What was I thinking? Write a book? With publication for Undertow fast approaching (before Christmas; I’ll let you know when you can pre-order your copy) I thought I’d start a series about what it’s been like to write it.
Welcome to Part 1 of “Writing Undertow.” Bits of analogies. Let your imagination make the connections. Have fun.
Clay feet and writing Undertow
In our backyard we have flower pots and detachable little clay feet to keep the pots a few inches off the ground. Those inches make space for water to drain out. Yes, the feet in the featured photo are what I’m talking about. I was in the yard this morning, and seeing them stacked like this, I felt a pang.
The stack of clay feet (extras waiting to fulfill their destiny), made me think of writing—fitting together parts of a story so that the whole doesn’t fall apart. Deleting the broken parts. Closing or leaving open small and large spaces to let readers in and escorting them out. Letting life flow through and pain drain out. Building a structure that holds its balance.
Puzzles and writing Undertow
When I was a kid, my family had boxes of jigsaw puzzles stashed on a shelf in the hall closet. Yes, that was during ancient times—the 1950s and 1960s. A challenging one was of a covered bridge in a landscape. It was fall: scarlet, gold, green, orange and yellow leafy trees, a blue lake, a blue sky of another shade of blue, a brick house with many hues of brownish red, and if memory serves me right (which sometimes it does not) there may have been a horse grazing in a field where, probably, a dog or cat peeked through blades of grass. We laid out puzzles on a card table in the living room and went to work—or play, depending on your point of view.
Stay tuned for more parts in this series in which I’ll give you a few reasons for WHY I wrote Undertow. This website will be updated soon with Undertow’s very own page!
Stay calm and carry on,
Your writer on the wing.
Roz
Love it.
Good luck with the next few months.
Charlene L. Edge
Thank you!