Silencing the Babble

Though I've rarely delved deep into writing advice, it seems as if I am always hearing snippets of advice from out of nowhere: Show, don't tell. Strong dialog sells. Don't get into too many people's heads! Adverbs are the devil incarnate. Write what you know. Write what you don't know. Eliminate all passive voice. Pay attention to rhythm, sentence length, the tone of your voice. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It's that old adage: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Anne Lamott writes about a lovely little radio station called KFKD (not going into what that stands for). It is constantly bombarding the airwaves with negative vibes, criticism, and self-doubt. Authors can tune in at any time to hear the lovely strains of despair and defeat. I hate that station, but for some reason my brain's internal dial feels compelled to turn there.

I don't trust myself to write well. I never think I'm good enough. I probably need to be an mathematician: a job where when you're done, you're done. You don't have to wonder if you did a "great" job or not, it's not subjective. But the creative side of me balks at that. It wants to create something so beautiful that it sings, so different that it touches people and makes them want to imagine. Something that must necessarily be subjective.

I know that if I'm going to write I'll have to silence that stream of hate-speech targeted at my work. I have to suck it up and turn off KFKD radio, then glue my fingers to the keyboard. I'm like so many other authors: I love having written, it's the writing part that gets me.

But I can do this. I can work in peace. 

I can wait to criticize until I've actually written something.

Excerpt: An Act of Creation

Much of the book takes place around gardens, and Cecily is an avid gardener. Don't ask me why, personally I find it a bit of a stretch to work in my own little cottage garden, even though I usually enjoy it when I do. 


Cecily's accomplice in the garden-realm is Old Rivens--the sweet, wrinkled, devoted, stubborn-as-a-mule old servant. Together they revitalize an overgrown estate garden.


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   Their most recent project was to plant several small saplings they had been carefully cultivating for months to replace a stand of dead and dying pines. They worked side by side in silence for hours, digging into the loamy forest floor with their shovels. Cecily broke the lull by accidentally sloshing Rivens with a bucket of water. They had a good laugh about it, then a few minutes later Cecily noticed a dreamy, reflective look in his eye. Sure enough, in a moment he said, “I s’pose I will be washed and buried long before this little thing is full grown.”

   Cecily fitted another sapling securely into its hole in the ground and began filling in around it. “Yes, and so will I, like as not. But what does that signify? We aren’t doing any of this for ourselves. We’re doing it because it will be done. It’s an act of creation. Do you remember what the vicar of Whitcrowe used to say? That there was a reason that God started it all in a garden.”

   “Yea, I remember it. He was right on that count, even if he weren’t quite right on some others…”

   Cecily gave a little laugh and finished tamping down moist earth around the roots. “I agree.”