on over to Kristen’s blog and take a gander. Maybe she’ll spark something for you, too. Her link is: www.warriorwriters.wordpress.com/
Sleep well tonight. A bientot,
Claudsy
2 Comments on Dreaming of a Plot, last added: 10/18/2010
Blog: A Fuse #8 Production (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Because sometimes you just need a little old school retro-Mo Willems action to start the day out right.
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>>I write to figure things out.<<
Me, too, Mary Ann.
I have been reading Peanuts and BC since the strips first appeared. When I spoke to a 5th grade class, I told them to read every day, even if it was the comics, because most are drawn in beginning, middle and end just like a story. Really, both strips, and the others I MUST read every day, make me smile, give me a lift, sometimes make me nod, "yeah, that's so true." Writing challenges me to think, go where my character wants to go...and get her back in better shape than when she started.