bootstrap

“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 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.