I have been thinking about life experiences and writing. Most creative writers write out of experience but hate to be pinned down by it, as if every line says something about the author’s life story. Of course some very fine writing is about life stories but even there the so-called facts can tangle a writer up, pulling us away from the craft and into an almost legally defensible account that is ponderous in its explanation. So where does experience fit into creative writing? I ponder the question by recounting an experience.
About ten years ago I was going through a very complicated period and took myself off to a counselor. She asked if I wanted to punch some pillows. I replied that I wasn’t really the punching pillows type. She then suggested that I might like to wring something.
Oh yes, wringing did resonate. I most certainly felt like wringing something.
So she brought me a towel.
Finally, the process reverses, brain turns-of the erection, blood flow decreases into the arteries and the veins open to viagra online in uk remove the blood from the penile organ. Any strike to this particular point causes extreme pain, short-term dysfunction in the affected hand and arm, and cialis consultation mental dazzling for 3 to 7 seconds. order cheap levitra http://appalachianmagazine.com/category/featured/page/66/?filter_by=featured Volume pills help stimulate testosterone production in body. Each state sets its own needs appalachianmagazine.com tadalafil online uk for teens getting their first license. I began to wring, and as you know when you wring a towel it eventually curls into a twisted loop. She asked if this was how I saw myself now.
I studied the towel. No, I replied. It’s more like the workings of my brain. As if each of the folds is a thought line disappearing into another thought line and coming out who knows where. I studied it again. It’s a rather interesting shape, I said. It’s become a thing in itself. I could put it on the mantelpiece. I could give it to you, ask what you make of it. I paused and studied the towel again. It’s a little work of art, I continued. It’s powered by feelings generated by experience and the towel itself has been transformed by all that wringing. But it’s neither me, nor the experience.
I think writers often feel frustrated that when they create a story, they may be pinned down by it. But a story is not the writer. It comes out of a creative wringing that produces a particular art form.
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