This article in yesterday’s Boston Globe opened with what seemed like an obvious point: “Scents are very much linked to memory,” says perfumer Christophe Laudamiel. “They are linked to remembering the past but also learning from experiences.”
Of course they are, I thought. The article went on to explain new efforts under way to include scents in historical depictions: for example, “Jorvik Viking Center in York, England, is famous for taking visitors right into the smells of Viking life as part of its re-created Viking village. Dale Air, an environmental scenting company, imbued the center’s exhibits with smells that would have been present at the time - right down to the odor of a fish market and a latrine.”
And then in this morning’s Globe was a book review of a memoir by a woman whose intended career path in the culinary arts became derailed when she lost her sense of smell in an accident, emphasizing again the importance of smell in our perceptions of the world.
While I might not rush to a historical site specifically for the sake of inhaling the odor of a fish market and a latrine, I always find discussions about scents interesting, because they matter so much to me, and I know it’s not unusual to feel this way. In just a few minutes’ time yesterday, I made this list of ten scents, odors and aromas that always carry the same very specific connection for me:
Gasoline: Boating and waterskiing on the Maine lakes of my childhood summers
Grease in a frying pan: The apartment building in which my husband lived during our college years
Moth balls: My paternal grandparents’ lakeside vacation house in Maine
Coconut oil: The trip to Aruba that Rick and I took in the mid-1990s
A certain kind of furniture polish: my maternal grandparents’ guest house in Colorado, but also my aunt and uncle’s house in New England, since they had the same kind of antique furniture and probably used the same polish
Lemon Pledge spray: Tuesday afternoons of my childhood, which was the day our housecleaner came to our house each week
Industrial strength cleaner: a particular hallway (the one on the lower level of the Performing Arts Center) at my high school
Wet indoor/outdoor carpeting: the tennis club my parents belonged to when I was growing up, where a favorite privilege was getting to drink a can of Coke while watching them play tennis
Creosote: a bed and breakfast in Edinburgh where I once spent several days (though I can’t remember why it smelled of creosote)
Pepperoni pizza: the basement of my freshman dorm in college (the exercise room, where I worked out every evening, was adjacent to the campus pub)
And there’s a crisp, chilly, earth-like scent that every year fills the air in Carlisle on October nights: this to me is the quintessential smell of home.
Aromatic memories make for good writing prompts. Any of the above would be a good place to begin an essay. And I’ll keep adding to my list.
Showing posts with label writing ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing ideas. Show all posts
Monday, July 18, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
What cell phones can do for writers
Among the timeless tips that writers have handed down over the centuries, such as “Write what you know” – the value of which I blogged about earlier this week – has always been to take any and every opportunity to eavesdrop. Snippets of conversations among strangers have always provided fiction writers with an endlessly rich source of ideas. Why did she say that? What did she mean? Were his feelings hurt? Has she ever said that before? Imagining the meaning behind what was said gives writers new ideas for plot; contemplating the vaguer implications of just how it was said leads to nuanced characters with complex personalities.
And this is one area in which cell phone use has made life for writers far more interesting than it used to be. Now we can overhear not just conversations between two people who are talking in person but countless snippets from passers-by talking into their phones – often loudly and unguardedly. Annoying cell phone conversations may be pet peeves for other citizens, but for writers, they are a gold mine. At least that’s what I try to tell myself every time I start to feel irritated by the noise pollution of people all around me having one-sided conversations.
Last month I was walking through downtown Aspen on a warm, beautiful summer evening. Everywhere were visitors and locals alike basking in the beauty of the sun setting over the mountains. A quartet from the Aspen Music School had set up chairs and music stands and were playing classical melodies. Small children in bathing suits were darting through the street fountain. Never had the town looked so enticing to me.
Just then a teenage girl wandered into my field of vision. “I am so bored!!!” she screamed into her phone. “I’m in Aspen and I have nothing to do!”
Well, I thought, that’s another perspective. I always feel like there’s more to do in Aspen than anywhere else I’ve ever been. You can shop, attend lectures on a variety of topics, hike, bike, fish, raft, dine, stroll. But this young woman’s perspective was different from mine. She apparently would rather be anywhere else. Were I trying to come up with a fictional scenario at the moment, beginning with an imagined character sketch of her would be a great starting point. Or I could begin by imagining her circumstances, which might lead to a concept for plot: how had she landed here so unwillingly, what was everyone with whom she was traveling doing, and what would she herself rather be doing and where?
So these days, instead of finding it annoying when people talk on their phones on train cars or shops, I try to appreciate the narrative potential of the situation. Everyone has a story, and listening to phone calls gives us an inkling of what that story might be. From that point, we’re free to imagine the rest as accurately or absurdly as we wish. It’s a gift to writers, really: one that I am trying hard to remember to accept graciously.
And this is one area in which cell phone use has made life for writers far more interesting than it used to be. Now we can overhear not just conversations between two people who are talking in person but countless snippets from passers-by talking into their phones – often loudly and unguardedly. Annoying cell phone conversations may be pet peeves for other citizens, but for writers, they are a gold mine. At least that’s what I try to tell myself every time I start to feel irritated by the noise pollution of people all around me having one-sided conversations.
Last month I was walking through downtown Aspen on a warm, beautiful summer evening. Everywhere were visitors and locals alike basking in the beauty of the sun setting over the mountains. A quartet from the Aspen Music School had set up chairs and music stands and were playing classical melodies. Small children in bathing suits were darting through the street fountain. Never had the town looked so enticing to me.
Just then a teenage girl wandered into my field of vision. “I am so bored!!!” she screamed into her phone. “I’m in Aspen and I have nothing to do!”
Well, I thought, that’s another perspective. I always feel like there’s more to do in Aspen than anywhere else I’ve ever been. You can shop, attend lectures on a variety of topics, hike, bike, fish, raft, dine, stroll. But this young woman’s perspective was different from mine. She apparently would rather be anywhere else. Were I trying to come up with a fictional scenario at the moment, beginning with an imagined character sketch of her would be a great starting point. Or I could begin by imagining her circumstances, which might lead to a concept for plot: how had she landed here so unwillingly, what was everyone with whom she was traveling doing, and what would she herself rather be doing and where?
So these days, instead of finding it annoying when people talk on their phones on train cars or shops, I try to appreciate the narrative potential of the situation. Everyone has a story, and listening to phone calls gives us an inkling of what that story might be. From that point, we’re free to imagine the rest as accurately or absurdly as we wish. It’s a gift to writers, really: one that I am trying hard to remember to accept graciously.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Write what you don't exactly know
On the two-hour drive to Portland yesterday evening, the kids and I listened to Tom Ashbrook interview Josh Ritter on WBUR’s “On Point.”
Josh Ritter has long been a songwriter, and recently published his first novel, Bright’s Passage. I’m generally interested in what anyone at all has to share about the writing process, but I was particularly interested in the reflections of someone who has covered such widely differing genres.
One comment Ritter made (not having a transcript, I dare not try to actually quote him, so I’ll qualify this in advance by saying all of this is paraphrased from memory) was that while the old chestnut “Write what you know” is solid advice, he also likes to dwell on those topics about which he is puzzled – those which he does not exactly “know.” In my experience, this is a very effective insight. Occasionally I’m invited into an elementary or middle school classroom to talk about writing, and one thing I like to tell the students is “I’m now going to give you two opposite pieces of advice. Write about what you are certain of. And write about what you are unsure of. Examples in the first category: What skiing fast downhill feels like, how your grandparents’ house smells, the reasons you had fun on your last vacation. In the second category: anything that leaves you with questions or a sense of being on the fence.” (What I really mean is “a sense of ambivalence,” but in a classroom setting I'm not always sure the kids know that word.)
One of my favorite writing exercises is to start with “I’m not sure how I feel about….” There are thousands of ways to finish that phrase. Angels. Universal health care. Living in a small town. American pioneers. International travel. Visits from extraterrestrials. Anything about which your beliefs waver makes for good writing, just as anything you can describe with no sense of uncertainty at all does. Write what you know…and what you don’t.
Sometimes when I’m teaching, I call this “the Suzanne exercise,” because it reminds me of a colleague from long ago who was one of the least ambivalent people I’ve ever known. Suzanne saw everything as black and white, from people’s personalities to politics to workplace issues. She seemed to have no capacity for ambivalence at all. And not surprisingly, she was not a writer, or any kind of artist at all, as far as I remember. What could she have written about? There was nothing over which she was puzzling.
Josh Ritter feels otherwise, and so do I. Dwell in the murkiness of the not-quite-known, said Ritter on “On Point,” and I absolutely agree. The areas about which you just don’t have the answer provide the richest sources of writing material. So write what you know, but write also what you don’t.
Josh Ritter has long been a songwriter, and recently published his first novel, Bright’s Passage. I’m generally interested in what anyone at all has to share about the writing process, but I was particularly interested in the reflections of someone who has covered such widely differing genres.
One comment Ritter made (not having a transcript, I dare not try to actually quote him, so I’ll qualify this in advance by saying all of this is paraphrased from memory) was that while the old chestnut “Write what you know” is solid advice, he also likes to dwell on those topics about which he is puzzled – those which he does not exactly “know.” In my experience, this is a very effective insight. Occasionally I’m invited into an elementary or middle school classroom to talk about writing, and one thing I like to tell the students is “I’m now going to give you two opposite pieces of advice. Write about what you are certain of. And write about what you are unsure of. Examples in the first category: What skiing fast downhill feels like, how your grandparents’ house smells, the reasons you had fun on your last vacation. In the second category: anything that leaves you with questions or a sense of being on the fence.” (What I really mean is “a sense of ambivalence,” but in a classroom setting I'm not always sure the kids know that word.)
One of my favorite writing exercises is to start with “I’m not sure how I feel about….” There are thousands of ways to finish that phrase. Angels. Universal health care. Living in a small town. American pioneers. International travel. Visits from extraterrestrials. Anything about which your beliefs waver makes for good writing, just as anything you can describe with no sense of uncertainty at all does. Write what you know…and what you don’t.
Sometimes when I’m teaching, I call this “the Suzanne exercise,” because it reminds me of a colleague from long ago who was one of the least ambivalent people I’ve ever known. Suzanne saw everything as black and white, from people’s personalities to politics to workplace issues. She seemed to have no capacity for ambivalence at all. And not surprisingly, she was not a writer, or any kind of artist at all, as far as I remember. What could she have written about? There was nothing over which she was puzzling.
Josh Ritter feels otherwise, and so do I. Dwell in the murkiness of the not-quite-known, said Ritter on “On Point,” and I absolutely agree. The areas about which you just don’t have the answer provide the richest sources of writing material. So write what you know, but write also what you don’t.
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