Grasshopper In Flight 1A
Passageways and ideas on writing
Entrance, image copyright 2022, Richard Edic
Wanting to do something specifically about writing, I started to think about an inbetweener, a newsletter extra focused on writing. I came up with In Flight as a name and then wondered, can grasshoppers actually fly or do they just do huge leaps (like some writers I love).
So, I googled it of course, and the answer was yes, sort of. But the first article that came up included a picture of a grasshopper on a news lens 970’ up in NYC! That’s some hop!
So, indulge me in between my biweekly ‘real’ newsletter issues and we can talk about writing and creativity in general. And specifically about ideas, because I have heard some people have a hard time generating them. My feeling about that is don’t think too much because they are just starting points, that kick in the pants that pisses you off and then gets you thinking.
My brother Rich is a photo illustrator. I don’t know if he likes that term, but it works for me. You’ll see his stuff here. The image above, titled Entrance, kind of killed me. For one thing, it is a passageway, which is where all writing (and creativity) tends to start. You enter into a transition zone from one reality (my coffee is cold) to another (it’s dark in here and I don’t see the way back anymore).
That doorway does not exist. Richard made it in Photoshop, meticulously building each stone. He told me he was channeling being a mason. And that’s where the creativity thing gets so interesting.
My ideas have a logic of their own that I can follow, but when I look at work like Rich’s I am bewildered by how different his perspective is. How did he see that wall, shoot it and then see a doorway? And how did that doorway become so compelling and dangerous looking at the same time?
The image is an entire visual story, one that, as a writer, triggers a whole story that could go anywhere, the best kind. Barbara Kingsolver wrote a novel called The Lacuna about these passages, holes in time and space that appear and disappear.
Oxford defines lacuna this way:
‘an unfilled space or interval; a gap.
"the journal has filled a lacuna in Middle Eastern studies"
a missing portion in a book or manuscript.’
It goes on to say it can be a cavity or depression in a bone.
A mundane description for an infinitely mysterious thing, but that’s what dictionaries are for. Ideas are lacunas, unfilled spaces or intervals. ‘Intervals’ implies that they have a relationship with time and time is something writing can access from any point. That’s a gift writers should know about, that there are no rules about portraying time. We can jump around and create doorways, but we also need to know that they may be one way.
And that our experience is unreliable because we are making it up. Wrap your heads around that one.
By the way, this all has nothing to do with fiction or non-fiction or writing in general. Rich’s massive wall is real, his entrance is not. But did you know that when you looked at his image?
This is a new aspect of my biweekly newsletter, The Grasshopper. In Flight will feature brief pieces on writing and creativity and images from some of my favorite artist friends.
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