Also very excited to see discussions in the George Saunders Story Club about ‘The Child’, a story I recommended – it’s sooooo wonderful to see so many readers discovering and appreciating the writing of my dearly beloved teacher Bobbie Louise Hawkins.
And now the Equinox has arrived, and I vowed to blog quarterly, so here we are. But what among the many things whirling in my head this week should I blog about?
Easy, really. What I need among all the busy is a good exercise in slowing down and going deep and finding focus.
As a writing experiment: draw a tarot card, and consider what it means for you and your writing. A prompt: This card means … It can really help to get your thoughts down on the page; just ten minutes of writing can bring great clarity.
If you want to get fancy, as I just did, pull three cards from three different decks. (Because you do have more than one deck, right?!) And of course there’s nothing special to read into the fact that two of my cards were the same, right?!
Something I’m contemplating in my interpretation of today’s picks, based on a recent desire to think more about the powers of the numbers rather than specific imagery: adjusting and adapting (Fives) in the world of words (Swords) (times two!). And that centre card: manifesting and getting things in order (Fours) in creative matters (Wands). What does all that amount to? These cards mean …
Also: don’t freak out if you get one of the scary cards. I guess it could mean you’re going to break your wrist or something [insert Scream emoji], but those cards are usually opportunities to think about things we avoid.
I mean, here is one beautiful way to think about one of those scary things from Sherman Alexie on Substack (don’t think he used tarot to write this poem, but).
If you want a good tarot reference: Joan Bunning’s website lists some of the conventional associations based on the Smith Rider Waite deck; I use her book Learning the Tarot often. Another ebook I carry with me all the time is Tarot For Change – Jessica Doré always comes up with fresh and insightful interpretations, especially in ways that upturn conventional good/bad associations of cards. Because good/bad are often just different ways of looking at the same, and we need to be reminded of that if we are to avoid blame and hurtfulness.
Also, a reminder: that next workshop is running with Words Away at the Phoenix Garden in London’s West End on 14 October 2023: The Four Elements of Revising: Become Your Own Best Editor. My Four Elements practice began with tarot, which might come up in discussion there too. We shall be focusing on craft and practice and ways to empower you to finish your book, and – if desired! – send it out into the world. Yes – let’s become our own best editors.
Also, in case you’re wondering: the decks left to right above are the Marseille by Alexandre Jodorowsky and Philippe Camoin, the Smith Rider Waite, and the Visconti. And the other two photos are taken by my husband.
I’ve not taught a revising workshop in some time, and I’m excited to be doing so again, bringing plenty of new insights and ideas. The world has changed in many ways – and so have we! I’m hoping to fire people up about their writing: owning their visions, expressing them clearly through the craft, finding ways to bring them to readers. It’s what I’ve been doing successfully one on one during covid and beyond, and I’m looking forward to bringing this into a classroom with Words Away again. And what a classroom! The Phoenix Garden is the best.
Also: I promise not to tell you to proofread your submission letters. In fact, I will have things to say about this, as well as other practical matters in the lottery that is publishing. But mostly we’ll focus on the writing – your writing, your stories. Writers of fiction or nonfiction are welcome, as are writers in poetry, screenplay or other forms. It will be of use to writers with complete manuscripts, as well as writers who’ve reached a stage where work-in-progress needs a boost – though given my emphasis on drafting it ought to be helpful to writers at any stage of the development of a piece of writing.
And the tarot workshop is with the lovely people at the Hastings Book Festival, where I ran a workshop last year. They have some great events for writers and readers – check them out if you are in the area. Such gorgeous sun on the sea last year: such light along the coast there. This is a new workshop, but it draws on years of practice, and I’m glad to have the chance to talk about one of my favourite subjects as it relates to writing.
Also:
* Among the current rescrambling on social media, I’m finding much of the most engaging content on Substack: thoughtful, intelligent, well written. I have a slight concern about word overload, but we can be selective. Its potential for interaction is promising. Not much action from me other than Restacks at the mo – but I might reboot my blogging and/or online teaching there. More to come. Find me here: Andrew Wille Substack. Do connect if you are there too.
* I’m also on Threads now. It’s not on browsers right now, I guess, so maybe you can find me via Instagram if you are on your phone app? TwitterX seems pretty inert, and I’m not sure I’ll be keeping that much longer.
* I also have spots for mentoring. Mentors have priority for developmental edits and manuscript reviews. If you’re interested, contact me with details of projects and your intentions in writing and publishing – if it seems a good fit, I can send more information.
I’m taking a break from manuscripts and editing for the rest of August, so I might not be at my desk to answer emails right away. The plaster cast is off! And I’m just about caught up. So now is the time for a bit of rest and physio. I need a break. Just not another fracture!
Summer reading recommendation: Yellowface by Rebecca F. Huang. I’m hoping to reread/read Kent Haruf this month. Support your local libraries and independent bookshops!
The tree above is the black walnut at Marble Hill. Just because! It’s been growing there for 300 years.
I was going to skip a quarterly blog post, but hey: life gives you lemons and you make lemonade.
On Saturday I fell and broke my wrist! My first ever trip to A&E. I guess I should consider myself lucky to have lived so long without such a visit before, but it’s certainly tedious that I have to cancel and reschedule various plans, and will need to work one-handed. And it’s also tedious that my gardening plans for summer are scuppered. The irony is that it happened at the entrance to a rose garden on the day that we were taking a long-awaited trip to another rose garden at the peak of its floral display. Roses are my downfall – or maybe my falldown! And yes, it *was* painful.
It’s set me thinking about the tarot card the Tower, which represents the unexpected. In many decks, such as the Smith Waite one in this picture, the card shows some catastrophe with people literally falling through the air. (Which I now have experience of! Also: of having smashed bones reset. Which now qualifies me to write such a scene in, say, a western or a fantasy novel. Apparently, there was a bloodcurdling seven-second scream, then an audible sigh of relief, and then I said thank you to the wonderful nurses, one of whom has the best name ever, but I’m observing the Hippocratic oath of patients so shan’t reveal it.)
In tarot the Tower is often fearfully linked with conflict, disruption or violence, but my excellent tarot teacher Sue mostly stressed its associations with sudden change or unexpected events, and the subsequent upheavals or outcomes that result from them – which don’t always have to be terrifying. From Jessica Doré’s Tarot For Change:
the Tower can be understood as symbolizing the particular personality traits that function as a sort of buffer against the anxiety of living. And from this perspective, the Tower can go from being one of the most feared cards in the deck to a powerful blessing … The Tower falls when we realize that anxiety in itself is not dangerous. The danger comes from the intricate ways we attempt to outrun and escape it. These patterns of avoidance are what create problems for us beyond the natural pain of living. But there are simply better and more life-giving ways to cope with stress than building patterns that act like cement walls.
(Or in this case mossy stone steps, the natural pain and inconvenience of falling upon which I’d certainly rather have missed, tbh.)
So: the unexpected. There are often random things that arise in everyday life and take us in new directions. Reversals of fortune, new ways of doing, mossy stone steps, making lemonade from lemons. Learning to use dictation software more efficiently for writing this post. And to think: last week I had no idea what I was going to make my quarterly post about.
I do feel that writers are often quite hesitant about writing chance interventions or random happenings into their stories. They think, ‘That would never happen in real life.’ But perhaps they should be less cautious.
In A&E we saw a waiting patient with the mother of a kid who’d stuck something in his ear. I thought they were a couple, then I understood they weren’t. And they were definitely flirting … She even came back and chatted to him for half an hour after her kid had had whatever removed from his ear. Unexpected fortunes indeed.
As a writing experiment: If you are writing something and it needs something of a kickstart, invite something of the unexpected into your story – fall from a tower!
Find something random. Pick up a book, open a page, choose a word or a sentence that attracts your attention. An action, an object, a character. Or pick a tarot card. Or use the first thing you see when you turn on the telly. Or if you fancy something a little more abstract try one of Brian Eno’s oblique strategies.
Then incorporate this chance intervention as some meaningful turning point in your story.
What matters of course is how this random element is incorporated. A character’s responses will be unique to that character, will reflect and test and even change that character, and will lead them into further adventures – and that is what makes a story. Is the response Fight or Flight, or Moan, or Laugh It Off And Get On With It? (Though I’m usually very open in my writing advice, moaning can make for boring characters and thus for boring stories, so moaning characters might best be avoided, unless of course the moaning character is the whole point of the story and you can, e.g., do something funny with them.)
To repeat something I often use from Ursula Le Guin in Steering the Craft:
Conflict is one kind of behavior. There are others, equally important in any human life, such as relating, finding, losing, bearing, discovering, parting, changing. Change is the universal aspect of all these sources of story. Story is something moving, something happening, something or somebody changing.
This works for nonfiction as well as fiction. A random interception might provide the framework that helps you come unstuck.
And of sideways relevance, on the subject of pain, something from the excellent Spring Rain by Marc Hamer, which I just happened to read at lunchtime:
There are two kinds of old people. There are the old people who are in pain and miserable, and there are the old people who are in pain but who are lighthearted. All the old people are in pain. Only some of us have the skills to be able to laugh at it every day. Life is ridiculous and full of pain, and to be kind and happy is the finest act of rebellion I can imagine. Lasting happiness is a skill; it’s not an easy skill to learn, but once you’ve had a glimmer of it, it is impossible to ignore. To get it, I gave things up; stopped competing against others, accepted nature’s flow, handed myself to simplicity, accepted inevitability, change and meaninglessness, but most of all I had to forgive people. Time passes, things happen, nobody knows why.
Marc’s insight arrived like that lightning bolt from the Tower. Perhaps all stories are about learning the skill of living with the pain – the suffering – but also the joys of everyday life.
(Actually, now I think about it the joys require skills too.)
One final note: nurses are amazing. Like, really. Give them the pay that they deserve, which is probably a lot more than that of grifter politicians who should be in gaol. Let’s not forget some catastrophes are political.
And also, while we’re here some dates for your diary. I’m leading a workshop called Magicians and Fools: Tarot for Writers on the morning of Sunday 17 September 2023 at the Hastings Book Festival. And in conjunction with Words Away I’m planning a workshop in central London called The Four Elements of Revising for the afternoon of Saturday 14 October 2023.
At the Nature Matters workshop earlier this month, we read aloud together ‘The Delight Song of Tsoai-Tale’ by N. Scott Momaday. A few lines from the opening:
I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am an eagle playing with the wind
And I love that line from near the ending. ‘I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful.’ It’s joyful, it’s everyday, it’s an invocation. I love it.
You can watch N. Scott Momaday himself read an excerpt of ‘The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee’ on YouTube. ‘You see, I am alive, I am alive’ – the voice of life, the breath of life run through this poem.
I love the list poem as form. Like I Remember, the I Am poem has the iterative power of repetition, which also lends a strong rhythm to the writing. There is a reason why such poems are often passed down in oral literary traditions.
Repetition brings something of the ritual too, here celebrating the interconnectedness of all things. Feathers, horses, shadows, fish: the personification here is powerful. As Joy Harjo says in a fine short essay, it inscribes the idea that ‘the Earth, all beings, are wired toward healing’. It conveys an affirmative energy.
Also note there are subtle variations bringing shifts in pace to keep our interest: syntax, line length, the use of nouns and verbs and adjectives. And there is plenty of concrete sensory detail to ground us.
Best of all: it’s easy, it’s accessible. You can let your perceptions and your observations and your memories wash over you and through you and out into your writing.
As a writing experiment: write your own Delight Songs, including things that come naturally to you.
You could write a Delight Song based on your favourite associations from the natural world.
You could pack a notebook when you go hillwalking, and write a Delight Song on a mountain top.
You could write a Delight Song sitting on a bench in a park you love, or tap one into your phone as you stand on a busy street corner in the city where you live.
You could write a Delight Song about the books who have made you the reader and writer you are today.
You could write a Delight Song on a special theme (trees, seasons, teachers).
You could write a Delight Song as field work for a character in a novel.
You could write a Delight Song out of whatever speaks to you.
And to fire you up, you might want to watch this first. Another jolt of anthem affirmation. And really: what a feat of choreography!
***
Update, February 2024: N. Scott Momaday died last month. The Paris Review has opened access to its wonderful Art of Poetry interview with him from 2022. As the great man says: ‘I am alive, I am alive’!
A couple of new Four Elements workshops are coming this spring, again in collaboration with Kellie Jackson of Words Away and hosted at the Phoenix Garden in the heart of London’s West End. You can find more information and booking details at the following links:
I’m particularly interested in writing’s relationship with nature this year: how we perceive nonverbal sense experiences of the natural world and translate those observations into words, crafting such moments into poems or shaping them into stories.
In Nature Matters, we’ll look broadly at what might constitute nature writing or Eco Lit as a body of writing, but also acknowledge the presence of nature in its many forms as a feature of any piece of writing. And what, in fact, does it mean to be natural? If weather permits (bring layers and umbrellas!), we’ll write outdoors, gathering observations and making them into literary forms.
In Fragrance Matters, we’ll pay special attention to one particular sense: smell. Perfumer John Evans (aka my husband) will speak about natural fragrances as well as the creation of manufactured ones, and we’ll have chance to get our hands (and noses) on perfume ingredients as stimuli for writing. Again, how can we evoke the nonverbal in words, and how might fragrance bring writing to life and also lend it form and structure? We’ll take our findings into further creative exploration: for crafting a story, poems or an essay, or in building the spine of a longer work.
In advance, I’ll assign optional brief readings and writing exercises that will set the tone for what we do on each day, and each afternoon-long workshop itself will include discussion, short meditations, and plenty of writing. You’ll also get follow-up notes with further writing experiments, reading suggestions, and other resources.
The Phoenix Garden is a magical location for these workshops: in the middle of the city a perfect little oasis full of green life. Later this year I hope to continue our exploration of nature-related themes with workshops on gardens and gardening, food and taste, and death and dying: plenty of earthly and unearthly goods to mine for our writing.
