“Always be a poet, even in prose.”*

Writing Worries V - Chasing the Poetic

Through four of my five years at Wexford CI, I was blessed to have Mrs. Nelson as my English teacher.  She was smart and funny and kind and made every book seem wonderful and special as we read and wrote about it.  English was always one of the best parts of my day.  It was Mrs. Nelson who fostered and nurtured my interest in and love of poetry.  Oh how I’d love to be able to thank her!

One of Mrs. Nelson’s favourite poets was Baudelaire and, in grade ten (my first year with her), she presented the above quote to us in a lesson about essay writing (apparently, our first efforts were all substantially less-than).  She taught us that M. Baudelaire meant that, in all writing (even essays!), we ought to strive for eloquence, that even our prose should be imbued with the elegance, rhythm and style that are typically associated with poetry.  Having had Mrs. N., four years running, I found that quote copied into four English notebooks.  It is a lofty goal that has long been seared onto my brain.  

The Agony and the Editing

[With apologies to Mr. Stone for bastardising his sublime title.]

My bridges book is finished! For now, at least.  I may update/amend/augment as the Gordie Howe progresses.  Shy, admittedly, of my initial 100 page goal, but finished.  Amen!!!  First drafts truly are The Agony and Ecstasy** of writing. This is where sparkling (I wish!) concepts flow through my fingertips, to the keyboard and onto my screen. First drafts are my creative happy place. They’re fun and satisfying.  But then…

Real writers have professional editors. Paid editors.  It’s the gold standard. I get it! For a manuscript that will never cross a publisher’s desk, an editor is simply not in my budget. Solo effort, then.  I need to be dispassionate (is that even possible, do you suppose?), fearless and ruthless.

Today I began to edit some of my bridge book pages and, as the venerable Mr. Hemingway so famously opined, The first draft of anything is shit.  Um, yup!  On my first read-through, the words on the pages rarely matched the clever expressiveness I imagined I’d written. Instead, it was a sloppy tangle of story and idea threads needing some tight organisation. And that’s the agony of editing first drafts - searching for some goodness, some quality, a nugget of excellence, amongst the dross.  Streamlining, chasing the poetic, and aiming for eloquence without falling into the trap of grandiloquence.  Easy-peasy, right?  Nope!  Not even close. 

Next up:  Taming the hodgepodge chaos I’ve created into a tight, focussed narrative.  This is my moment of truth in this writing odyssey.  My hope (fervent wish) is that, hidden in all this mess, are a few tidbits of brilliance that I can work with, some petits triomphes, that suggest there might be a poet, even in this prose.

’Til next time, y’all…

Writing Worries V - Chasing the Poetic 2

*Charles Pierre Baudelaire, poet, master of rhyme and rhythm, essayist.
**Irving Stone - title of his biographical novel about Michelangelo.