Creosote…
The morning is still new. The scent of creosote grits the air with its bite of wood and iron. It snowed a little in the night. White crystals gather around the dry remains of garden plants. Wrapped in a wool sweater, I await inspiration.
I live all the time. I write some of the time. Life becomes an adventure when you tell it in writing. Everything goes in, and it all comes back out, on the page. Fiction or not. It is what I saw and heard and broke my heart over. I felt the weight of your sorrow and raged against my own. None of my characters are me. All of my characters are me.
This story I am writing chews close to old family bones. I shake a little in the guts when I write. I am afraid of being found out. The ghost of my father hovers behind me trying to see what I have written. ‘You shouldn’t have said it then,’ I tell him, ‘if you’re going to worry about it now.’ Anyway it’s too late to take it back. And my brand of cockiness, of being defensive, will be exorcised by my writing and I am desperate to touch on that reality.
Sometimes I have to stop and get up and move around and only then do I realize I am angry. Old anger and I am writing by hand, tiny trenches in the paper.
I accept these feelings as part of what it takes. I lived without writing for too long. I can’t stop now.
© Margaret Grant and magoffleash, 2011-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
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This entry was posted on January 16, 2013 by Margaret Grant in Novel Writing, Writer's Life, Writing and tagged creative process, creativity, Family stories, fiction writing, how it feels, how we write, truth telling, writer's life, writing.Shortlink
http://wp.me/s25tZp-creosote
I have always wanted to work at home writing in a quiet, white walled study surrounded by books. Now that I am here, I see there is a lot more to it than time and space.
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Margaret, this touches so close to me! “Creosote…” was the first word I saw when I logged in to WordPress this morning and I had to read more! That smell, for some reason, is so fresh in my mind. I have no idea why. I haven’t been near a fencepost or telephone pole in years and I’m not even sure they still use the stuff. But, it’s there and it sends my mind hurling back to my childhood. Sitting in the Mimosa tree next to the street in my grandmother’s front yard…playing behind the hold smokehouse in her back yard. Fenceposts and telephone poles were nearby and the smell…always the smell!
You’ve also put into words what I feel when I write. How it dredges up old wounds and how it also gins up old, but wonderful memories! “I shake a little in the guts…” YES! I do, too!! How nice it is to read someone who knows what it feels like to write not because you want to, but because you MUST! I write because if I didn’t write, I think I’d explode! When I’m in an inspired period (like I am now), my fingers itch when they’re away from the keyboard.
Thank you for knowing what it feels like to write. Thank you for knowing what creosote smells like and for reminding me!
It’s so great to hear how you can relate to this. That’s what this blog thing is all about. Here in the northeast the creosote smell comes from the chimney of a wood burning stove or furnace, but it’s the same stuff. It is evocative for me the same as it is for you. Smells like home. It helps to know that the shaking in the guts is not just me, it really does, and it helps me to keep on doing it.
Smells like home, indeed! And, no you’re not the only one…In fact, I’ve been shaking a lot the last three days. A lot of negativity in a little time.
Reblogged this on I Breathed Again and commented:
This is so brilliant! Do you guys remember the smell of creosote? Maybe you didn’t even know what it was…but remember when we would play hide and seek around the school and would use the telephone pole next to the gym as “base”? The way that pole smelled…that was creosote. Reading this brought back a lot of memories for me and I know it will for you. But, it also puts into words how I feel about writing. Margaret captures what it’s like to write because you have to and not just because you want to. So, read this because I think you’ll like it!