It has rained all day. Dark stagnant clouds that got hung up on the mountains on their way to eastern Washington, too heavy with rain to make it up and over. But late this afternoon a wind gave them a big push. So right now, outside there is this odd light that I have wondered for years how to describe.

Where I am it is still deep charcoal gray.But  ‘down below’ as we call it, that late, low slanting light has broken through underneath the clouds. I love it when this happens because the trees just glow. If any of you have ever found agates on the beach, when the sun is low and illuminates them so they shine amber among dull rocks you’ll know what I mean. It’s that same kind of glow.

But what color is it? Since you can’t see it, how can I describe it correctly? These are the things that challenge me as a writer, more so that stock writing exercises. When I see something that so moves me, and yet the words just aren’t right. How can you describe color unless you are a painter? Well, there’s that old box of crayons. But dang if I can remember any of the names other than Burnt Umber. That one sticks with me because, for some reason, I thought if I could melt it the color would change.

So this late, low light isn’t gold. It’s richer. It’s not amber. It’s a tad lighter. Maybe closer to a glass of my husband’s favorite single malt. It’s definitely not in the yellow shades. And yet it’s also not in the red shades. This isn’t the color you see during a normal sunset, where you get those flame colors, and those deep reds.

A friend of mine who is a poet, swims the freezing Skykomish river. She has talked about the colors underwater, all the shades of green and gold. And she says she can tell when fall is coming because those summer shades deepen. She doesn’t know if it’s from leaf litter in the water, or just the changing angle of the sun.

Her description, the way I picture it (since I don’t swim in that river), is the closest I can find to describing this light. I can imagine those deep greens and golds that she would see underwater, and it’s that same image I get now. Maybe it’s the way water changes color. After a day of rain, when everything is saturated, and the light hits those drops, it might be the same as fall light angling through an emerald river.

It has taken me over 400 words to try to describe a color. That makes me laugh. Is it a sign of being a writer, that it takes so many words, or is it a sign of seeing something beautiful and being at a loss as to how to make you see it, too?

Well, maybe it’s just a sign of a piece that needs some editing.

But…can you see the color? Do you know what I’m trying to describe? Have you seen it? And how would you, writer or not, describe that shade?

Recently I spoke with a woman who has written several screenplays. She talked about what made them work, and what didn’t, and then segued into why some movies fail in spite of a good plot and good actors. As the title of this blog implies, she said it comes down to rhythm. It was great fun watching her because she would start quoting from a movie, then get into the role, and overly dramatize the rhythm to prove her point. It was like watching dialog become music. She even drummed the beats of dialog with her fingers on my desk.

I’m going to state the obvious here and say all our writing, no matter what kind, needs that rhythm.

What I find myself wondering though, is why? Are we working with words, or with notes? I’m certainly no musician (although I have a desire to play something dramatic: hammered dulcimer, harp, bagpipes…) and yet I can feel when a sentence doesn’t work. Usually in the editing process. I’ll stumble over a sentence, go back to figure out why, and realize the way the words meld is wrong.

So which came first, words or music? Do we have some inherited genetic memory of tapping two stones together and realizing we’re creating movement as well as fire? I’m also no archaeologist but I have to wonder if song came before speech. 

This proves the importance of reading your writing out loud during the editing process. Our ears hear the music, or lack of, in the words, that our eyes might skim over.

I find more and more ties between music and writing. Songs that inspire writing, as I’ve posted about before. The music that must be there in our stories. Even the rhythm of our speech.

The challenge is figuring out how to get that rhythm into our writing. Punctuation to create pauses, leaps, rise and fall. All the tools we have to link words into rhythm.

And our natural ear, tuned to that inner song of the story.

I was recently asked if I remembered the place where I first wrote and what I felt.

The setting I remember well. My dad had scrounged up a heavy desk with sticking drawers in plain wood. Someone painted it white. Probably my mom. I drew green leaves twining all over the face of it, imagining ivy draped over the drawers and wrapped around the handles. Reality didn’t match imagination.

I’d been writing stories for some time by then and was about twelve when the desk showed up. The previous stories had been carefully written on a Big Chief pad. Those over sized, extra wide lined pages those of us from a certain generation learned cursive on. The paper wasn’t white for some reason, but an odd brownish beige. Those stories, though, were the equivalent of fan fiction. Adventures that I created starring myself and Huckleberry Finn. Or starring myself and Fess Parker as Davy Crockett.

At the white desk, however, I sat down with a pen instead of a pencil, and a stenographer pad. Green paper instead of beige. Narrow ruled. I remember the smell of the wood desk, the bedroom door shut firmly, and me ensconced in the corner. With blank paper and the whole world waiting.

To be honest though, I don’t remember the emotions as clearly. I know there was the strong need for secrecy.  There was a sense of shame. There must have been a sense of wonder or joy. There must have been feelings of peace after writing. There must have been something that kept me coming back to the paper and pen but I can’t remember what that was.

It makes me wonder what instilled the belief that what I was doing was wrong, or a waste of time, or something that would be ridiculed if others found out. I didn’t come from a family that would have ridiculed me. My mother told me I would never make a living at writing, but she never told me not to.

So when did I lose that fear of exposure? When did it feel okay to admit I was a writer? In this I mean, okay to let people other than my closest friends know. Mariane, Sue, (over 40 years of friendship and counting) my sister Holly. Not until my 30’s when I confessed to my husband and his excitement and encouragement and belief allowed me to think, maybe I can call myself a writer. He convinced me I could write ‘for real’.

It’s weird to me now, thinking about that question the other night, to realize I only remember shame and secrecy. To me that shows the power of writing. That it courses through you in spite of everything.

What about you? Where did you first write, and what emotions do you remember? For those of you who don’t consider yourself writers, do you remember where you were when you first formed letters and realized you could create words? We’re all writers in one way or another.