As I come to the end of my self-imposed hiatus, I have a confession. I cheated. It was my intention to put down the figurative pen and re-charge my batteries this summer. I wanted to travel a little (in between those silly obligations like work and family) and open myself up to new experiences. It is very hard, though, to ignore the voices in your head. As you’re communing with nature in Appalachia, relaxing on a beach in Florida, or even just sitting on your back patio listening to the cicadas, new characters are whispering in your ear. They are telling you their story and urging you to introduce them to that handsome man in the corner of your brain. So, at times this summer, I could be found on my laptop, jotting down a few words…or chapters. My husband would look over at me and say, “What are you doing?” and I would look up with guilt and say, “Facebook.” We would stare at each other, him waiting for me to admit my failure to relax and me waiting for him to chastise me for returning to my second, much-loved, job too early. Hello, my name is Sandy and I’m a compulsive writer.
Monthly Archives: August 2014
Open up your senses
Writers see the world differently. Every voice we hear, every face we see, every hand we touch could become story fabric–Buffy Andrews
In my real life, I work in an urban hospital. It is fifteen floors of pain, hope, new beginnings, and heartbreaking endings. I’m lucky enough to have a career where I get to talk to people–even better, I get to listen. Just in the past year, I have met the following people: a fighter pilot from WWII who was shot down over the South Pacific, a small-town Louisiana girl who came to the city in 1945 to become a swimsuit model, a woman who married her husband on a television show in the 50s, and a nun who ran a health-care clinic in Laos. I listen to their stories with fascination, already imagining how they will fit into my next book. My other senses come in to play during the course of a working day, too. I see the trepidation on a patient’s face as they are being wheeled into Radiology, fearful of what the MRI will reveal. I touch the hands of the sick, feeling the tremors, the pain, and the frailty. I give words of encouragement–therapists are the ultimate cheerleaders!–to patients who want to throw in the towel. Finally, the smells–oh, the smells of a hospital. They are as unique as the smells of a church…or a barnyard. Enough said. I love what I do, but I love writing more. Trying to find balance between my two worlds is not always easy, but they are intertwined. My day job helps creates the fabric of my stories. It’s easy to find inspiration to write—-it’s in nature, it’s in solitude, it’s in books and movies. It’s also in observing and listening to those around you. Everyone has a story; we just have to be willing to take the time to listen. We were given one mouth and two ears. Listen at least twice as much as you talk.
Giving writing advice
My son, Jake, is working on his first novel and asked me if I would edit his work. As mentioned before, I hate editing, but what kind of mother tells her child no? Do you know what I discovered, though? I LOVE editing other people’s work! I love getting out my figurative red pen and marking grammar errors and incomplete sentences. I inserted the word “why?” no less than a dozen times into his manuscript. Why did your character say that? Why did that happen? Why, why, why? The one thing that I told him that I would not critique, however, is whether or not the book is “good.” Here was my advice for him: Write what you like. Write what you know. Write want you want to read. Write what feels good. If you worry about appealing to the masses, then you have put yourself in a place where you really don’t want to be as an artist. Appeal to yourself. Write a book that you pull off of the shelf and read again and again, simply because you like it. Sure, we want others to like it, too. We all have that dream of making it big—-writing the Great American novel that everyone wants to read. If that is your sole motivation, though, the book isn’t coming from your heart. Ambition is a fine quality but it has no place during the creative process.
Sandy Huth 