Capturing an Untamed Thing, How Thrilling It Is
Capturing an Untamed Thing, How Thrilling It Is
A backstage look at my novel-in-progress and a simple recipe for "capturing" an untamed thing of your own
When I remember Greenwood, it’s not the sunlit classroom, the children, what happened to Leo. It’s the song. I even hear it in my dreams—come follow, follow me. Those same words, over and over. Only after the words does the melody float up. The rule for songwriting is the opposite: melody first, lyrics last. You’re supposed to find the music and go from there. A process of discovery, they say. You’re not creating the song. It’s already hovering out there, just beyond your awareness. If you start with lyrics, well, your song will be dead on arrival. As literal as a doorstop.
This isn’t always true, though. Most of my best songs started with lyrics. I’d just let the words and phrases swirl around until they pulled themselves tighter and tighter, then whoosh—a net would form and grab the melody. In fact, that’s the only way I ever captured a really good song. Back when I still captured songs. That’s how it felt, too. Like a capturing.
Which, by the way, is the thing you have to understand about the school and everything that happened there. You have to understand how it feels to capture an untamed thing. How thrilling it is.
My songwriting days were mostly over by the time I got to Greenwood, but songs came first. Songs are like birds. Skittish and shy. Birds just want to survive. You can admire them from a distance, but when you get close, they’ll steal food right out of your mouth. Seagulls, especially, will do that. They’ll steal food right out of your mouth, then shit in your hair. This happened to my mother once. It’s not a story. It’s real. White August sun, Lake Superior still as a sheet, and Mom tearing at chunks of smoked whitefish, laughing and licking her fingers between pieces, seagulls circling overhead, their voices weaving through the air. Then the savage dive, tumult of feather and claw, Mom’s involuntary scream. She was fine, Mom was, laughing and wiping her hair with her sweatshirt. But I cried with my whole body. How could something like that happen?
Now I know. It’s simple. Desire vanquished fear. Hunger will do that. The bird was hungry. Songs are hungry, too. Like children—all hunger and ache. Beauty, too, of course.
But beauty, beauty is never enough.
That’s an excerpt from the manuscript I’ve been working on here on the Gulf Coast these past six weeks—the current opening of my novel in progress.
So … while I’m super sad that Story Challenge is over (well, not all the way over, because we still have our Live Salon coming up this Saturday, you should come!), I’m relieved to still be steeped in story and swimming in the magic of our work together. Story Challenge is feeding my manuscript. I’m so grateful to you all.
Friends, my book is coming.
It’s coming!
It’s so good to be feeling this way, feeling momentum and confidence, just as Billie and our foster grandson Z are about to arrive here tomorrow for a long weekend together.
I am so excited for my work to grind to a halt as we show Z the ocean and palm trees and dolphins and, um, golf carts for the first time, and take him to see the alligators and manatees at Wakulla Springs and … exhale softly knowing his adoption by Billie is now underway. (Once I am back home, I’ll write more about what’s unfolding in our family with the adoption, but, meanwhile, if you are new here, you can some background posts on Billie and Z are here and here and here.)
Before we dive straight into this week’s Writing Lab, a quick reminder that Writing in the Dark’s next seasonal intensive for paid subscribers, The Visceral Self, starts April 3 with 12 weeks of craft essays, beautiful readings, potent structured writing exercises, and full participation in the comments, plus paired yin yoga poses and meditations to deepen the embodied experience. Bonus interactive content (recorded meditations, candlelight Live Salons on Zoom, and more) for founding members.
This one will be so special. More details (and embodied writing examples) in the seven linked posts below. I hope to write with you!
Okay! Now, for this week’s Writing Lab, I’ve got something easy, fun, and low stakes—but also potentially magical—for you to play around with and see what you can stir up.
It’s a kind of “recipe” (created retroactively) for the novel opening I just shared with you—an opening that eluded me for a long time. So, I’ll be thrilled if this “recipe” helps you create:
an intriguing opening for a story or essay (yes, you can use it for fiction or CNF or hybrid)
a vivid scene
the start of a piece of flash
a kind of prose poem
something else, we don’t have to know what!
If you give it a try, please do share in the comments if you like! I loved that best about Story Challenge—the thrill of “hearing your voices” and celebrating all of our work each week.
I can’t wait to read your captures!