The True Writing Process

One day in June I was walking in my neighborhood when a blackbird (male grackle) dive-bombed me six different times.  It was truly terrifying, and caused me to practically run home. 

Since then, I have been musing on black birds, crows, ravens, and such.  Although many songs and poems praise blackbirds (Blackbird singing in the dead of night/take these broken wings and learn to fly...), there are probably just as many songs and poems that disparage them as evil and cruel (Ghastly grim and ancient raven..).  I've also considered black birds in cartoons and films, nursery rhymes and books -- most notably, the crow in Stephen King's The Stand that haunted my dreams back in 1978 and still scares the heck out of me when I think of it today. Now that's a powerful image!

Since that terrifying day in June, I have been musing on writing an episodic fiction story with the black bird as its dominating image.  I've put off actually doing it, though. Sometimes these things just have to percolate inside of us for a while before they can take form.

It's been sitting in the back of my mind for nearly two months.  Then last night, I heard this song on The Marty Stuart Show, one that Marty wrote for Johnny Cash.  It seemed to be the inspiration to move forward, as well as provide the missing piece I needed for my story.  What's cool is that Marty explains that he was looking for inspiration to write a song about Johnny, and it took a long time.  He finally found it in a fruit tree orchard that Johnny had planted, when he observed some crows hanging around, reminding him of the Man in Black. The result is the haunting "Dark Bird."

I'm reminded again this is what writing is.  It's collecting ideas and letting them sit inside of us, moving around at their own pace, finding connections to the outside world, synthesizing with images and language and dreams, and surfacing when ready, even if just in little bitty pieces.  It is the same with any kind of writing -- poems, essays, songs -- doesn't matter.  This is the true "writing process" -- not the "Prewrite-Draft-Revise-Edit-Publish" crap that we teach our students. No wonder they resist!!! Writing is gathering of images that have to sit inside of us, evolving to a place of strength and courage to be heard. Writing is the culmination of these ideas and thoughts and images and sounds and characters and stories that mean something to us. The true writing formula is this:  Time + Space + Attention + Time + Time.

Let's teach that process.  Meanwhile, I've got a story to write.