WRITING DOWN MY BONES

I bought the book ‘Writing Down The Bones’ a few times.

There’s something about the title, but not enough for me to read it and save it, and I’m someone who still has books from my tenth birthday.

When I find them all I’ll have my own Natalie Goldberg library.

This is from her website:

With insight, humor, and practicality, Natalie Goldberg inspires writers and would-be writers to take the leap into writing skillfully and creatively.

The advice in her book, provided in short, easy-to-read chapters with titles that reflect the author’s witty approach (“Writing Is Not a McDonald’s Hamburger,” “Man Eats Car,” “Be an Animal”), will inspire anyone who writes—or who longs to.

 

My insight is there are two kinds of people who write, the same way there are two kinds of motorcycle riders: those who HAVE crashed, and those who WILL crash. (HAVE written, WILL write)

For people in general it breaks down to those who write, (and want you to know they write because that’s important (?)), and those who ‘long to write.’

 

 

Long to write? Like tapping out a text? Sending an email?

What’s not said is ‘would-be’ writers should get over themselves and their ‘writerly’ feelings, their waiting for something to happen with them in their smoking jacket, lounging on an over-stuffed puffy chair beside a crackling fire.

Maybe a dog and a brandy to tie it all together? Doesn’t that look cozy.

Well, Alice Monroe isn’t walking through that there door.

The master of the contemporary short story is busy.

So am I. So are you. Let’s write down the bones.

 

What About Them Bones?

Anyone who grew up in North Bend, Oregon has seen enough nature to be a nature writer, enough industry to be an industrial writer, enough beach to be an ocean writer.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Small towns on the upper east coast feel like they’re full of recluses hoarding trunks of written pages ready to change the world when they die.

I’m still waiting on J.D. Salinger’s avalanche fifteen years after he died, the flood of new material he wrote while locked away in his monk’s writing cell.

 

These are the real lost stories of J.D. Salinger. These are unpublished, and we have never seen them.

They do exist, but it is doubtful that anyone will be able to find them any time soon.

Some live in the Princeton University Library Archives and are available for viewing, though they don’t let people take in any recording devices to smuggle them out!

 

Does North Bend have writer stories?

 

It Starts With A Backbone 

No matter where you’re from, or what you do, you don’t want to be forgotten.

Write it down. What’s so unforgettable about you? About anything?

I’ll start:

“If you agree we live in times that require study and reflection to truly understand our place in it, then you believe the warning that came out of WWII and following illegal orders.

The illegal part back then wasn’t a problem for the main player in the Axis Powers.

Do as I command.

No. 

Bang. Next.

Do as I command.

Yes.

At the war crimes trial:

Did you do this horrific act?

Yes. But I was following orders.

They were illegal orders, you pathetic excuse of a human being. Hang him.

 

I learned about illegal orders in the all-volunteer Army of 1974.

The instruction model was the My Lai Massacre.

From Google AI:

 

The My Lai massacre is a key real-world example used in A-level psychology, particularly within the Social Influence topic, to illustrate and evaluate theories of obedience to authority. 

 

The takeaway at the time was if you believe you’re given an illegal order, repeat the order back to the person giving it.

If they say, “Yes, that is the order,” then you say, “That is an illegal order and I cannot follow it.”

For example: “You’re ordering me to rampage around, break things, drag people on the ground, and kneel on their necks? That is an illegal order and I cannot follow it.”

 

PS: Start with a backbone. Don’t forget, you can add more as needed. It’s called re-writing.

 

PSS: I’ve never read an Alice Monroe short story, but I did make it through a few pages of the one I linked to. It may make me a better writer, a better blogger? We’ll see.

Will this post make you write down your bones? Get started. (That’s not an illegal order)