Yesterday I had to go ‘down below’ meaning I left the mountains for the city, spending all day running errands and maxing out on people overload.  While moving through the grocery store, the produce stand, the laundromat, and so on, I started paying attention to the conversations.

For example, during my mammogram, the woman doing the squashing told me about some hilarious camping stories and a couple equally hilarious stories about patients (I’m sure that I’m now new fodder for her).  While at the produce stand the young man running the register told me a story about the nectarines I’d bagged up, and then a story about a cobbler his mother makes with nectarines and blueberries.

At the dentist, the tech filled the time that my mouth was propped open, by telling her captive audience stories about all the precocious things her toddler was doing.

Every single conversation was a story.  There were no interactions that were simply facts.  Everything, every word, was connected to a tale.  As I realized this, I started an experiment.  I tried to not respond with a story.  I failed.  Think about it.  A person tells you a funny camping story, which reminds you of the time something odd happened when on the beach, and that reminds your listener of something else, and before long the two of you are deep in conversations.

Why is it that conversations are all made up of stories? How many of us can answer a question with a simple fact-only answer?  And if you can do that, how many times is that perceived as rudeness by your listener?  As a writer I’m very relieved that humans are so hungry for stories.  But I wonder at the mechanism, at why we are wired that way, why we must speak in stories, even to strangers.

I’m going to challenge myself the next time I’m in public, to try to not tell a single story.  I find myself wondering if I’ll be able to speak at all.  Oh, I have to add that for my challenge I think I will study my husband in public.  He despises meaningless conversations with strangers and discourages stories.  He wants to get into the store, get what he needs, and get home, with minimal contact.  His body language and short answers are clear signals to those experienced with working with the public that he is one not interested in talking.

And that brings me to the downside of the challenge to try not telling a single story.  I’m going to miss out on a day of rich textures, of ideas for writing, and of fascinating people.  Still though, it’s going to be interesting to see if I can manage to go through one whole day in public without telling a story.  I think I shall fail.

I struggled with the last post written a couple of days ago.  It didn’t flow, didn’t feel right, felt like I was trying too hard, all those normal things when the universe is trying to tell you that maybe it’s not the right time to write.  And then today I was walking in rare sunshine along the river with a friend, actually doing something work related, and we came across a woman painting.  Her easel was set up in a bit of shade from an old maple tree, there was a lovely breeze in the leaves above her, the river was rushing along singing, and she was painting an oil of the mountain.

As my friend and I went about our work, I mentioned that I had always wanted to draw.  Some of you know that my brother is a very talented artist.  I said the same thing to him once and he said, ‘but you draw with words’, which is still one of the best compliments I’ve ever received.  Today however, my friend said that it’s all about letting go.  I had to walk in silence a few seconds to think about what she said.

Letting go of the sense of failure before you even begin to try.

Letting go of embarrassment at the results of those beginning baby steps.

And then she said it was true of writing, too.  Of course she’s right because those simple words can be true of so many things.

Where would you be right now if you had never let go, never started writing, never faced that awful beginner prose that we all still save and pull out for comic relief, and to reassure ourselves that we really are growing as writers?

I think I’d be pretty miserable and without a clue why.  I somehow let go without even realizing that was what I was doing, and jumped joyfully onto that blank page, pen in hand, and wrote in spite of everything that said I shouldn’t.  I look back on that now and think, well it was easy to let go because writing gave me joy.

That’s hindsight.  That’s me ignoring the more accurate memories of really awful writing.  Honestly though, the writing might have been awful, but at the time I loved those words, saw beauty in them, and found happiness.  Okay, truly honest, I still love that early writing, and find good things buried in there, and now, find lots to laugh over so it still gives me joy, just for different reasons.  I have to admit, that first story written in pencil on lined paper in 1969 that involved me and Huckleberry Finn going on some really corny adventures, reminds me of how it felt to be in the middle of my first crush.  Guaranteed to bring a smile of reminiscence at those oh-so-young daydreams.

Anyway, letting go.  What a simple, deep concept to ponder for a while.

I love Yahoo Answers, in particular, the ‘Books and Authors’ section.  It’s a great way to avoid writing while justifying playing on the internet.  Seriously though, I learn a lot by answering other’s questions on writing.  I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating.  If I’m going to answer someone I have to be sure I know what I’m talking about so that I don’t give out false help.

Which brings me to the question I ran across today.  ‘How do I write a great novel?’

My question is, ‘how do I answer that?’

First, what defines a ‘great’ novel?  What publisher picks it up?  How big the advance is?  How many people read it?  If it’s still on bookshelves forty years from now?  How much sex is in the pages?  How lurid the cover is?

Or, how easily the story world transports you away from your daily grind, how the dialog makes you laugh or cry, how loudly you cheer for the protagonist, how strongly you desire a just reward for the antagonist…

Probably, for those of us who are readers, and those of us who aspire to improve our craft, it’s the second set of questions.  But when I was on the Answers forum, here are the two answers the person received.  ‘Read a lot’ and, believe it or not, ‘Put in lots of description, paragraphs of it, with no dialog’.  Personally, I think the second was a person simply being rude, or thinking they were being funny.  That irritates me because no matter how we might judge the intelligence level of a person asking a question, they still deserve dignity and respect.  But anyway, telling the person to read a lot is good advice as we all know.  Yet so much more is needed.

So for me, I paraphrase this question to be, ‘How can I make my story better?’

I would answer myself, read a lot.

And then I’d start down the list of self-editing tools, like reading out loud, asking trusted friends for feedback, revising, cutting, and so forth.  All the things that anyone who has been working at this for any length of time most likely knows.

I have to admit though, in the end, I still cannot take a finished piece and judge it to be a ‘great’ novel.  I might be happy with it, faults and all, but that’s about it.  I guess that means there’s no way for me to answer the question.  I’d love to hear what others judge as great, and how others judge their finished work.  Are you ever happy enough with your finished piece to put it down on the table and say, ‘wow, that was a great story’?