I enjoyed another great day at Art’s Alive this past week. Once again, the organizers and the volunteers produced an amazing festival for the thousands of folks who strolled through the varied displays of arts and crafts.
People always ask how many books we sold as if that is the measure of a successful day. For me, if we sell, that’s a bonus.
I enjoy the conversations, catching up, the hugs and handshakes from people I haven’t seen for a while.
Sometimes, people will read excerpts from the poems or stories displayed on our table, smile and put them down and walk away. Others will start a conversation with, “That reminds me of…” and then they will take the time to share a memory that our words have pulled from a trunk somewhere in that cluttered spare room in the back of their mind. Payment doesn’t always come in the form of cash.
A lot of people like to talk about the craft of writing — where do the ideas come from, how do we get the books published, how do we distribute them. Putting the ideas into the physical book form is the work part of the process.
The words and the ideas come when they feel like it, not always when I want them to. Some mornings, they are spilling from my night table onto the floor because they arrived in the night. They have to be gathered and sorted quickly before their meaning is lost.
The best analogy I can use comes from a bird feeding trip to Campbell Valley Park with my grandkids. It was not a planned event, just a stop in a busy day visiting Grandpa.
The canopies of the trees provided a cool reprieve from the heat of the day, and the peace and quiet was welcome.
We found a spot and I explained that if they stood quietly and held out their hands, the birds would come and eat the seed.
My Grandson assumed the position standing rigid as statue. Only his heart beating excitedly beneath his T-shirt gave him away. First one bird settled, picked at the seed and flew away just as another landed.
The little red head was not have as much luck. She had not yet learned to stand still and I suspected probably never would.
Yelling, “C’mon birds!” at the top her voice was not working either. She abandoned the exercise after a few minutes declaring that it wasn’t fair her brother got all the birds.
That’s what writing is like for me. If I find that quiet spot, away from the noise and heat of the day and sit very still, holding out my hands, the words will come, one after the other. They will settle gently and let me orchestrate their arrangement on the blank sheet.
But if I convince myself, ‘I have to write that story tonight, I have a deadline,’ I might as well be stamping my feet and yelling, ‘c’mon you stupid words, can’t you see I’m waiting here?’
They won’t settle.
I believe in the theory that words are like radio frequencies constantly streaming by us. We just have to turn the dial slowly until they arrive at our station, loud and clear.
One lady stopped for a fleeting second and said, “Your writing gives me joy.” That didn’t go in the cash box, but it sure fed my ego.
At least, that’s what McGregor says.
