Best not to think when you should be writing. Best not to sit chewing your pencil. Best to turn the graphite tip down so that it hits the page and begins that scrawl, scrawl, scrawl across the space and by the time you’ve gone three lines in you forget that you’ve been thinking about what to write because you’re actually writing and the ideas somehow flow into the space left by the thinking-that-was into the space-that’s-opened-up and then you forget that there’s a space and you’re in the flow and, all by themselves, the words come to you (but not to you) and your fingertips (but not to your fingertips) and hit the page (but not the page).
Everything has vanished: your mind, your fingers, your page, and the act of writing has taken over, and you are flowing, flowing, flowing.
Then the image of a flower appears, and in the back of your mind you know that it’s been generated by its similarity to the word flowing, but you don’t care because the flower is there.
And then the flower itself kinda expands and something bleeds into that extra space at the edge and becomes the scene in which it sits. First, it’s the greenery and the colour around the flower that’s made up of the grass and the plants and the other flowers and then the meadow in which these are sitting appears all by itself and by the time you’ve reached a vision of the blue sky arching like a bell jar over the scene and popped it down onto the paper, like a glass over a spider that’s sneaked into your bed only to be found out by your screaming partner who calls ‘babes,, there’s a thing!’, a couple of kids appear in the meadow.
Where did they come from? you might think, but it’s a waste of time going on about things like that because they’re already there and so you (the writer-you) might as well take advantage of them.
They’re American kids. Somewhere in the Heartlands (an old song informs you). They duly clothe themselves (not in a getting-dressed-in-the-morning way) in, among other things, a thin summer dress and the kind of jacket that American football players wear when they’re not playing football. You (the reader-you) can decide which is wearing which if you like but bearing in mind that this is a vanilla, missionary man kind of a thing then keep the girl in the dress and the boy in the jacket. Oh, wait, I’m wrong. A cloud sneaks into the sky and the boy takes off his jacket and wraps it around the shoulders of the girl who looks at him with grateful and gooey eyes.
All sorts of thoughts might be coming to you as a writer at this point like ‘I wonder if she’ll still be looking at him like this in twenty years when the mill’s closed down (because doesn’t the mill always close down?) and he’s slouched there on the couch with his appropriate wife-beater on starting in on his fourth can’ or ‘gooey eyes? what kind of goo is leaking out of those eyes?’ but put aside your stereotypes and myxomatosis visions and stick to the story.
Not, of course, that there is a story yet, much less a plot. They ain’t doing nothing and they ain’t got the aim to do nothing after that neither because they’re just stick figures, so let’s put that to rights and zoom in on their lips to see what they’re saying. And yeah, like I said, don’t get side-scened or distracted by thoughts of … what’s that word now? when guys sneak around in the dark looking in on girl’s windows in the hope of seeing them naked or worse? … I’ve forgotten the word but that’s okay because you get the idea. Anyway don’t get the idea that you’re doing that to the couple in the meadow because that’s not how it is. In fact, don’t even think how it is. Don’t get tangled up in the thought of how impossible novels are when they eavesdrop on people and tell us about it. And this clumsiness that’s coming to your words now is precisely why you shouldn’t be having those thoughts.
Stick to the flow because you can’t be in the flow when you think about the flow, just like you can’t raise the X-Wing out of the bog by thinking of raising the X-Wing out of the bog. Ask Yoda; he’d tell you.
So, yeah, in the meadow, cloud in the blue sky, boy gives girl his coat, gooey eyes, and she says:
‘Thanks, Jack, that’s mighty nice of you.’
‘Shucks, that ain’t nothing. I know you’ll give it me back and I might even get me a kiss when you do, Joanie.’ He grins a goofy grin then says something that seems kinda out of character. He says ‘I don’t like no whips and chains, and you can’t tie me down but you can whip your lovin’ on me, baby.’
She, of course, says ‘wha?’ A puzzled look mops up the sunshine of her smile and throws it into the can.
Jack’s alright. He knows where he’s going even if Joanie ain’t so sure. He repeats ‘whip your lovin’ on me, baby.’ He pauses to let the effect of his words sink in then continues with ‘I’m vanilla, baby. I’ll choke you, but I ain’t no killa, baby.’
Joanie has only heard one word: KILLER. And it’s in capital letters in her mind. And as she stands, Jack’s jacket falls from her shoulders in a way that we could consider as being symbolic of the way that her regard for him has slipped out of her mind as easily as vanilla ice-cream from a spoon on a hot, sunny day.
She turns towards the edge of the meadow. Her car is there. It’s a small, eco-model. In red. She loves it. She runs towards it now. Not that she thinks she’s in any real danger of being chased. It just feels like the right thing to do. Most of what we do is like that. It just feels right at the time.
Jack sits. He looks puzzled. He’s that kind of a boy. He says ‘wha?’ and it feels right in his mouth.
Then the scene unravels at the edges and plinks to black.
Robert C Day 