Creative Writing - The Challenge of Opening a Window to the Soul

If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write.

– Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), playwright, novelist

 Note: Study the photos shown above.  There will be a challenge, for some of you, at the end of the post.

Somerset Maugham is right, of course, "it doesn't matter a damn how you write."  What matters is that you write.  Many of our most famous artistic works come from the hearts of those ill-educated in the art form they practice.  Many are self-taught.  They create from their heart, their life experiences, and deep a feeling for the subject at hand.  

I love to write.  I especially enjoy my novels because I do very little work on the front end.  I put pen to paper and just let the adventure flow.  I don't want to know where my characters are headed; I want to be as surprised as my reader.  I want to enjoy the journey, the mystery, and the conclusion which will write itself. 

I was always an average student when it came to grammar and writing.  Reading was not a pastime until I picked up Doc Savage, The Man of Bronze, an adventure novel set in the early 1930s.  For a kid of 11 in the early 1960s this was heady stuff.  200 plus Doc Savage adventures later, I was hooked on reading.  It was twenty-two years with military intelligence that got me hooked on writing.

I've had comments on my writing, some good, a few bad, and all pretty much constructive.  People have read my posts, some have read my two unpublished novels, many seem amazed at how quickly I can pound something out and keep it interesting, considering I have no formal schooling as a writer.  I have to say that any formal education to write would have spoiled the pastime for me.  I get bored easily.  

Although I was an avid reader, writing escaped me until I was almost 17 and recovering from a motorcycle accident, my leg in traction, and bedridden in hospital for a couple of months.  My parents, not wanting my lackluster attempts at public education to suffer more even of a setback, hired a tutor to bring me lessons; oh, joy. She could have been pretty, but she was, instead, a skinny older woman that smelled of mothballs.  She was also the best thing that ever came into my life, educationally, up to that point.

She brought me a black and white photo of a gorilla, cropped from lower chest up, behind the bars of a cage.  She told me to write a short story about the photo.  Of course she meant the photo, not the subject in the photo, but I still had not learned to focus on instructions.  My bad.  

A couple of days later presented the tutor with 25 pages of handwritten manuscript; a story of captivity and freedom, of a simian king, an ape, a higher primate, a captive not graced with the courtesy of slavery, an animal in a gage.  I told the story of an intelligent gorilla which sat quietly, day after day, chewing straw, watching everything, and missing little.  I told the ease of his escape, the mercy shown toward his thoughtless captors, and his extreme joy during the short lived freedom before he was put down by a tracker's bullet.  After spending a couple of months of captivity in a hospital bed with bars for sides and my leg trussed up in shackles of sorts, I suppose related with the 800 pound lug as a kindred spirit.  

And what of the tutor's opinion, you ask?  The old girl gave me an "A" and called it a "moving tale."  Silly woman, even I knew apes don't have tales.

I think of writing as a window to the soul of the author.  I certainly hope that everything I write reflects a large part of who I am.  If you write from your heart it keeps it interesting, if not for the reader at least for the author.  Why did I write two novels over 400 pages long if I had no intent on publishing?  I didn't have a book to read; I was bored.  I write because I want to, not because I have to.  I write because I am driven to do so by... well, myself.

I hear from people how they wish they could write.  I hear them ask how I do it.  My answer to them is the same each time - pick up a pen and begin!  I say to use a pen because you will find yourself scribbling notes day and night as you get into it.  You will fill spiral notepads with the quick drafts of story which you will relish expanding upon at the keyboard.  And you will learn to live with the embarrassment of sapping your head up in a restaurant as you experience those "Aha!" moments when the dam of writer's block gives way to a flood of chapters.

So, let's get to the challenge.  The challenge is for all of you who think you can't write a stitch.  There is no first prize, no winner or loser.  Everyone who takes on the challenge will realize themselves as winners.  

I do recommend use of spellcheck, grammar check (if available), and do try to use paragraphs and punctuation, if possible, as it does get tedious reading several pages of a run on thoughts and sentences.  I will endeavor to edit the work, with you, if it becomes necessary.

Instructions:  

1. From the three photos you were supposed to be studying, above, choose the one that you haven't been able to stop thinking about.  This may not be the one you have chosen, but it may be the one you need to choose.
2. Don't think too much about a story line.  Pick up a pen and begin writing.  Name the characters and set the scene as you go.  Enjoy the spontaneous creativity of your own mind as you become intimate with your characters, and the emotions you feel as your story unfolds.
3. Length is entirely up to you, it is your story.

When you are finished, you have three choices:

1. You can send me the story and I will post it, or not, as you wish.  
2. You can ask for my comments, regardless of whether you opt to post.  
3. Or you can keep the story for yourself with the knowledge that you have written... something, which is the entire point.   I hope, if you choose this option, you will at least comment of your experiences writing the tale, which will be of immense interest, if only to me.  

My ultimate desire is that you will opt to share your story, your experiences, and all of our constructive comments which may come your way.  I also hope you will tell why the photo you chose "spoke" to you, why you chose that photo over the other two.  My desire is that you have some fun, as I always do... when writing for you.

Stories, comments, and other responses can be sent to: tolerantpastor@gmail.com 

Editor's Note 

(re: disclaimer cum "get out of jail free" card) 

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion. It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other. An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so.

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and then engaging in peaceful, constructive, discussion and debate in an arena of mutual respect concerning the opinions put forth. After over twenty years as a military intelligence analyst, planner, and briefer, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human. God's test for us is what we do afterward, and what we learn from the experience.

Frank Anthony Villari (aka, Pastor Tony)

Pastor Tony is founder of the Congregation for Religious Tolerance and author/editor of the Congregation's official blog site, "The Path."