How does one write about silence, at least enough to make the subject interesting? Writers must intrigue the reader, mustn’t they? Just as a speaker must keep an audience's attention, so must a writer keep the reader interested.
The multiple paths of interest boil down to using facts to inform or imagination to inspire, mixed with language that uplifts the spirit, or using humor... whatever it takes to not only keep a readers attention, but to also keep the writer focused on their subject. No need to bore a reader – what is the use of doing that? One might as well speak to a bucket of stones.
So if a writer has reached a place where all things that interested them were at that moment not interesting enough to write about, where does the writer go..? Is it possible to get beyond the block that stops one from going any further? Or should the writer seek to overcome the wall that prevents him/her from continuing on the path of communicating?
There is always more, even if it requires one to scale the wall. When we reach the top of our wall, we can see a bit further, depending upon the height that we have scaled. It is there where the infinite horizon takes on a little different perpective. New vistas open up, and hopefully, the mind becomes once again active and writing can presume. It may necessitate a new language, a new interest in what is seen upon the top of the wall, to communicate what it is that you’d like to say – capture how the panorama before you triggers your emotions, taking those feelings and interpreting them in a language to keep the readers attention.
What are the responsibilities of a writer, not only as a diarist of his/her own life, but as a means of communicating with another? Does the writer choose to speak to one or to many..? Should the writer use the vernacular of the region, or should s/he reach out beyond the limitations of his/her local? Should the language be more universal in choice, i.e. words that others find understandable, written coherently and with a flow that takes their reader on a memorable journey?
The #1 basic rules of writing is that the writer should know his/her subject. Makes sense... who would find interest in reading something that was written by someone that didn’t know what they were talking about? A waste of both the writer’s time and their reader’s time. In knowing what one writes about, one must have some knowledge of the subject, the more one knows of the subject they are writing about, the more one can communicate what they have learned or experienced.
Rule #2 is writing in a style that holds a readers attention. Can a writer do any less and feel comfortable with their results? Obviously not. Style of writing is the footprint of the writer, and this is an important issue, as no writer (or any artist) wants to mimic the style of another, no matter how much they value their inspiration or personal style. We are each individuals, we each have our own personality, our own identity, and it is this uniqueness that we attempt to hone out of ourselves, to become writers (or artists). We certainly use our inspirations from other like-minded people to use as a guide, as a comfort level in developing our own style, and it is this path that molds our craft or art. Some are gifted enough to find their voice at an early age but most take years, and that time interval in between is used as a chisel forming the figure of what we ultimately will carve out as our own style.
Styles are fickle and most have short self lives and those that stand the passage of time cannot ever be predicted. You or I may find a style that we embrace for years, but on a public stage, this is an unknowable... time will tell, as the adage goes.
I see no reason to add any other rules to the list. Two is sufficient, IMHO, for any writer to make use of for their own. Anymore than two and I think it becomes areas of opinion that could be debated in circles for hours with no one coming out a conclusive winner.
Now if I have bored you and you haven’t even been able to get this far then I have failed my own rules. But if I have lured you this far then we have established a groundwork for possible further discussion, and that my friend, does my heart some good!
All this writing and still I have not really done the typical of my Streams, but I, too, had reached that block (hello, L’Rod), and I have attempted to scale that wall and see the horizon stretch before my eyes, and all I can see is so much more than what I would like to take time out from digesting, for writing about. Perhaps somewhere in that vast vista that unfolds before me I will see one thing, one subject that lassoes my attention and I will write furiously with emotion and passion all that it means to me, for that is the true joy of writing for me.
Cecil
10/10/04
ARDOVINO SUNSET
[taken by Cecil 9/30/04 in Anapra, New Mexico]
The great expanse
that spreads before me
is more than I comprehend
and so I picture it
and look back at the moment
seeing once again
those little things that
come together that
makes the whole
into the holiness that
is the pinnacle of Nature...
She is the feminine beauty
the conceiver and producer
of matter that enhances
the senses igniting emotions
into bonfires of burning freely-
spreading light and warmth
to hearts that have gone cold...
Reconnect to Her
and once again discover
all that lives beyond
our ego lives
and humility will unveil
the vistas of vita victorious...
Nature's message will massage
the worn and tired muscles
given in to resistance
and the flow will once again
nourish the Spirit of Life
to grow in full abundance
flowering in the gardens
whose essence is the divine.
