The Forest … Or The Trees?

Barbara: I was chatting with a friend the other day—she’s one of those wellsprings of knowledge, highly intelligent, astute, straight-shooting, the kind of person I wish I could have on speed-dial for succinct answers to my ever-wondering questions. I mentioned to her that I was taking a creative writing class that was dedicated to developing our novels as a whole before we started writing the nuts and bolts, so we could have “a blueprint” first. I explained to her that I had, in fact, already written the novel, but needed an overview in order to do my next re-write. I had found that I’d come too close to my work and couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

My friend pointed out that this was common for women. Now let me stress that my friend is not the least bit sexist nor is she a random generalizer: but she had an interesting point (and she made it far more succinctly and elegantly than I will here, so bear with me!). If we look back to our tribal beginnings, men had to hone their broad awareness instincts—they had to see the whole of the forest (or plain, or savannah, or what-have-you) because that killer could come at him from any direction. He had to possess a fundamental and pervasive knowing of what was around him at all times. If not, he risked his own life and the lives and wellbeing of his tribe.

But our ancestral women-folk were back at the village, gathering. They needed to have a finely-tuned awareness of every seed, berry, fruit, and nut, in short, every vegetation food source that was hiding (but probably not about to kill her) in the thick foliage of those trees, bushes, and grasses. She had to observe details with precision and accuracy in order to feed her family a—let’s face it—balanced diet and so keep them alive.

And these two primitive conditioners are engrained into our DNA because for tens of thousands of years, they worked! We survived and developed and evolved into the fascinating and complex creatures you see before you now.

Of course, I believe that many of us have developed past this divider between the sexes (yes, there are women who have broad vision and men who are great with details). I also believe that we’re able to develop our awareness outside the primitive boxes we may naturally incline towards. But I really appreciated this a-ha moment of seeing this particular forest for its trees.

And not only was it an interesting eye-opener, or light-shiner, but, as these kinds of epiphanies often do, it suddenly empowered me. If I know my weakness—and, even better, if I can blame my weakness on genetics!—I can consciously work to improve it.

Yeah, sure, I had already signed up for that overview creative writing class, and, yes, I had already realized that for this particular project, I certainly needed to improve my ability to see the big picture. But now I know that the skills I build in reviewing and rewriting this particular project will also need to be skills I carry forward with me to all my other projects.

I aim to be a nurturer of trees, but also a Park Ranger of forests. Not just in writing, but in life.

Beyond the full outline overview, which I did both in paper Post-its and on the computer (because my handwriting is virtually illegible, even to me), I also decided to tackle a rewrite of a scene by printing out all the relevant pages, cutting out all the detritus, and then layering what was left into a general, cohesive single scene.

Deb:  I have always loved this expression as it covers so much in life. An elegant saying indeed. I think you have found the perfect balance for your book, Barbara, in this theory.

Sometimes that which is right in front of us is painful. Sometimes it’s scary and sometimes it requires us to do things we are not ready to do. I find for me, I have always been able to see the forest despite the sometimes huge growth of trees, but am often reluctant to venture in.

Life Lessons From Writing Lessons

Barbara: I am taking the most wonderful, creative and inspiring writing course right now with Michel Basilieres (writer of the magnificent Black Bird). One of the fundamental writing lessons he is teaching us, a lesson he reiterates over and over in case we forget it (because we do forget it over and over) which, in my humble opinion, also happens to be a fundamental life lesson is: no matter what you do, you are NEVER EVER “wasting your time”.

It’s a funny obstacle many writers have that if you see that something in your writing isn’t working, you have this tremendous sense of frustration and fatigue, ennui even, and usually high levels of resistance to the idea that you might need to start over again. Maybe you need to throw something away that you’ve slaved over. Or maybe you need to accept that something you’ve really attached yourself to, creatively and emotionally, just isn’t working the way you thought/hoped/imagined. The crux of this discovery, either your own for yourself or from an outside eye, is that it feels like a rejection of you and your work. You may feel stupid (how could I have missed/written that?). You may feel angry (fuck you, you don’t know what you’re talking about!). You may even feel you want to just pack it in and give up. And let me just be blunt about that: if you do actually pack it in and give up, then you didn’t care enough about that dream/idea/creation. Because, like in life, anything that really matters to you, anything that is deep and meaningful and spiritually important takes an extraordinary investment of time. Like, maybe even all the time you have…

Every writer has a point (or many points along the way) where they have to take stock and make adjustments. We all know the famous quote about writing being 10% writing and 90% re-writing. Writers often get writer’s block because they are consumed with this anxiety that if they don’t get it JUST RIGHT the first time, the work they’ve toiled over will go to scrap, so rather than do “wrong” work, they don’t do any work at all.

For all you writers out there, here’s the best news: every single word you write—whether it “survives” or does not—gives you something enormous: it might teach you about the craft, it might open up a story path you hadn’t considered and will still use, it might produce a sentence or a character or an idea that would never otherwise have been born. Nothing you create when you sit down to create is useless.

And, as I considered the truth of this lesson, the importance of it, I realized all of life is like this. We all have experiences and moments that we kind of chuck into the garbage after they’re done (well, that’s over, thank god), and then we find ourselves facing the same kind of experience or moment over and over and we sigh and wail and throw up our hands (no, not that again!). But every one of our dreary life experiences also carries the seeds of life lessons embedded within. And, I think, if we pay attention and reflect, we can certainly find the creative genius in those challenges, and that the residual effect is specifically valuable and true to us.

There is no waste of time in the mountains of balled up, cast-off pages landing in the trash, and there is no waste of time in the things we do that don’t end up so pretty and perfect. We are all… wait for it … you know it’s coming … works in progress.

Deb: I LOVE THIS POST! All the stuff I know but needed to be reminded of. Barb, you and I know firsthand how this is. We have written and rewritten our scripts over and over and then over again. We always had the same can-do spirt about it, I think, based on this philosophy. But as Barb knows I am trying to write this kid's book that has been in my head forever and I NEEDED this lovely and positive reminder. Thanks, Barb. Thanks, Barb’s teacher!