Creating Things
We recently splurged and bought three big pots to expand our flower-growing options here in the land of redwood roots where little in the way of flowers can be grown in the ground.
I decided to make a little brick terrace for the pots to live on and chose a weedy overgrown location where I recently cut down a little Japanese maple that gave up the ghost to those strangling redwood roots. However, before I could level the area for the terrazzo I had to excavate the stump and root mass of the decapitated little Japanese maple. And what a root mass it turned out to be!
After four hours of strenuous digging and chopping and scooping out dirt with my hands I was finally able to extricate the Medusa-like tangle of roots from the ground, after which I needed a restorative nap before embarking on the next phase of the terrace creation.
Whether I’m creating a little terrace or becoming a writer or trying out a new bread recipe, I like to improvise and figure things out as I go along. Some people like to do a lot of pre-planning, and some writers need to work out the plots to their stories before they begin to write them. Not I.
In the beginning of creating my terrace I delineated the slightly uphill border of the terrace with bricks. However, I soon realized this was not a good idea and started over by creating the downhill border first and working my way up the slight incline. This “mistake” gave me a much better understanding of the terrain I was working with and made making the terrace nothing but fun.
The first novel I published, Inside Moves, was the sixth novel I wrote. Those first five novels gave me the writing muscles and confidence to write the book that would be made into a movie and would radically change my life. I was twenty-five when I wrote Inside Moves and I was really just learning to write. Fifty-two years later I still love the book and marvel at how effortlessly told the tale, and I remember how those words poured forth, as if my psyche had only been waiting for the removal of a Medusa-like tangle of self-doubt.
At some point along my path as a writer, I began to enjoy rewriting more than writing the first draft. As one who writes my first drafts without engaging my intellect, I only have a vague idea of what I’ve written until I type up my handwritten pages and read the results. Then my intellect saunters into the word center of my brain and begins to rewrite for clarity and conciseness without lessening – we hope – the power of spontaneity and unbridled feeling.
Similarly, when I got my terrace roughly done and went away for a few hours, upon my return I could see places where I could reshape things to be more beautiful.
Marcia helped me find stones to decorate the upper edge of the terrace and then I filled the myriad holes and gaps with gravel before covering the terrace with sandy soil I swept back and forth and all around until all the gaps were filled.
Then I hosed off the bricks and we placed the basins where the pots would go, which, to continue the parallel with writing, reminds me of the final draft when the story or book is finally done. Of course, whether and when something is done is entirely subjective. One can always rewrite. One can always futz with those bricks. Eventually our soul cries Enough already.
Inside Moves, the physical book, is out-of-print, and used copies are quite expensive these days. Fortunately e-book versions are available and the delightful audio version starring yours truly as the narrator is available from Audible and Amazon. The physical book was out-of-print for thirty years until 2013 when quite miraculously through the efforts of a publishing angel named Harry Kirchner, Inside Moves was republished. Now that edition is long out-of-print and if you ask me I say it’s high time someone publishes the book again!
Speaking of my books, holiday season is upon us so why not give your friends and loved ones copies of my inspiring and funny stories and novels?
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Speaking of funny and inspiring: The Guru starring Todd’s hands