My biggest fear as a writer is that the Grammar Police will hunt me down, confiscate my Ink Slinger’s Permit, and sentence me to Life Without Paper Or Ink.
You see, I’m not officially Licensed to Write. I don’t have an MFA degree, creative writing workshop certificate or good high school English scores.
I do have a poet’s ear for language, a musician’s sense of rhythm, and a child’s irrepressible imagination.
I don’t write by the book. I write by ear, like a musician. I’m an outlining junkie but when it gets down to the writing, the words tell me where they want to go.
They clamor to go right there, so they can roll across a reader’s tongue sweet and slippery as a butterscotch disc, or over there, so they can shimmy down your ear like a lilting little melody.
They beg to go there, where the fields are ripe, and there, where the sky is swollen, and oh yes, there – there – there, where the stars collide and the air is thick and the river runs wide.
My heart and mind and ear collectively intuit where the words should go according to beat and rhythm and whimsy in much the same way Predictive Text makes an educated guess at the typist’s desired words and phrases.
“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is . . . the inner music the words make.”
~Truman Capote
This Is How We Work, The Words And I
I sweat and starve and go sleepless practicing the craft while the words cavort with metaphors under the bramble bush, lob spitballs at syntax from behind the library stacks and play pick-up-stix with a pocketful of rhymes.
They refuse to be contained or coerced or captured in my butterfly net of productivity. They wake me at midnight with the promise of pixie dust and vanish like fireflies in the sunlight.
They flirt with the poetry books on the desk, hiss at the grammar manuals on the shelf and shamelessly consort with the colored pens spilling out of the top drawer.
But the moment I give them up as lost causes, they come rushing in, letter by letter, word by word, and sentence by sentence, and fill my page with their rolling vowels and clashing consonants.
“I’m not officially Licensed to Write . . . but I do have a child’s irrepressible imagination.”
They come rum-tum tumbling out of my fingertips, splashing onto the page in a jumble of ink, pausing briefly enough to panic me before gliding across the wide open white places and building word palaces and paragraph thoroughfares and the loveliest of letter landscapes, as in this playful passage of a husband and wife reading together in my short story “Tahitian Sunset”:
“Why do you always race to the end of a story?” he asks, his fingers swimming through my hair like clownfish through anemone.
I shift in the sand, burying my toes beneath his. “That’s where they live happily ever after.”
His chuckle glides up my spine, cool as the evening tide. “No, my butterfly loach, they live happily all along the way. Don’t you want to hear the whole story?”
One word never took so long to utter, a lifetime of want in three little letters. “Yes.”
He rises like a dolphin breaching the surface, gazing at me through eyes wide as tidal pools and just as full of surprises. “Then we can’t afford to skip one page, one paragraph, one sentence. Every syllable is rife with meaning, my lovely little angelfish.”
In Which We Rally, The Words And I
Well, hmmm. A funny thing happened on the way to the confessional booth. Now that I’ve acknowledged my Big Fear, it in no way resembles the frothing beastie I’ve been dodging all these years.
Therefore, we will not go gently into that good night, the words and I.
Sure, an Ink Slinger’s life can be a strange and wild ride, peppered with self-doubt, pockmarked by friendly fire and riddled with rejection.
But it’s also filled with curious companions and creative conundrums and puzzling phraseology. It’s riding on the coattails of quirky, hanging by the toes on a rippling row of rolly-polly o’s, and canoodling with consonance, assonance and their tow-headed cousin alliteration.
Watch me now. This is where I make my stand, folks.
From here on out, I’m adopting Elmore Leonard’s 11th Rule of Writing as my own: If proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.
Hear us well, all you over-eager grammarians, for this is the Rebel Yell of the words and I:
Give us cadence or give us silence!
Until they strip me of my pen and paper – I remain ardently yours
Lady Bullish, Rogue Ink Slinger
~~*~~
Biography
Ruth Long is a forty-something administrative professional who enjoys fast-paced stories, vintage cars and southern rock. A reader by birth, paper-pusher by trade and novelist by design, storytelling is her passion.
You can read more of her take on the writing life at www.bullishink.com or by following her twitter feed @bullishink.
Please join the discussion below
Ruth, thank you so much for ink-slinging this fabulous piece for CF readers! More to say later . . .
Thank you for inviting me to the Creative Flux playground! It’s truly an honor to be here! I first stopped by for JMB’s terrific piece on anti-heroes last year and I’ve been a big fan of CF from that moment on!! 🙂
Holy moley Ruth, if you are afraid somebody’s going to call you out, I better start thinking of a pseudonym quickly before the Ink Slinger’s police show up and drag me away…..
Not only am I not officially licensed to write, I can’t even sit for my learner’s permit. But guess what? Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care…….
My mama still loves me though………:)
Good to see you at Terre’s; did you know she’s practically in my backyard?
Bill, hi, thanks for stopping in to comment! I love how Ruth–as many of us, sans-license–is driven by her imagination.
Backyard? Which door would I have to look out? North, south . . .? I’m instant friends with anyone who uses the terms “holy moly” and “Jimmy crack corn.” Shout louder so I know where to look 🙂
East? For some reason I thought you were in Tampa but I could be mistaken. I’m in Lakeland.
Ruth does have a great imagination and able to carry it to print. Nobody is going to yank her license.
Agreed; she’s fully licensed to quill 😉
Licensed To Quill – I love it!! 🙂
Ironic that with a License to Quill your work is so ‘alive’ 😉
Oh, Bill!! I’m so glad you stopped by!! Yay!! 🙂
Yes, I do have a certain amount of apprehension that the Grammar NitPickers will hunt me down. But hey, now that I have you as my copy editor, I should be in the clear, right?! Plus we have your Mama on our side, so nobody in their right (or left) mind would dare to disparage us!!
Wave ‘hello’ to Terre over the back fence for me!
This Ink Slinger bows to your brilliance and will take a bullet from the grammar police to keep that pen in your hand.
Good heavens, that’s mighty generous of you but you’ve suffered enough for my ink in your role as my Ideal Reader! Besides, you sling some pretty colorful ink yourself and the world is a better place for it, Sunshine!! 🙂
Pingback: Guest Post Assignment - BULLISH INK | BULLISH INK
Ruth, you conjured up a whole roomful of images and sounds that drew a standing ovation from the legion of writing rogues… er, rogue ink slingers who visit Creative Flux. I’ve wondered for a long time about that incessant sound that I heard whenever I write, but now you’ve identified it for me – hissing at the grammar books. Keep going with your pixie dust and spitballs, and let your words have shameless fun. That other sound you hear is cheering from the peanut gallery – keep up the good work.
So pleased to meet a fellow ink rogue, Karl! I look forward to writing shoulder to shoulder with you while we dodge the grammar police and have shameless fun with words!! Thanks so much for your encouragement! 🙂
Pingback: Laurustina » In the Meantime … Elsewhere » Laurustina
Like you Ruth, I am completely Without License which does scare me too, but Elmore Leonard’s 11th rule fills me with hope!
Totally love your writing!
I’m so happy you stopped by, Lisa!! We’ll shoulder Leonard’s 11th Rule together and keep laying ink as long as we can get away with it, okay?! *hugs*
Wow:
Your sis sent the link and I love your writing and if anyone critiques it they have me to deal with.
Thank you!! Glad you enjoyed the read and so happy to have you in my corner! 🙂
Ruth, reading this is like biting into the first ripe peach of the season: a burst of flavor that goes beyond the taste buds. Your philosophy of unabashed immediacy is reflected perfectly in your fresh, lyrical style; and I admire your skills of observation and your smart and sassy tribute to Truth.
I also think for those of us with less training, it is good practice to “kiss before we hiss.” For instance, I typically need to embrace and understand something before I depart from it. And I think you’ve done this. Although you claim to be unlicensed, it’s obvious that you’ve studied and have a mature understanding of this craft called Writing; therefore, when you take liberties with grammar you continue to be successful.
I think your spontaneity is highly skilled, endearing and completely engaging! I am so grateful that you wrote this piece for CF, it is both delightful and provocative. Thank you!
Thank you! When you invited me to write for CF I was bowled over and worked hard to create a piece that would be enjoyable, memorable and honest. I wanted to be very transparent about who/what I am as a writer.
I enjoy the process of writing nearly as much as the storytelling and when I am not writing, I am studying writing, so I quite agree with your ‘kiss before we hiss’ concept.
Thank you for your encouragement, support and most of all for engendering such a deep and profound sense of creative community through CF and by your tireless, gracious and enthusiastic championing of fellow creatives.
With much affection and respect ~ Ruth 🙂
Terribly kind of you, Ruth, thank you~
Pingback: A Room Of One's Own - BULLISH INK
Pingback: Creative Theft: I Stole Dali’s Dove | virtualDavis
Pingback: My Creative Process – The Grand Blog Tour | Ruth Long
Pingback: A Room Of One’s Own 2012 | Bullish Ink