What Are Your Other Passions?

One of the things I ask every new client as we begin our work together is what other art, craft, sport, or hobby they practice. I’m looking for one that they have given a good deal of time, passion, and effort. Because whatever they know and love, from watching Broadway shows, to shooting pool, or playing piano, is translatable to what we do when we write; how we shape a story, how we develop dramatic tension, how we describe a house, or a city street, or the shape of our character’s face. The principles and fundamental concepts, say, of how fat, salt, acid, and heat work together in a recipe, if you are also a dedicated cook, can tell you a lot about your own writing. Salt, for instance, unlocks aromatic compounds to enhance flavor. Where in your piece might you be using too many or too few adverbs, or where might you want to use a freer hand on poetic tools such as rhyme and meter, alliteration, or sibilance, in order to heighten a scene? Fat, then, delivers that flavor and generates texture. Your piece might have some bright and sparkling moments, and some of deep pathos, but how will you hold them together in a scene, how will you have them all relate to each other to create a whole?

Enough of the cooking lesson, before I get too hungry to keep writing. The point is, whatever elements go into making for a well-played tennis match, a face-melting guitar shred, or a high yield organic garden, if you know those elements well, you can take those same principles and translate them into your own individual rules for writing. And, if we are working together, once I know what your other passion(s) is, we’ll be that much more able to communicate about what your writing needs.

I’ll quote SJ Sindu (whose every last bit of work you really should read!), as she talks about how this helped her debut novel find its shape (from this article:https://memoriousmag.wordpress.com/2017/06/15/think-music-sj-sindu/):

“When I met Tony Amato, an author and writing coach in Boston, he offered to read the novel in its mid-stages. I remember meeting with him in his study in Somerville to discuss the manuscript. I sat curled in an armchair with Tony’s ancient cat on my lap and a cup of coffee (which I’d defiled, as Tony called it, with sugar and cream). We talked about a lot of things, but my most vivid memory of that afternoon was when Tony turned to me and asked why the voice wasn’t taking its cues from Bharatanatyam. It was one of those lightning-strikes moments……I compiled a list of traditional melodies, and re-wrote every single line of the novel with those beats in the background. A lot of things fell into place—Lucky’s voice, her personality, her longing. All the things that seemed barely in my grasp before came into clear focus. If you read closely, you can hear the thaam thakka tham of a miruthangam in the cadence of the novel, but ultimately that’s not the point. The point is to infuse the book with the music that rules Lucky’s life. Without this music, Lucky’s interiority would’ve never fully developed.”

So, beloved writers, look into your other passions, be they quilting, rock climbing, or baking French pastry, and I guarantee you’ll find your lightning strike moment.