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Writing,
a Solitary Endeavor? I
read somewhere that writing is a solitary craft. Most certainly this statement didn't come from anyone who
travels life's pike with K.C. Sure,
solitude is okay, but it isn't essential for writing. Writing for me is a
passion, and, in large part, the way I've made my precarious living for enough
years that I still remember using manual typewriters with metal rings on the
keys. Perversely perhaps, I still
do most of my work in longhand, which means I require more workspace than that
provided by a computer station. My
present workspace is a forty-square-feet, south-facing sunroom; just enough for
a work table, six in-boxes, several cartons of what I call
"research" materials and my granddaughter K.C.'s former
bassinet full of what I call "current files." I
have enough space on the table for my foolscap pad, coffee cup, ashtray, office
junk, my tiny inspirations-- i.e., two wooden cats, a ceramic frog from Nassau,
a ceramic lion from Swaziland that smiles for good days and frowns for bad days
(God's truth!), a carved now-three-legged elephant from South Africa, and a
goggle-eyed ceramic fish won tossing baseballs at wooden milk bottles several
years ago when I thought Nolan Ryan wasn't all he was cracked up to be.
(I keep the fish because it cost me thirty-five dollars before I finally
won it. And incidentally decided, after all, that maybe Nolan Ryan had something
I didn't.) Plus, I have a revolving armless steno chair. My
forty square feet has always been enough. It
got the job done. However, I now
have a creative editorial assistant who has also assumed responsibility for
graphics. Toddler K.C. has decided
she's old enough at three years to begin marching down her grandfather's career
path. If
a mistake was made-- and I'm not willing to concede it was a mistake-- it was to recycle K.C.'s bassinet when she graduated
to a crib. This is HER bassinet
and, wherever it may be, so too must she. Axiomatic. Another
was to provide boxes on which she could climb to peer at the busy street scene
below. A third was to open the
windows on a warm, sunny day, allowing K.C. from her cardboard perch to shout
greetings and wave at passers by, pigeons, airplanes, and, especially, hot air
balloons. Distracting?
I'll concede that. One
day, however, aggressive as a straw boss with a longshoring gang on the toughest
dock in world, K.C. demanded workspace. At first I thought I had none.
I tried to explain. She made
her own. On my lap.
What's mine became ours. I
thought, "What harm?" But once she was ensconced on my lap, her
determined, albeit weak chin jutting over the table top and her sharp
inquisitive eyes scanning its accouterments-- ceramic critters, papers, stapler,
adding machine, paper clip tray, bowl of pens and pencils, box of calling
cards-- she addressed the business at hand. At
the time this occurred, I was preparing to write a grant proposal and
simultaneously suffering a mild bout of writer's block. My foolscap pad,
blank and perfectly centered in front of us, drew her immediate attention.
She tipped the bowl of pens and pencils, selected a pen, and, without
hesitation, began covering the naked foolscap with graphics, almost as if she
knew I had been reaching for the Muse and simply needed a pictorial push to
grasp Her. Such
intuition, and it worked! An
article on the complexities of annuities as non-profit fund raising instruments
burst in its entirety from the mares-nest of my mind.
I realized the subject was linear, despite the fact that the pages
contained circuitous mazes of straight lines, curves, cross-overs, double-backs,
stick figures of donor profiles, a smear of peanut butter (presumably to remind
me of spin-off opportunities-- call them value added condiments) and a drip of
orange juice to tip me off to Florida's huge retired population, every one of
them a target donor. K.C., I
learned, can deal in symbolism, image, and demographics as no other. From
this modest beginning regular sessions started, a daily hour or so in the
mornings, when kid shows on her TV become dull, and restlessness drives her to
Grandpa's entertainments. Every day
she appears, juice bottle in hand, ready to inspire. And
I? I just work around this,
wondering how long it will be before she starts correcting my spelling and blue
penciling my choicest bon mots.
Not long, I suspect. And
probably to the good. As
for solitude? I have concluded that
an ebullient assistant is the touchstone of creativity, no apology to the
recluses. "Writing,
A Solitary Endeavor?" is from an essay collection called "Travels With
K.C.” When I returned to
full-time writing at the start of the Millennium, toddler K.C. was a vital (if
somewhat disruptive) force in our family home. She's now a sedate seven-year-old
who lives nearby with her mom and step-dad and baby brother. When she visits on
weekends, she routinely inspects my writing desk to make sure no little treasure
has gone missing. "Rainy
Day Rainbows," also from this collection, was one of my first published
pieces (Chicken Soup for the Grandparent's Soul). Fiction, feature
articles, and essays to date are housed at Art's Place for Stories. http://www.artmontague.com. |
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