Riding the Wave/Launching the Detail/A BookLoons Review

I am going to be honest with you: I often do not know just what I’m doing.

I will grow obsessed, for example, with a single detail. The image of a fox leaving its paw prints in the snow. The statue of a girl sunk beneath the surface of a pond. The backlit windows of a dance studio. A persistent yellow finch. A dust storm.

Just those details, those saturated details, will walk around with me, demand attention. Are they stories? Certainly not. Are they persuasions, starting places, possibilities? Yes. I’ll write them down. I’ll allow their opinions. I’ll let them sit. Sit. Sit. Until finally I’m building a story for them, which is like building a house—foundation, frame, windows, roof.

I want my details to live, so I give them a story. I want to know what they mean, so I stay close.

Don’t even talk about outlines with me. Don’t imagine me beginning with plot. Or with message. Or with a marketing niche. I know that works beautifully for so many others, but not for me. I start with an image, and then I find that image words, and the sound of those words is the sound of my story and sound is voice, and voice yields story.

It doesn’t look purposeful, not at first. It feels most like riding a wave.

A huge thank you to Hilary Williamson and Lyn Seippel of BookLoons.com, for the review of HOUSE OF DANCE today.

http://www.bookloons.com/cgi-bin/Review.asp?bookid=10092