...Awaiting Vermillion

Nothing makes me lose my voice faster than pouring my passionate little heart out to a near stranger over a lousy brass band.

Someone made the mistake of telling me that James is a writer. Not just any writer, James is a techno-terrified writer who reminded me so much of my pre-blogging-days self that I decided to convert him. Don’t worry, I said, blogging is easy. Then before I knew what was happening, I placed my hand on his shoulder, looked my newfound friend (of a friend) square in the eyes, and told him that someone out there cares about what he has to say.

I realized after our conversation that I may be responsible for giving birth to the world’s ten millionth sports blogger –and for that I will be very sorry.

That night I saw a touch of my own once-upon-a-writer's insecurity in James. When I’m not out shamelessly promoting Flirtationships at my new book club, or jotting notes down on Pearl Street Pub cocktail napkins, or mass-polling my friends across the country on g-chat, I sometimes wonder if I have anything worth saying at all. In these second-guessing moments I take comfort in a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson said that, “Every artist was once an amateur.” Simply put, you’ve got to start somewhere and it may not be pretty.

As in many quests for guidance, my musings led to the Google search bar in the upper corner of my computer screen. I thought to myself, James and I can't possibly be the only writers in history to have felt this way. (I realize I’m putting words into James’ mouth at this point, but let’s just call it a hunch). Discouragingly, my search for “writers + insecurity” turned up little more than ten sites with the same article. Worthless as it may be, I found a diamond in the rough(ly edited advice):

“Advice Tip Number 5: Ignore the Rules. Rules can be intimidating; intimidation a shortcut to insecurity. You may not know precisely when to use a comma and when to use parentheses, but that decision will never equal the importance of a good idea. We first need broad strokes to lend foundation. We wash our world in red, blue, yellow, and green. Chartreuse and vermillion come later.”

The advice is not nearly as succinct as my man Emerson, but still a valuable gem.

Speaking of treasures, one Christmas a friend of mine gave me a book so full of gems that Queen Elizabeth might have mistaken it for a crown. The book is Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life. For those of you who don’t know Twyla, she is a world-class choreographer, and a disciplined soldier of the arts. She has choreographed more than 135 dances, five Hollywood movies, directed and choreographed three Broadway shows, written two books, and won so many awards you’d be warranted to stand up, quit reading this blog, and swear off potato chips forever.

I can honestly say that I’ve never read a book as slowly as that spring of 2008. When I opened to the first page I felt like a dry sponge sitting next to a kitchen faucet, and once I started, I could hardly get through two pages before I could absorb no more. I probably read The Creative Habit in 271 three-page sessions over the course of a year --I loved that book so much. Now whenever I think of my own creative process (or stick on a hang-up), her graceful wisdom comes to mind.

The exercises sprinkles throughout The Creative Habit are designed to sharpen one's creative process, from movement to perception,or any medium from dance to oil-on-canvas. True to “Anonymous Tip Number 5,” I started practicing the following exercise verbatim, until only recently discovering its vermillion, so to speak. It's simple. Twyla suggests sitting somewhere where you can observe another person from a distance, and making a list of their first 30 movements. The exercise draws your attention to the details and focuses your descriptive skills.

To put it lightly, my own “exercise” strays from the example. For instance, I’ve collected six 1” scraps of paper and four cocktail napkins in the past two weeks, each with its own blog idea scribbled to varyious degrees of legibility. I think to myself, this will make a really [insert adjective] blog tomorrow, but the funny part is that I haven’t written about a single one of those scribbles.

When I look at the scrap of paper the next day, I end up writing about something to my left from the night before, something that happened off screen, but never what happened right in front of me. Either way, my habit of writing something down, or as it turns out writing anything down, sharpens my attention to the setting ...if not the right scene. I'm clearly on to something here, but like a toddler putting her shoes on the wrong feet, I've got a few kinks to work out.

The moral of the story? If every artist was once an amateur, then who’s to say a quirk won’t make yourmethod work?

Dedicated to James.