We Now Return...

... to our (somewhat) regularly scheduled programming.

Summer has been, in a word, distracting: June was a car accident involving a deer, then hunting for and buying a new car; July was fun excursions and time with friends; August was extremely busy at work, then searching for and hiring a new teammate; and all three months were filled with skin-melting, energy-zapping heat.

Yet even as the summer's events distracted me from writing, I was present in my life. Clarity and revelation came without the practice of writing. In August, I took a week of vacation with plans of doing house projects and then settling down to read and write for a few days. I managed to start reading a book during the last two days of the week, and I felt I had failed my staycation. In hindsight, I think I needed to majorly hit the reset button, which is what happened. I always process and think a lot while I clean and organize, and the fluffy novel I got hooked on whetted my appetite for reading fiction again.

Thus, a few weeks ago I gave myself permission to spend a Sunday afternoon with a cup of coffee and the dusty shelves of one of Nashville's great used bookstores. Of course, the book I came away with was a brand-new book, because I'm horrible at shopping used bookstores (a fact I am not proud of, seeing as my career revolves around writing, and I do actually love books). But that book has inspired me to start exercising my creative writing muscle more.

The book is The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain. It's a fictional account of Ernest Hemingway's first marriage, which was during the 1920s when jazz was big and Paris was the hot place to be for up-and-coming writers. Ernest and his wife, Hadley, freshly married, moved to Paris so Ernest could pursue his craft. The novel is written from Hadley's point of view, and the author took the bones of the story from history and the many letters Ernest and Hadley wrote to each other, friends and family.

I read A Moveable Feast when I was in France for a month during college (10 years ago now!), and when my schoolmates and I spent the last weekend of the month in Paris, right in the Latin Quarter where Hemingway lived, I tried to visit all of his haunts. I strolled in the gardens where he walked, and I found the cafe and bookstore he frequented. Everything was more meaningful and familiar with Hemingway as my guide.

Reading this story is kind of like completing the circle. Now I get to know Hemingway through the eyes of this woman who loved him utterly, the woman he said he would rather have died than love another. And he's a younger Hemingway—his fire and charm fresher—slaving away in an "office" the size of a closet, trying every day to write just one satisfying sentence. Which is where the writing exercise comes into play.

Hemingway, like so many writers and artists, wanted to perfectly capture life in words. A moment, an object, a place, a person. Paula McLain does it wonderfully in this story, with sentences and phrases so delicious I have to read them aloud to feel them roll off my tongue. I'm inspired to follow in their footsteps. I've always been a "noticer," and I've often tried to describe what I see, even if the words never make it from my brain onto paper. (I remember walking up and down the street as a child, telling myself stories under my breath—stories that would sometimes be no more than one scene of a conversation.)

So the exercise is to put the details down on paper. To take small moments (because if you try to take whole hours or days when you're just starting, you'll burn yourself out) and describe them. A brief conversation or interaction with a friend. A sunrise. The way clothes feel on skin, the sound of a room, the smell of cooking food. Everything's fair game.

It's an old exercise, I know, but I've always been a late bloomer. Here's to seeing where the moments take me! If you're interested in exercising this muscle too and want some accountability, let me know!