“Every piece of writing is a bootstrap affair whereby you use the crisis of the next sentence to get to the one beyond.”
—Kris Saknussemm ( Write what you know–and be sorry) The Writer Magazine May 2010, author of the novels, Private Midnight and Zanesville
The word bootstrap usually conjures ideas of a man-child walking in the snow for miles on his way to school, alone and persevering against the elements.
How many times have we heard a parent or grandparent extol how the challenges he endured as a child made him the adult he presently is?
Many jokes center on this euphemism, the extrapolation of one’s difficulties that either did not exist to the degree described or simply sprang from tales spun to inspire awe and respect.
And yet writer, Kris Saknussemm aphorism touches on an all too apparent truth that many of us writers miss or choose to avoid.
Each word we write hinges on the one previously written in an upward climb towards the ultimate ordeal that sits upon the central dilemma of the story or novel.
Writing a novel, particularly crafting the first draft, is a treacherous climb towards a summit where great and exciting things happen, where transformation takes place and during which we the authors are made anew along with our central characters.
But how is this so?
Writing, crafting stories involves both the external process of the actual writing and the internal act digging deeper.
These circuitous events interact with each other like overlapping circles, the center of which and shaped like an eye, reveals and leads to the story.
In fact this center shaped like a human eye holds the story.
Each word we write or type offers a step, a rung on which to clasp our fingers and our soul in the effort to tell a story.
But stories are about people. They are read and consumed by people. People, or rather persons craft stories.
We who write sit at the center shaped like an eye, both looking and feeling, writing and observing, and then emoting and writing some more.
Each word forms one more strap pulling tight the boot of our story built upon a narrative line that not only reveals a course of events in cause-and-effect style, but that when read in a continuous fashion offers ideally an engaging and entertaining experience that both transforms consciousness and delivers hope.
How do you experience the process of writing, filling the page with words?
What are the highs and lows you undergo?
How would you describe your climb towards the peak experience of crisis?