“Steering the Craft” 11/31 #SOL2024

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“Words are events, they do things, change things. They transofrm both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it.” Ursula Le Guin

Although Le Guin’s book on writing is light (173 pages), I keep returning to it feeling the weight of each exercise. Today, I decided to examine “the sound of (my) writing” as she outlines in Chapter 1.

Exercise 1: Being Gorgeous

Part 1: Write a paragraph of narrative the’s meant to be read aloud. Use onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, rhythmic effects, made-up words or names, dialect – any kind of sound effect you like — but NOT rhyme or meter.

The green water’s surface moves without stopping, waves lapping up against the smoothed folds of grey granite along the shores of Georgian Bay. “The wind,” I say as he turns towards me. “The wind keeps it moving, but if you get down low to the ground and lie on the rocks, it’s quiet.” We both get to our knees and lie on our stomachs among the moss and lichens cautiously avoiding the waste of seagulls, and what we assume is deer droppings, though it could be rabbits. We prop ourselves up on elbows looking waterward, watching the waves and remember why we are here. We hear and smell the creaking of evergreens giving in to the wind. “He loved this bay. This is what he would want. Always the sailor.”

Published by Melanie White

I am a retired English and Media Studies teacher, and former Department Head of Fine Arts at Nepean High School in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. I am concerned with equity and antiracist practices while recognizing that I am speaking from a position of privilege and continuing to learn.

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10 thoughts on ““Steering the Craft” 11/31 #SOL2024”

  4. Ohhh, I feel this so much! Incredibly musical when read both silently and aloud. 

    “smoothed folds of grey granite”, “We prop ourselves up on elbows looking waterward, watching the waves and remember why we are here”, “We hear and smell the creaking of evergreens giving in to the wind”

    Such vivid details, and I hope it isn’t any time soon.

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  5. I dig the mystery in the line ‘remember why we are here’.

    A separate specific act?

    An instructive path to the peace that is there?

    Tribute?

    A meditation perhaps?

    Closure?

    All the above?

    I imagine a conversation earlier.

    ‘Should we return there?’

    Without considering the fullness

    of the happenings if you do.

    Heads nod.

    An assumption-

    entirely impossible-

    that all are on the same page.

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  6. Pingback: “Steering the Craft” Part 2 12/31 #SOL2024 – is_reflecting

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