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Metamorphosis I watched a butterfly
struggling to emerge from its chrysalis last week. Was it my imagination, or was
the process a painful, exhausting one? Was it my imagination or was it glad to
have finally emerged so it could flit off about its butterfly business? Sometimes I feel exactly
like that butterfly. The process of becoming a writer is often a painful one. My
old skin seems to be stretching and splitting, ready to be sloughed. Underneath,
I can feel sinews knotting and veins and arteries knitting, readying themselves
for my new incarnation as a writer. Fanciful? Perhaps. After
all, surely a writer is “just someone who writes.” There are writers who can
tell you about the potatoes on the plate. And then there are the good writers
who can make you taste the creamy, buttery mash, see the contrast between the
light fluffy pile of steaming potatoes and the brown earthenware platter. So,
with all humility, I am in the process of transforming myself into a good
writer. My writer’s senses are
being honed. This morning, a fine spring morning, the birds were singing,
chortling, whistling, caroling, and calling in a frenzy of such excitement, I
rushed out to join them. I lifted my face to the early morning sunshine,
breathed the azalea scent deeply and sent my spirit soaring with the birds. My
senses were so bombarded with details, I had to race back inside for notebook
and pen to try to fix them forever in my mind. My writer’s imagination
is continually being developed. This can be a blessing as well as a curse.
Unfortunately, I am no longer able to go down the back stairs by myself at night
because of the Noise and the Shadow that live in our gardenia bush. However,
housework definitely is easier when the vacuum cleaner turns into an automated
soul-sucker. I am re-learning how to
play with words. Assonance and alliteration make me blink; a chance internal
rhyme sets my heart fluttering; a pithy pun has me in awe. If I meet a metaphor
that makes my muse’s bell ring, I repeat it like a mantra until it becomes
part of me. My proofreader’s eye and
editor’s gut have taken on a new power-- the power to discern an unnecessary
adverb or damn an errant apostrophe. I am also learning tolerance as I walk a
mile in someone else’s shoes and better understand that person’s motives and
conflict. Finely crafted poetry and
prose are my new heroes. For such as these, I offer paeans of praise to the
heavens and wish every blessing on writers who have produced something so
lovely, so worthy, so deserving of praise. Always a booklover, I have become one
who literally tries to inhale the words off a page, sniffing that wonderful
combination of paper and ink or gently tracing over a fine phrase. Although much of this
change is joyful, none of it is easy. There are sacrifices to be made, rules to
be adhered to, and techniques to be practiced. There are difficult times of
rejection, of a clear vision of my own work as drivel, of discouragement from
family and society in general. But, when you want to be a writer, particularly
when you want to be a good writer, there is something that keeps you going. Just like the butterfly,
you have an urge, a strong instinct towards metamorphosis. Just like the butterfly,
you are determined to fight your way out of that chrysalis, using every ounce of
your energy to attain your goal. And once you have emerged, once you, too, can
move someone to laughter or tears with the beauty and power of your words, you
can rightly soar skywards with all the other good writers. Susan Stephenson is an Australian, a writer, and passionate about both. She has been published at The Writers’ Hood (“View From Within,” Sci-fi, October 2004) and is an honorary professor at Jackass College (“How to survive a Chinese Restroom”). |
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