::squoodges the writers::

Several very disconnected thoughts:

There is this ongoing fascination with the lightning bolt. The 'I just sat down and wrote this out on a roll of toilet paper and it's pretty good,' genius who pierces the heart of an idea that no one else has before realized was the core of everything. Because people are fascinated with lottery tickets too.

This is hard. Dammit. Even with lightning bolts.

Having a formula for how to write [actually, for how *you* can write - not someone else] doesn't necessarily make one a good writer. It can help get the wheels moving, and keep them moving.

Having inspiration also doesn't necessarily make one a good writer. So many inspired people talk and think and don't put pen to paper for one reason or another.

But these are part of the practice of writing - these and having a community of writers who will tell you that you aren't nuts, or, if necessary, that you are (by the way, you're not).

And, though this doesn't really help you with the engineer, if someone doesn't believe that talent exists - or that it can be programmed - then they're not going to see talent standing right there in front of them. Because they're not looking for it.

Granted, I know little to nothing. And haven't had any coffee yet.

Sometimes I've had the lightning bolt thing. But that's not usually what it's like. (And I fully admit to being a little nuts. I'm obsessed with a city I've only seen on television. That's a little...off the hook. But the writing isn't the crazy part.

I'm obsessed with a city I've only seen on television.

that is completely normal - I love the same city.

Well, you've lived there. I haven't even seen it personally. I'm prepared to stipulate(check me out, getting my Pearlman on, with or without a parking garage!) that that's a little bizarre. But then, Dempsy and Gannon aren't even *real*(Which totally bowled over my geography-flunking ass, I don't mind telling you.) Maybe it's a writer thing.

dcp-Thanks so much for the link to Acland Brierty…explained, I think I'm in love.

And along the lines of the search for great writing, I'm x-posting this in Bitches:

I've got a request for the lovers of language among us...

I've written a workplace communication workshop...Avoid the Evils of Email!...which is all about increasing productivity and reducing misunderstandings through more effective email communication.

One of my points is about using the right words for the right message vs. generic terms that don't communicate one's actual meaning.

So, I'm looking for snippets (1-3 sentences) of your favorite evocative literature. Examples that stand alone and have left you thinking, "Heh. That was clever/cool/effective."

It matters not where the snippet comes from and I'd be happy to receive them here or via my profile addy.

[tenting fingers in anticipation] I can't wait to see what this brainiac crowd comes up with!

Okey dokey! I have to get a 25K word middle school book together for my agent. I don't write fiction, and haven't written for children. So I'm freaking out, waaaayyyyyy out of my comfort zone, and have no idea what I'm doing. Wheeeeeee!!!

Yay!!!!! Do you need research help? There's a colony of flying foxes at the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens [link] , which is in downtown Sydney. When we saw them in the daytime, they were sleeping upside down, but would wake up and mutter at people who came to look at them. Of course, Billytea is really the answer.

Oooh, research help is always lovely!

I love those bats. I'm naming two after my niece and nephew, and they will be providing the Dorothy-in-Oz (heh) ephinany to my Sam to settle down somewhere and start his own family, instead of searching for an adoptive one.

I'm just so excited about your new project, Allyson. And please stop saying you're not a fiction writer. Basically, you write about people, and since you're purportedly telling the truth, you have restrictions about what you can write about these people.

All fiction is is writing about people without those restrictions. And although Sam is a bat, he's really a little boy. Although SGA is set in another galaxy, they're really talking about present society here on earth. They just have a little scope in the storytelling. You'll get the hang of fiction, it really isn't that different.

Bonny, one of my very favorite snippets ever is the second paragraph of Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic. Even though I don't think the lines were written into the script of the movie made from the book, my mental ear always hears them in Stockard Channing's voice:

Inside the house there were no clocks and no mirrors and three locks on each and every door. Mice lived under the floorboards and in the walls and often could be found in the dresser drawers, where they ate the embroidered tablecloths, as well as the lacy edges of the linen placemats. Fifteen different sorts of wood had been used for the window seats and the mantels, including golden oak, silver ash, and a peculiarly fragrant cherrywood that gave off the scent of ripe fruit even in the dead of winter, when every tree outside was nothing more than a leafless black stick.

I think that second sentence may be my favorite ever written, anywhere, in anything. If you put aside the meaning of the words and simply let the sound flow over and around you, the rhythm is compelling, amazing, beautiful. If you absorb what the words are saying, the visual, tactile, and scent impressions are dizzyingly rich, and then the sentence slows in cadence, each word falling with a certain weight, and the impressions feel chillier and finally cold and bleak--"ripe fruit even in the dead of winter, when every tree outside was nothing.more.than.a. leafless. black. stick."

And every time I try to quote that sentence, I substitute the words "lifeless dead stick", because that's the meaning I take from it. But "leafless black stick" is so much more visual, I think.

So that's my favorite, because it's so evocative for me, and those are the things and feelings it evokes.

Was that what you wanted?

I actually have Practical Magic on my shelf Beverly...and I love that passage. Thank you for pointing it out.

"ripe fruit even in the dead of winter, when every tree outside was nothing.more.than.a. leafless. black. stick."

Expertly evocative. And probably differently evocative for each reader. My dead of winter may vary from anyone else's...me being left coast raised.

Huh. Another interesting point for the workshop.

Double thanks!