So, I’ve just joined a monthly writing group in my village. Quite a leap for an introverted author, who usually finds it easier to interact through the written word! But sometimes you have to push your comfort zone if you want to feel you’re a part of something. And after the first session? I discovered they’re really not a scary bunch!
One of the things I particularly enjoyed about that first session, was the fact that the group leader threw out a ten minute writing exercise that had the effect of making my brain work extremely hard within a strict time-frame. There was no time to second-guess my word choices or plot-development. That, in itself, made a refreshing change from my usual, carefully-crafted stories. There was also a piece of ‘homework’ set – to be brought in and read the following month, and to not exceed 500 words. I had, of course, missed the homework set from the previous month, but the premise of it caught my attention, and resulted in some varied and interesting results from the other members of the group.
The homework was: Describe your ‘job’, in dialogue only, to an alien from outer-space. And even though I wouldn’t get the chance to present my ideas for that to the group, I decided to have a shot at it anyway. The result is below:
“What work is it that you do, earthling? I have observed you closely for some time… and though I see you go about your world, doing everything my race has come to expect of you, there are times when you stare into the distance for hours on end, only stopping to put marks upon an empty page, or sit in front of a bright screen, clicking the keys of an alphabet-maker, until the space in front of you is full of words. These are things I do not understand.”
“That’s not really surprising… most of my family and friends don’t understand it either.”
“So explain: what do you do? What is your job of work?”
“In my case, you shouldn’t be asking what I do; you should be asking what I am.”
“I know what you are—you are an earthling.”
“Yes, but I’m also an author—and that’s not a job… exactly; it’s more an extension of who I am, a way of communicating the things that I see in my mind—that my senses collate… the things I experience.”
“But surely you can speak those things? Why do you need to leave your marks on paper and screen, when you have a voice?”
“Because there isn’t enough time: No one wants to sit and listen to me rambling on about the way I see the world around me. It’s too boring.”
“People do not care what you think?”
“No… no, it’s not like that at all, although it took me a while to understand that. Then someone very close to me, whom I trusted, made me realise that I was using too many words… going into too much detail. I needed to learn the art of conversation.”
“So you learned and adapted… I still do not understand the marks on paper…”
“The marks on the paper, and on the screen, are all the words I still have inside me. They’re the details I mustn’t verbalise… so I turn them into written scenes and characters.”
“Scenes and characters… like an artist would paint such things? Is that what you do?”
“That’s exactly what I do. I can draw, and I can paint… but I’m not proficient. I can’t express the depth of emotion that a professional artist can. I need that… to show the richness of everything in my mind: what I’ve experienced and imagined—and the only way I can do it is with words: the written word.”
“So you write it down, tell stories of things real and imagined—with words that describe all the details you see in your mind—so that others will see the same pictures as you?”
“Yes, I’m glad you understand… though the beauty of it is: no one on earth thinks alike—so the pictures I see, write down, may change and evolve… until the words show a different picture to the reader.”
“That is a dangerous thing, earthling.”
“Yes… and it’s a skill that should never to be abused, spaceman.”
One of the things I particularly enjoyed about that first session, was the fact that the group leader threw out a ten minute writing exercise that had the effect of making my brain work extremely hard within a strict time-frame. There was no time to second-guess my word choices or plot-development. That, in itself, made a refreshing change from my usual, carefully-crafted stories. There was also a piece of ‘homework’ set – to be brought in and read the following month, and to not exceed 500 words. I had, of course, missed the homework set from the previous month, but the premise of it caught my attention, and resulted in some varied and interesting results from the other members of the group.
The homework was: Describe your ‘job’, in dialogue only, to an alien from outer-space. And even though I wouldn’t get the chance to present my ideas for that to the group, I decided to have a shot at it anyway. The result is below:
“What work is it that you do, earthling? I have observed you closely for some time… and though I see you go about your world, doing everything my race has come to expect of you, there are times when you stare into the distance for hours on end, only stopping to put marks upon an empty page, or sit in front of a bright screen, clicking the keys of an alphabet-maker, until the space in front of you is full of words. These are things I do not understand.”
“That’s not really surprising… most of my family and friends don’t understand it either.”
“So explain: what do you do? What is your job of work?”
“In my case, you shouldn’t be asking what I do; you should be asking what I am.”
“I know what you are—you are an earthling.”
“Yes, but I’m also an author—and that’s not a job… exactly; it’s more an extension of who I am, a way of communicating the things that I see in my mind—that my senses collate… the things I experience.”
“But surely you can speak those things? Why do you need to leave your marks on paper and screen, when you have a voice?”
“Because there isn’t enough time: No one wants to sit and listen to me rambling on about the way I see the world around me. It’s too boring.”
“People do not care what you think?”
“No… no, it’s not like that at all, although it took me a while to understand that. Then someone very close to me, whom I trusted, made me realise that I was using too many words… going into too much detail. I needed to learn the art of conversation.”
“So you learned and adapted… I still do not understand the marks on paper…”
“The marks on the paper, and on the screen, are all the words I still have inside me. They’re the details I mustn’t verbalise… so I turn them into written scenes and characters.”
“Scenes and characters… like an artist would paint such things? Is that what you do?”
“That’s exactly what I do. I can draw, and I can paint… but I’m not proficient. I can’t express the depth of emotion that a professional artist can. I need that… to show the richness of everything in my mind: what I’ve experienced and imagined—and the only way I can do it is with words: the written word.”
“So you write it down, tell stories of things real and imagined—with words that describe all the details you see in your mind—so that others will see the same pictures as you?”
“Yes, I’m glad you understand… though the beauty of it is: no one on earth thinks alike—so the pictures I see, write down, may change and evolve… until the words show a different picture to the reader.”
“That is a dangerous thing, earthling.”
“Yes… and it’s a skill that should never to be abused, spaceman.”
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