Joey and I read a chapter from Ursula LeGuin’s “Steering the Craft” each week. Like me, Joey’s into writer’s books on writing, and this week’s chapter on adverbs and adjectives had us independently underlining the phrase “take responsibility” from Chapter 5. I’m taking the advice a step further and writing it on a stickie, and placing it at eye level when I’m at my desk.
LeGuin believes there are lazy words—suddenly, like, just, and great being prime examples. Without real settings with real human behaviors, and sensations, the reader is left with an inch of water in a kiddie pool on a record-breaking heat wave day. When what’s needed is a plunge into a 15-foot eddy in the glacial-fed Colorado River.
After the chapter, Joey and I read aloud what we wrote for the exercise. I didn’t hit the suggested 250 words, not because I didn’t want to, but because my neurons fired for about ten minutes before they ran out of bullets.
Those bullets are slowing down even as I type, reminding me of that scene in The Matrix where Neo bends backward, dodging bullets coming at him at the speed of the latest model motorized wheelchair at RapidRest Retirement Home.
In the meantime, I’m sketching and painting on postcards made of watercolor paper stock. The first one I did was an acid-tripping owl filled with swirls and circles of purple, pink, and blue. Now I’m working on three bees on a bud—the image that’ll go with this post—and the flower still needs shading, just like the bees’ bodies.
I feel off, like my body’s organs are worn like a suit. It feels like being hunted—cornered like a fox in a tree. The sensation pings at me like the strongman ringing the bell at a carnival.
Not to worry, I took a bath, told Dave how I was feeling and spent thirty minutes with my mind turned off and am in a good headspace.
Time for bed now. Nighty night.
Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 