#10 There are two kinds of people . . .
Whenever this opening pops into my head as I begin a piece of writing - it’s happened more than once - a little voice asks, really? only two? However, it is safe to say that there are those who find lists helpful, who make them part of their everyday life (and feckless others who don’t - sorry, can't help myself). I belong to a subset, dysfunctional list-makers. (I’d give us an acronym but in Dayton, Ohio, where I live, DLM is pretty much owned by Dorothy Lane Market, the local upscale grocery.) I make shopping lists and leave them home or lose them. I make long lists of books to check out from the library or of Netflix shows to watch, and then never look at them again. Sometimes I’ll make a list after the fact just so I can cross out what’s already been accomplished. I’ve made a list of family and friends’ birthdays, apparently just so I can consult it after the fact in order to send belated greetings. It doesn’t matter; I love my lists. In writing my novel, An Invitation to the Party, however, lists finally began to earn their keep. A main character, Colt, had custody of his daughter every other weekend. A list of dates for all the weekends she spent with him proved handy as the story progressed in making sure Meg was never in two places at once. The running list of quoted poetry excerpts I used and the page numbers on which they could be found, proved invaluable as I revised, adding and subtracting, or changing things around. “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear” (words the Buddha, sadly, never uttered) could be reframed in my case as “when the need arises, a list appears.” I repeat, I love my lists!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
We tend to write about what we know. I am a writer, thus this blog: Why write? What, when, where to write? Stay tuned. Archives
April 2024
|