"Everything I Know About Writing I Learned From My Cats: 3" - Barbara Jean Hicks

from the writing files of
children's author and educator
Barbara Jean Hicks,
Guest Columnist

LESSON TWO: MAKE DARING LEAPS
(Or: Are you a Planner or a Seat-of-the-Pantser?)

Cats are powerful jumpers—some more than others. Making the leap from the floor to the bed was as daring as my cat Patches got. The new pillow-top mattress, a scant two inches thicker than the old one, made her nightly leap a major challenge.

Miguel, on the other hand, was born to leap. With the right motivation—a Great Dane with a basso profundo bark, for instance—Miguel could sail over an eight-foot fence without touching it.

I’ve made a few “daring leaps” myself. Things like saying “yes” to jobs I wasn’t trained for and “no” to jobs that fed my body but not my soul. Things like dating inappropriate men. Moving, often. Starting over. Jumping in instead of dipping my toes.

I approach my writing that way. Some writers are planners, but for me, planning too much takes the “juice” out of writing. Starting a story is an adventure, a leap into the unknown. Writing is a process of discovery. I start with a curious bit of dialogue, a vivid image, a word or phrase that tickles my funny bone. Before I have any real idea where I'm going, I'm on my way. The act of writing teaches me what my story is and how it wants to be told.

I honestly can’t say, for instance, what inspired the opening sentence of Jitterbug Jam. I had a vague story idea—a monster afraid of the boy hiding under his bed. But I made no conscious decisions about the story arc or how the tale would be told. I simply began:

Nobody believes me,
and my brother Buster says I’m a fraidy-cat,
but I’m not fooling you:
there’s a boy who hides in my big old monster closet
all night long,
and then sneaks under my bed in the morning,
on purpose
to scare me...

The story would not have unfolded the way it did without that sentence. It sets the tone. It establishes the rhythm. It contains the kernel of the entire monster universe the rest of the story reveals. It survived seventeen revisions almost completely intact.

And those daring leaps in my personal life? Prime fodder for story ideas. For a veritable catalog of my dates with inappropriate men, one need look no further than my romantic comedy Loves Me, Loves Me Not. “DWF Seeks Family Man” may not have got me the man, but it gave me a lot of darn good stories.

So far, making daring leaps doesn’t seem to have harmed the cats or me. In truth, those leaps can be downright exhilarating!

What about you? Planning is all well and good, but sometimes making a daring leap is the only way to move forward.

Go for it!

Tune in next week for Lesson Three: Scratch Where It Itches (Or, What Do You Do When an Idea Won't Leave You Alone?)

 

THIS IS THE THIRD IN A SERIES. FOR THE INTRODUCTORY COLUMN ON "EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT WRITING I LEARNED FROM MY CATS," CLICK HERE. FOR LESSON ONE: BE CURIOUS, CLICK HERE.