Chapter Four ...in which Emma shares her system of revisions and we meet Ollie the golden retriever

From: Emma

To: Gerry

Date: July 23, 2009          

Dear Gerry,

Wow, I really like that story.  I like the fact that you wrote the answer AS a story.  And I also like the fact that there is not actually a specific directive answer in the story itself, though ironically it is indeed an “answer” to my question.  Perhaps it is better to call it a “response” to the question.  Please feel free to respond to any of my questions in this way!  I resonate so well with stories and, as you say, allegory.  The neat thing about such responses is that it allows the reader to have their own interpretation, while still widening the view, offering a new perspective.  The reader can then take the nugget, the wisdom, contained in the tale, and apply it to the particular situation, in a way the “advisor” never could.  And if a reader doesn’t see the lesson in the story, well, then that could mean that they aren’t ready for the story or just that it doesn’t resonate with them for whatever reason.  It’s much less like “advice” with all its attendant pitfalls of seeming to command, know more, etc. and more like a true offering of the “advisor’s” inner views and reactions, a borrowing of his neurons, an outsourcing of the problem to a larger interconnected computer system for analysis.  That said, I still don’t have a specific answer to the question “what form will my work take?” but how could I, so soon?   I would only know once I experience it for myself.  I will meditate on it a bit and live into the answer, seeing how these different notes of mine take their final form.  And I will let you know!

Thanks!

Emma

From: Gerry

To: Emma

Date: July 26, 2009

Hello, Emma, and thanks for your wonderful email!  I can see you are well on your way already.  I am so pleased that you like the method of exploring issues in allegory (story) form.  My mind works that way very naturally.  I find so many lessons in stories, be they folktales, literary stories, or even stories I made up myself.  I thought of “The Water From the Well” as more of an essay, but it had so much allegory, I guess you could call it a story, too!  Kind of a hybrid.  That is what happens when you just let the work take its own form.  It doesn’t always fall into a specific accustomed form.  That can baffle and frustrate people who are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.  But how boring would a bunch of round pegs be!  The work will amaze and delight you as you make friends with it and allow it to be itself through you.

I will add that I can see you have a deep understanding of artistry already because you did not respond to my essay by saying, “But you still didn’t answer my question!”  So many times, my writing students respond this way when I turn their question back to them with a twist, or just offer a perspective that they have to “reach out” to meet.  You understood that the essay was a jumping off point for you to do further work and reflection to answer your own question.  Deep questions are not truly addressed by quick and easy solutions.  And how boring would life be if they were!  And no one can truly “answer a question” with a concrete answer when the question is about creativity or other such personal matters because the advisor can never completely understand the other person’s essence and situation.  The best we can do is offer the allegory, the perspective, so that the listener can use that to find a way for himself, remaining a supportive presence while he does so.  

Keep in touch!

Gerry

From: Emma

To: Gerry

Date: August 11, 2009

Hello, Gerry! 

I have my monthly submission to you!  It’s the attachment.  Of course, I have been working on a bunch of other things, but this is the one that is in the finished form.

And speaking of finished form!  Well, I meditated some more on your essay “The Water In the Well” and expanded it a bit.  I hope you don’t mind!  I focused on the character of Jack Frost, whom you only name at the very end and don’t give any further information about.  I asked myself, who is Jack Frost?  Well, an artist, obviously.  One who works in secret, when everyone is sleeping.  One who is universal, yet not always active.  I brainstormed a big list of attributes about him.  I thought beyond the confines of the essay to wonder what happens to Jack Frost in the summer, because creativity continues year-round.  Perhaps I will write a story myself about what happens to Jack Frost in the summer. 

Anyhow, as I applied your allegory to my question about how to polish and finish my writing, I realized I would have to start by looking at just one of my topics at a time.  So I pulled out a note I had made about a walk I had taken while at a summer camp many years ago, and read it.  When I say “note” I really mean just a sentence or two to remind me of the event.  I relived it in my mind, letting the story wash over me.  Almost immediately, I realized how important that step was… letting the story wash over me.  Really feel and experience it.  You can only write about the story from WITHIN the story, not just manipulating it from afar.  The energy has to flow through the writer to be a true sharing.  Otherwise, it just a dry reporting of events or information.  That was really the key for me.  Jack Frost is the catalyst, and he feels the freezing in his soul, he has the water flowing through his veins and out through his hands (paintbrushes?) as he paints on the windows. 

I don’t think I told you this, but I have so many scraps and notes of ideas that I thought I would write about later.  A whole box full!  I went through several of them trying to figure out which one to write about for my “monthly submission” to you.  At first, I despaired because I thought the notes were stale and boring now. I glanced at so many of them and didn’t feel the same energy and drive as when I first wrote them.  In fact, I wasn’t even sure what many of the notes referred to, they were so old!  I almost threw them away, but now I see it differently.  Each note referred to a deep message or idea that was trying to come through me at the time, and was just the tip of the iceberg of the REAL idea, just an aid to memory to dredge it back up again for further reflection and treatment.  So here is the missing element: I just need to take these scraps and MEDITATE on them, looking within to determine whether there is energy within me NOW to write on it.  The topic can only be written by who the author is NOW, not who he/she was in the past.  If there is not a present message coming through me, then the scrap can be tossed out or the idea could be saved for another time if I determine that it is worth saving. 

So I started by just recording images, ideas, thoughts about this particular walk at a summer nature camp when I was in college.  I wrote these ideas down on index cards and then just played around with them.  I guess someone could do this virtually with bullet points on a computer screen, too, but I like using the paper, at least at first.  It just makes it easier to move them around and reorder them.  I call it the “index card draft” because it’s actually the draft BEFORE the First Draft!  It just seems easier for me to write down these disjointed thoughts rather than trying to figure out the structure of the essay from the very beginning.

So here is the procedure I invented and followed.  It’s series of Drafts.  I imagine this would work for essays, longer books, etc.

1. The Index Card Draft.  This is a time to just record any thoughts or ideas on the topic.  You could call it brainstorming.  I use index cards, but you could write a bulleted list on a computer screen.  After producing these cards, I then organize them into categories.
2. The First Draft.  In this draft, I write the work in paragraph form, taking care to explain the thoughts completely so that I can follow and recall my own thoughts and not lose anything.  I flesh out the ideas more fully.  I explore any side avenues that seem interesting or possibly relevant.  I follow the organization of ideas that I developed when I put the cards into categories.  Each category becomes a paragraph or a collection of paragraphs.  This draft will be very wordy and not written in a particularly interesting or readable fashion.  I think of it as a respository of ideas in a somewhat organized fashion.
3. The Flowing Draft.  In this draft, I will make the writing “flow” a little more.  I read my big bloated First Draft and try to identify some main ideas.  I actually print out The First Draft and then write my notes with colored pens on it, but others may prefer to try to use Track Changes or somehow revise only on the computer screen.  Once I identify the main ideas, I circle and notate.  I cut out the extraneous.  I then write the main ideas in paragraph form (still in categories) in a way that “flows” more, using transitions, examples, etc.
4. The Singing Draft.  One more draft!  Now, I really think about what angle to use.  How do I want to open this essay?  I can be much more free with the structure now and break away from the previous structure of “explaining categories.”  This is the final draft, unless of course I think of another one, haha!

Thanks, Gerry!  I would be interested to see if your writing procedure is anything like this!

Emma

ATTACHMENT:

A Solitary (?) Walk

One autumn about nine years ago, when I was attending a retreat at Camp Onas in Pennsylvania, I decided to take a walk early, before breakfast was served and before many other people were up, although I noticed Ollie the camp dog (a dark golden retriever)  nosing around in the distance.  I always find such a beauty and peace walking in natural areas in the quiet of early morning.  I followed the trail through fields and woods, enveloped in the canopy of green, brown, red, yellow.  At times, the trail opened up and I walked beside meadows, at one point flushing several white-tailed deer, which bounded away, white tails raised high.  Every now and then, I would see that dog again, going on his own morning rounds.

At a certain point, however, I realized that I had traveled far from the original starting point, and yet I still saw that same dog in the distance.  And that is when I realized that he wasn’t just wandering aimlessly or on his own solitary journey – he was following me.  I was at once flooded with a sense of well-being and gratitude.  Here Ollie had decided to be my host, my protector, showing me around his estate.  It was so unusual because usually if a dog is going on a walk with you, you know it!  He was so independent and at such a distance, though, that I had just assumed he was just doing his own thing independent of me.  It was not explicit or planned, but there it was… a communion of two spirits enjoying a moment of time together.  In that moment, Ollie went from being a part of the landscape I walked through, and became a co-traveler.  This clever dog flipped the script.  He decided on the walk and knew more about what was going on than the human. 

So often we see things as independent and separate when they are anything but.  We walk through life alone and perceive an “other-ness” for those who are different or who see differently.  We don’t always detect those who accompany us in one way or another.  Ollie, with his deep instinctual knowledge, was with me that morning in a closer way than I had realized.  Even now, as I sit alone and write this essay, I know I am not truly alone.  There are others thinking of me now.  The readers who will read this are accompanying me just as Ollie was on that day.  And now, all these years later, perhaps Ollie himself is still with me in some way.  Certainly he is with me now through the power of my memory of his gift to me that day.  Time doesn’t matter.  When you think of someone, see someone, remember someone, follow someone’s teachings, read someone’s writings (or they read YOUR writings), or discover the same thing someone else discovered, you are with them, walking together in the silence of the morning, even if only one of you can see the other.