{"id":2741,"date":"2012-05-07T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=2741"},"modified":"2012-05-07T06:00:18","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T11:00:18","slug":"artistic-endeavors-in-granite-and-clothespins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=2741","title":{"rendered":"Artistic Endeavors in Granite and Clothespins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>What I love about writing, especially prose, is that when it is done well, it can accomplish many things at once. You can share a story, paint a precise character, address an overall issue, and create a work of verbal art, all at once.<\/p>\n

I am in love with the writing process, with the act of putting words on paper and seeing what happens. I love the feeling inside my brain while I am writing. I feel my brain swell comfortably, as it might feel if I were drunk, slightly disconnected from the physical world around me.<\/p>\n

When it is going well, there are few better feelings on Earth. I have never come away from a writing session and thought, \u201cThat was a waste of my time. I never should have sat down.\u201d<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t that I have always been happy with what I have written. Sometimes, even though I pride myself on having a certain literary artistic quality about my writing, I write total crap. The characters don\u2019t work, the story is contrived, my themes don\u2019t connect, and my prose plods along like a drunken elephant.<\/p>\n

But the feeling of writing, the release of endorphins and miscellaneous bodily chemicals produces a sense of euphoria. If nothing quality is produced, I still get that feeling. Granted, it is much better when it is all working, when my fingers are flying and I know what they are leaving carved in their wake is made of granite, instead of clothespins and Elmer\u2019s school glue.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always thought that to be one of my strengths as a writer. I have a decent sense of metaphor and am extremely interested in the sound and feel of my writing. My prose is at its best when it is a work of art, rather than just a work of fiction.<\/p>\n

There is nothing wrong with genre writing. My favorite writers are genre-oriented. I write some genre fiction myself. In fact, I believe \u201cliterary fiction\u201d can be written in any genre. Literary fiction hasn\u2019t learned enough from genre fiction, and vice versa. But I have always seen writing as an artistic endeavor, rather than a storytelling process.<\/p>\n

My favorite lines on the page are those that leave an aftertaste. When you read them, it is as if you have tasted the delicate creation of a master chef. The syllables roll off your tongue in a way so tasty that it accents the theme and content of the work itself. When it all works together, theme, tone, and content interweave, creating a tapestry stronger for every thread that runs through it.<\/p>\n

This might come off as word snobbery. I don\u2019t mean it this way. I firmly believe in what Hemingway said. We are all just apprentices in a craft with no masters. My particular interest in writing is total absorption of the theory behind the craft. I love reading about story structures, spiraling narratives, psychological profiles of classical characters, theories of theme development.<\/p>\n

Will any of this make me a better writer? Who knows? But it can\u2019t hurt, and I enjoy the study and practice of it immensely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What I love about writing, especially prose, is that when it is done well, it can accomplish many things at once. You can share a story, paint a precise character, address an overall issue, and create a work of verbal art, all at once. I am in love with the writing process, with the act […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[71,1082,1120,1158],"class_list":["post-2741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process","tag-art","tag-study","tag-techniques","tag-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}