On Writing...

A writer's tools

Every profession has its requisite set of tools.  Gardeners have the familiar rakes and hoes and pruning clippers, among other things. Doctors need a scalpel or two, a syringe, CT scanners, everything you see on one TV med show or another. Auto mechanics have a fascinating array of wrenches and gizmos and whatchamacalits for every kind of repair. I might want to be an auto mechanic in another life!

What are the tools a writer needs?  Well, beyond the basics - paper, pen, paper, more recently shifted to computer and printer, I've come to think that a writer's tools are a very personal thing.

And I encourage writers to find the tools that give them direction, confidence, encouragement, and - best - inspiration.

For several years now I've had three objects hanging in my writing corner, studio, office - wherever I've been able to carve out a space for my work. These three objects are:

    a caliper
    a compass
    a doll's dress.

Your tools will be different.

I acquired the caliper when I had a landscape company and had to measure the girth of small trees for the customers' gardens. 

The compass was a birthday gift from a friend, now gone, who felt that my writing was headed the right direction and wanted to remind me of my own true north.

The doll's dress is one my mother made for me oh so long ago and which has traveled with me since I was five years old. 

But what do these items have to do with my writing? 

Well, the caliper reminds me to be measured in my work, to be as precise as possible and to have the patience to go for the right word and not the almost right word. The mechanism of the caliper, an old-fashioned tool I found in a tool barn in Massachusetts, allowed me to apply just the right amount of pressure to a small tree trunk - to get accuracy without doing damage, the same way I want to be accurate in my words without harming the passion of the thoughts.

The compass reminds me of a friend who had great faith in my work and also in her desire that I stay true to the work and not let myself drift off course. The compass also tells me that despite foggy nights when the stars are nowhere in sight and the story line has become too faint to see, it will be possible to make it home in the dark.

The doll dress brings with it a sense of history and continuity as well as a child's wonder about the world around her. For a child, everything is up for grabs, everything is worth considering, especially in new ways that no other child has considered. Children believe anything is possible and the dress reminds me to hold that thought in my writing - anything is possible and there's no one to tell me it's never been done before or that it's wrong. The child allows so much more than the adult!

So those are my tools for writing. They're right here, hanging on the wall not twelve inches from my computer.  

If you haven't identified a set of tools for yourself, begin now to collect them, whatever they might be, whatever they inspire! 

Con amore,
Molly