Tiny Lines: A Friday Invitation to Make Writing

My Friday Substack series is especially for writers and those who teach writing. I say more about this here, if you’re a new visitor.

When last we met, I’d shifted out of my creative writing and into a curriculum writing posture, as I promised I would. I flipped our first four writing invitations into complete lesson plans for high school teachers, aligned to standards as well as popular works included in some of the textbook series and resources you’re expected to use. If you missed that post, the plans are there waiting for you.

This week, we return to our making and our writing, and we also turn toward place. When most of us sit down to write about a place that mattered, we begin by describing it: the color of the kitchen, the size of the yard, the view from the window we loved best. This week, I’m going to invite you to set description aside. We’re going to let a place assemble itself from tiny glimpses of what happened inside of it. For instance: What was on the table? Who was always arguing around it? What hung on the wall, and what leaned in the corner by the door? I don’t know about you, but images like these remain crisp in my memory while everything that happened around them hangs like a sort of haze. This is especially true of childhood memories and those made before we had words to express what our hearts and minds still cling to.

These snapshots aren’t a story. And that’s actually the pleasure of this practice: When we gather enough of these little glimpses and set them beside one another, the place begins to breathe on the page. It becomes a character with its own identity, personality, purpose, and moods. Even if we didn’t realize it way back then. When we bring this to life, the people we knew there tend to step out of the haze, and we never have to write a single scene to get there.

It’s peak week in my garden, and the flowers are reminding of my great grandmother. She loved roses and zinnias, and my yard is overflowing with both. I cut bunches to bring in my house, and as the petals began falling, glimpses of time spent in her company returned to me. My garden was my makerspace this week. I’m trying assemblage. You can use whichever modes and materials speak to you, as always. We’ll make writing first and then, transpose our ideas into written words.

My process work follows after the jump, including the next vignette from my novel in progress, Reality Testing. If you’re a teacher, I’ve left lesson ideas for you there, too, and they connect directly to the plans I shared in June. See you there.