The Importance of Being a Student

My mentor saddled me up with a leaning tower of books last Monday. Craft works -- the sort of books that hold all the answers, and that I desperately wish I could sit upon the crown of my head and suck into my brain via osmosis.

While I'm reading these exceedingly accessible, invaluable and important books, I'm also studying one of the greatest writers to have built story out of the English language.

I'm also reading from my TBR stack of review books and researching the authors that I have on my interview list.

Study, research and hunt are this Empress's invisible clothes.

It has been in the past year that I've admitted how important being a student is to a body of work, a sliver of art, a canvas of story. As a writer, I just want to sit down and crack my head open like an egg -- let all the words, fodder and material brandish the page like a golden stream of brilliance gifted from the gods.

What I end up with is a very pretty watercolor. A creation of quality somewhere between Bob Ross and the high kid in art class. It may look good on my refrigerator, but it won't make it to The Met. And I don't know about you, but if I am the representation of my work, and my work the representation of me -- I want to land every showcase from the Louvre to the Guggenheim.

So I've gone back to what inspired me in the first place. To the written world of words - the pages inside a story and the paragraphs that shape them. I am taking my time -- mental mapping, sentence slurping and deconstruction diagramming are now my constitutions.

I love to let the words slip and slide out. To sling the phrase and watch them color a page. But I don't want a motley mess of image. I am defining, refining and underlining my work. Like the Tin Man in Oz, I am buffing, waxing and oiling the worlds, so that they may bring into focus the realities I am giving up so much of myself to create.

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