This is the fifth post in a series about Coaxing the Muse (see previous four posts).
Principle 5 of Writing: Fall in love with the world, and take notes.
Most writers have an innate curiosity about surroundings, they are alive to what’s around them.
Look at Charles Darwin’s journal: As a young student studying at Cambridge, he got caught up in the national mania for collecting and cataloging beetles. The prize was not money or metals or real estate in the Lake District, but credit for discovering a rare six-legged species.
Darwin writes: One day, I’m tearing off some old bark; I saw two rare beetles and seized one in each hand. Then I saw a third, a new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one, which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas, it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue, so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one.
Lance Larson (the speaker) is not advocating a new form of protein, or that we snack on forest foragers, but to help us become alive to what’s around us.
But don’t just observe, take notes. Don’t trust your brain to hold onto things. Most writers carry around of notepad or stack of 3x5s. Old receipts, blank checks, margins of textbooks will also work in a pinch.
His family knows what it means when he reaches for a piece of paper as they’re together – something they said will be recorded for possible future use. His son said: “You be Jesus, and I’ll be the tiger, keeping the wolves away.” That one has made it into an essay, a poem, countless class discussions, and now, this forum. Came when he was four, from the car seat in the back seat of their car.
Why are close observations so important? They are clues, magical breadcrumbs into or out of the woods. Writer who seems small will often see larger connections.
On a trip to John Keats house, in London, his kids (who didn’t understand the significance of the occasion) were busy doing sit-ups on the rug. Instead of writing a “high-minded” poem about the Keats house, he wrote about them doing sit-ups in the Keats house. (It was a great poem “Sit-ups, with Mr. Johnny Keats”) It was detailed and specific, about that period in John Keats life compared to him holding his daughter’s feet while she did sit-ups on the rug.
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