I'd sketched out a couple of posts I wanted to share here, but each reflected the downside of our recent warm weather: piles of very dirty snow. So in case you don't follow my friend and Inkpotter Jackie Briggs Martin's blog, here's a link. Enjoy her rumination on bread baking and writing and then scroll down for a recap of the presentation she and some other fabulous writers (including Inkpotter Phyllis Root & Hamline grad and Inkpot regular Chris Heppermann) did at a recent conference on poetry and picture books. I wish I'd been there.Meanwhile, anyone want to come up with a writing metaphor based on dirty snow?
LOVE Jackie's blog! Everyone should follow and read it!
ReplyDeleteAll I know is I trust the dirty snow more than the freshly fallen stuff. The freshly fallen is like that idea that hits us. The magic of the idea is palpable, and it can also freeze us unless we put in the work, trample on the damned thing. The dirty snow is real, worked over and beaten, once magical and perfect then used up--necessarily so--by a writer on her way somewhere. Seems the magic still exists, but the dirt, that hard work, piles and piles of it will lead us to more magic than the new stuff ever could.
Bad writing is like dirty snow. (metaphor, simile...) If you shine light on it, eventually it disappears.
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