Friday, December 8, 2017

Writing is Hard Work




A few weeks ago one or two friends were talking about reading this blog. I am always embarrassed when people tell me that they have read what I have written. While I am secretly delighted to know that people read my writing - I become uncomfortable when I am told that they have. While my proofreading skills are frequently somewhat questionable I, thanks to spell check, am reasonable sure that my spelling is all right; my grammar is slightly better than adequate; my thoughts are usually well informed and I have a reasonable vocabulary. But I am never sure that what I have to say is really worthy of anyone’s time.  

I write because I like the process of shaping the thoughts that are dancing around inside my head into some coherent message. I like the struggle to find the right words, the right phrase, that right descriptor that paints the picture inside my head. I write because of all of those thoughts and words and pictures will continue to bounce around inside my head until I get them out on paper. The fact that someone else might read those words is not always important to me. Like so much of what I do - writing is for me an immensely selfish act. I do it because it gives me pleasure. If however, it gives other people pleasure or challenges their thoughts, I am truly delighted and yes a bit embarrassed. 

For the past couple of years, I have taken a month or two away from my playing with wool to work on a book. I want to assemble some of the stories from my hitchhiking trips back and forth across this country. I think it might be interesting to at least a few people to read about those who have offered me rides and the things that we have seen and talked about together. Most of the stories are already written; they are either scattered throughout this blog or in the four 80-90 page journals written before the blog was started. It should have been easy to create a coherent narrative from the thousands of words I had already written.  Writing the book has been a lot harder than I thought it would be. 

I take a few pages from my writing, find a place where those thoughts and conversations will fit, write some connecting sentences and move onto the the next driver’s stories. The next day I read the same paragraphs over again, realize how poorly they are written and do it all over again. I rewrite a few paragraphs, massage the words into some sort of readable English and think that I am well satisfied. I come back to the same paragraphs and pages a few months later and as I re-read those words that seemed so brilliant, now shine with all of the light of a moonless night. So I edit and edit and edit again.

It seems to be an never ending process, one that perhaps I need some help with.  

There are times however, when I re-read a paragraph and I am pleased with myself. This is one of them: 

“The final reason to hitchhike is to see the country. I have been fortunate to live in four provinces, sleep in ten (plus one territory) and to see bits and pieces of Canada at various times of the year. I have travelled across the country, both in the summer and in the winter a number of times by train and by car. I have seen the Prairies in the depths of a drought with the carcass of a dead pronghorn deer laying on the shoulders of a dried-up slough in Alberta and seen the Fraser River at near full spring flood tearing its way to the Pacific Ocean. I have seen countless springs gushing from the sides of mountains and fields of wheat and barley ready to harvest. I have seen the magical fall colours on hills surrounding Ontario’s highway 11 and watched the cherry blossoms bloom in February on View Street in Victoria. I have watched the mighty tidal bore in Moncton, fished off the shores of Newfoundland and the Gaspe and camped on the beaches of Vancouver Island. I have crossed the Mackenzie River, that iconic Canadian river that flows all the way to the Arctic Ocean, I have used all three southern passes to get through the Rockies, I have hitchhiked in daylight at 11:00 PM and tried to hitchhike with a flashlight.  And every one of those hundreds of hours used to travel the 100,000 plus kilometres has been well spent.”  

If only every paragraph could come out like this……..

No comments:

Post a Comment

Blog Archive

Followers