Clearing the path

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – it’s the difference between the lightening bug and the lightening.”  -- Mark Twain

One of several books I’m currently reading (I’m easily distracted by new releases and old friends and by many books bought but not yet read) is titled Unless It Moves The Human Heart  a newly published book by bestselling author and commentator, Roger Rosenblatt, about the craft of writing.

As I am prone to do, I often read what I hope will be inspirational, thought-provoking books when I go to bed – usually late at night just prior to midnight or sometimes even when a new day has officially begun on the calendar. Although there is danger in this late-night practice of mine (rarely do I read more than a page or two – and sometimes not more than two or three paragraphs! – before falling asleep myself and the book falling from my hands onto the floor beside my bed), there can also be wondrous times of inspiration. Often, when reading a Bible devotional or a superbly written book on the craft of writing such as Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, or The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, I will read a particularly inspiring passage just before falling asleep – and dream it’s message deep into my subconscious to have it surface in my waking thoughts time and time again in the ensuing weeks and months. I love when that happens.

Sometimes, not so much. And in my tiredness, I simply cannot focus either my eyes or my thoughts  -- drifting away from comprehension of what is written on the pages before me and into a deep sleep. So it has been with this particular book. Not that it isn’t written well, or that it doesn’t hold many useful bits of advice on writing – but for whatever reason, I have had the book a couple of weeks now and had only managed to read the first ten or fifteen pages. Its paperback cover is already creased and dimpled having hit my bedroom floor so often!

However, all it took was an anniversary getaway weekend away from my usual routine at home in Southern California and all its distractions to actually read nearly half of the book in one sitting. I should explain.

My wife and I drove 300-plus miles from home to our family’s vacation home high up on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. It’s supposed to be in the 90s at home as I write this, but up here around 9,000 feet in elevation, it’s still winter – and the small resort town is still buried in as much as 15 feet of snow drifts. Nighttime temps are still down below freezing. Most of the windows on the ground floor of any home are still blocked by snowdrifts. Can you picture it? Now picture a wall of snow filling the entire front porch space leading from the driveway to the front door of our house. Arriving close to midnight in 30-degree temps and then having to shovel a path through heavy, rock-hard ice and snow the 15-foot distance just to get inside and turn on the heater so you can unpack the truck, put away food in the fridge, and eventually try to get some sleep. Yep, nothing like a relaxing getaway! But, I’m not complaining. Really, I’m not.

So, after getting maybe a few hours of sleep our first night in the cabin, I got up ridiculously early and read more of the above-mentioned book in a couple of hours than I have in a couple of weeks so far. Granted, I was reading as the sun was coming up – having been awakened from a too-short, deep sleep by my elderly yellow Lab, Darby, who thought he needed to go outside into the below-freezing darkness of pre-dawn in order to pee. He didn’t, by the way. He just wanted to go out and sniff the trails left behind by miscellaneous wildlife. He loves it up here, as do I. I just wish we had a fenced yard and a doggie door -- especially at 4 a.m.

Regardless, I was wide awake after the false-alarm bathroom break, so I dove into reading. In one of the early chapters of the book, writer/instructor Rosenblatt discusses the process of what he calls, ‘clearing your throat’ as a writer. He tells of  how the famous writer, E.L. Doctorow (of Ragtime & City of God fame) had once written 150 pages of his story, The Book of Daniel before realizing he had chosen the wrong person to tell the story. Doctorow ended up tossing every single word of all 150 pages and starting over with the story being told from an entirely different viewpoint and character. That’s discipline, my friends. I can honestly say that I don’t know if I could round file that many pages willingly – without being forced to do it by an editor under threat of not being published, that is.

I regularly slash and burn whole paragraphs of passages I’ve labored over for hours or sometimes days at a time. More often than not it’s because a piece has to come in at a specific, inflexible word count – not because I realized that a line, paragraph or thought was only included because I thought it was particularly clever or observant and didn’t really make the piece any stronger. One of the most difficult things to do as a writer is to “kill your darlings” as they say in this business. I have to say, however, that I’m getting more and more ruthless these days. All in the name of experience, I guess.

But I like the idea of having to clear your throat as a writer before you get to the really worthwhile stuff that you want to get down digitally. It’s almost like having to clear away all that snow and ice before we could get in the front door of our mountain getaway home. So much “stuff” piles up in between using the place (and my writing chops) that it takes some effort and energy to get past it all and on to the good stuff. I know, you’re still waiting for the good stuff.

Maybe posts like this one are simply clearing my throat or shoveling snow. Shoveling something, at least. You’ll be the judge, anyway.

Thanks for reading.