Seduced to the Natural World

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We need nature writing. We need it now more than ever: need to be seduced into the natural world: need to savor what remains or take direction toward finding new landscapes and experiences. We need to manage the grief we feel when we lose a place and its wildlife—or be ready for the grief to come.

Barbara Kingsolver nails that one. “The final stages of grief. Dellarobia felt an entirely new form of panic as she watched her son love nature so expectantly, wondering if he might be racing toward a future like some complicated sand castle that was crumbling under the tide. She didn’t know how scientists bore such knowledge. People had to manage terrible truths.” (From Flight Behavior)

My first exposure to nature writing probably came from Blueberries for Sal:
“On the other side of Blueberry Hill, Little Bear came with his mother to eat blueberries. ‘Little Bear,’ she said, ‘eat lots of berries and grow big and fat. We must store up food for the long, cold winter.’”

But the first time I was literally immersed and awed by it, was reading John Wesley Powell’s original journals of his Colorado River (The Exploration of the Colorado River and its Canyons) while I spent twenty days rafting and hiking that river. I wrapped his journal . . .

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Advice from ‘Butt In The Chair’ Experts

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I needed someone wise in my ear this month and a few words of inspiration. Found some!

From Joe Fassler’s interviewing 150 writers:

First Sentence

“The first line must convince me that it somehow embodies the entire unwritten text,” William Gibson said. Stephen King described spending “weeks and months and even years” working on first sentences, each one an incantation with the power to unlock the finished book. And Michael Chabon said that, once he stumbled on the first sentence of Wonder Boys, the rest of the novel was almost like taking dictation. “The seed of the novel—who would tell the story and what it would be about—was in that first sentence, and it just arrived,” he said.

Sound It Out.

“Plot can be overrated. What I strive for more is rhythm,” the late Jim Harrison said. “It’s like taking dictation, when you’re really attuned to the rhythm of that voice.” George Saunders described a similar process . . .
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Success: Ruin Meals. Write 5th Grade Prose.

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Author Louise Penny has ruined me for any restaurant or pub memories I used to cherish. What’s more, she may have ruined every attempt to enjoy future restaurant meals, no matter how much I might be willing to pay.

Nothing anyone serves me can measure up to the food in her novels. I’ve read most of Penny’s books. The food in them is literally to die for.

Instead of a book page I want a flaky, just-out-of-the-oven croissant stuffed with chunks of maple-baked ham and melted Gruyere wafting out fresh rosemary, and I want it next to crisp Pommes frites with the Bistro’s homemade mayonnaise.

And that is just what she feeds her cops for lunch . . .

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