Who here writes/is a writer?
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Artyczar
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Okay, here's a few of paragraphs from my book, but I wouldn't call it literature. It's just a memoir:
After refueling on some salami and provolone cheese, we drove at ludicrous speeds through cobblestone roads, to streets, then to highways. We popped off a toll road into dreams from my past, because I could’ve sworn I’d dreamed it before. As if my breath had been stolen by a gargantuan sky. I mean big, like the state of Montana, a clear endless canopy above our heads. The air I inhaled felt like an awakening in my lungs. Is this what joy is supposed to feel like?
While driving under this possibility of joy, I hardly knew I was traveling in a car. The shock absorbers on Alessandro’s BMW were well made and we quietly bumped and hummed as the tires looped over the hillsides. Through the windows I could see the elevation dropping over the steep pathways as we climbed through the valleys with wall-to-wall pastures. Each bend outlined soft textures of parallelograms and trapeziums in brilliant shades of vermilion and Kelly greens. They stitched together bushy yellow trees of rusted leaves, which left my brain synapses transition into the 4th of July....
In the hills below the Alps, in Emilia, Romagna, we finally arrived at Sandra and Valter’s. The young Italian couple shared a three-bedroom apartment with Alessandro and Tanya back in Florida. By the time we got there, the sky had faded dark into purple and the temperature dropped. Past dinnertime, snow fell on the ground the first week of April.
Their big house echoed with Italian tile and no carpeting. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but I was grateful to have a free place to stay. Plus, they were the most hospitable people I had ever known. They had gnocchi waiting. I found that most people in Italy were very hospitable in ways that sort of blew my mind. They’d invite you into their home, allow you to sleep there, cook you supper, and sit with you in their living rooms, making you their guest of honor. Most will do this even if you’re only loosely related to them. Sometimes, if you knew the same guy they once knew, or that guy knew someone your parents went to grade school with, that would do. “Come on in, mi casa es tu casa.” It’s crazy. What American would do this? I was basically passed from house to house in this way. The trusting generosity of others. It was the only way I would’ve been able to travel around Northern Italy without having to dip into my small purse of $444....
After refueling on some salami and provolone cheese, we drove at ludicrous speeds through cobblestone roads, to streets, then to highways. We popped off a toll road into dreams from my past, because I could’ve sworn I’d dreamed it before. As if my breath had been stolen by a gargantuan sky. I mean big, like the state of Montana, a clear endless canopy above our heads. The air I inhaled felt like an awakening in my lungs. Is this what joy is supposed to feel like?
While driving under this possibility of joy, I hardly knew I was traveling in a car. The shock absorbers on Alessandro’s BMW were well made and we quietly bumped and hummed as the tires looped over the hillsides. Through the windows I could see the elevation dropping over the steep pathways as we climbed through the valleys with wall-to-wall pastures. Each bend outlined soft textures of parallelograms and trapeziums in brilliant shades of vermilion and Kelly greens. They stitched together bushy yellow trees of rusted leaves, which left my brain synapses transition into the 4th of July....
In the hills below the Alps, in Emilia, Romagna, we finally arrived at Sandra and Valter’s. The young Italian couple shared a three-bedroom apartment with Alessandro and Tanya back in Florida. By the time we got there, the sky had faded dark into purple and the temperature dropped. Past dinnertime, snow fell on the ground the first week of April.
Their big house echoed with Italian tile and no carpeting. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but I was grateful to have a free place to stay. Plus, they were the most hospitable people I had ever known. They had gnocchi waiting. I found that most people in Italy were very hospitable in ways that sort of blew my mind. They’d invite you into their home, allow you to sleep there, cook you supper, and sit with you in their living rooms, making you their guest of honor. Most will do this even if you’re only loosely related to them. Sometimes, if you knew the same guy they once knew, or that guy knew someone your parents went to grade school with, that would do. “Come on in, mi casa es tu casa.” It’s crazy. What American would do this? I was basically passed from house to house in this way. The trusting generosity of others. It was the only way I would’ve been able to travel around Northern Italy without having to dip into my small purse of $444....
Iain
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I am looking forward to reading your book. I am really intrigued by it.
My travel through France was something of a disaster. But going from bottle to bar is no way to negotiate a foreign land, unless one is looking for trouble of course.
Having an outline of your life in the form of a memoir could be useful for future projects, I would think.
"Just a memoir" must have been a huge undertaking and dissection. More kudos for you.
My travel through France was something of a disaster. But going from bottle to bar is no way to negotiate a foreign land, unless one is looking for trouble of course.
Having an outline of your life in the form of a memoir could be useful for future projects, I would think.
"Just a memoir" must have been a huge undertaking and dissection. More kudos for you.
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Artyczar
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Thanks. Well, it did take me almost 10 years to write it over and over fourteen times or so. If I had to do it all over again, I would never. It was a soul-sucking experience I never want to live through again. That's how I really feel about it. However, some people who have read it (the final-finished version) have been quite entertained. That's always nice to hear.
Iain
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It sounds like you could write a book about it! I'm not being facetious. I could write a book about not writing. I have probably written more on this forum than I have in twenty years. That's not nothing.
That said, I did write when my daughter attended Primary school. She would come home with words.
Cat. The cat stretched in the sun.
Door. We knocked on the door.
Time. Nothing halts the inexorable flow of time like waiting.
What an amazing facility for the language. I was so proud of that. Who knows where it came from
That said, I did write when my daughter attended Primary school. She would come home with words.
Cat. The cat stretched in the sun.
Door. We knocked on the door.
Time. Nothing halts the inexorable flow of time like waiting.
What an amazing facility for the language. I was so proud of that. Who knows where it came from
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Iain
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J
JohnEmmett
What an amazing facility for the language. I was so proud of that. Who knows where it came from
it's not how much you say
rather what you're saying
lots of nonsense or brief insight?
J
JohnEmmett
the truth is very simple
I aim for the essence
I aim for the essence
Iain
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At one point in my life, it seemed every time I opened my mouth people said, Oh, that's deep! Or, You're so deep!
And then later on, it was, You're so shallow! Don't be so shallow!
I aim for the toilet bowl but don't always make it.
That's my contributor's note sorted.
And then later on, it was, You're so shallow! Don't be so shallow!
I aim for the toilet bowl but don't always make it.
That's my contributor's note sorted.
J
JohnEmmett
Depth in writing is from rewriting
Artyczar
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Or you can ruin it, as I have often found.
Iain
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Yes, there's nothing worse than spoiling something that had potential, whether through overthinking or being intoxicated by one's own presumed capability. A particularly poignant (painful) instance of this happened with me. I pulled work i had submitted on the basis of reworking it, and was told it had been shortlisted. Anyhow, I reworked and resubmitted it only to have it promptly rejected. I had been afflicted by a serious case of overwriting.
Iain
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I am never 100% sure. Neither do I have formal education.
I mucked about
And my first job
After the inevitable
Expulsion (...)
I remember when I began writing, lines would spring out, and they sounded great, lyrical, but then, on closer inspection, they wouldn't make sense. It was very confusing.
I mucked about
And my first job
After the inevitable
Expulsion (...)
I remember when I began writing, lines would spring out, and they sounded great, lyrical, but then, on closer inspection, they wouldn't make sense. It was very confusing.
