Loving Your Thoughts First (Ronita Intro) (09/11/2021)

Loving Your Thoughts First | The Weekly Atticus

A recap of the week's writing at Atticus Review. Intro by Ronita Sinha.

My granddaughter Hyacinth, who is about nine, lives in Berlin, Germany. As goes with young children, she is going through a phase of writing stories. Once during our numerous video chats, she read me her latest tale, written in German and translated to English for my benefit. When I asked if she enjoyed writing, she shrugged prettily, and replied, “I like thinking about my stories more than writing them.” Her words uttered in joyous timber, and with shining eyes set me thinking.There are times when I too enjoy thinking about what I will write more than actually writing. As I pondered, I realized that I do not always think in words. More often I think in images. Pictures. Then the pictures summon language. For instance, I gaze at a cloud with a silver underbelly, and as I prepare to describe it, the picture translates into words and I arrange (and rearrange) the words in my head (later, on my screen) in a way that’s most faithful to the visual, or at least, as how I see it. Sometimes, like thinking in visuals, I think in sounds; the scraping of a chair as my protagonist pushes it back (in eagerness, in impatience, in anger?) and smells (fresh coffee, a gardenia spreading its petals, the stench of disappointment), and the memory of a touch (my mother’s hug, the grip of an elderly woman I helped cross the street). Funnily enough, even when I am thinking of a dialogue between people, I think of the characters in pictures, see their expressions, hear their tone. In my thoughts lie the magic of artistic creation, the inspiration and the process of finding the right words.My thoughts are an unbridled montage, leading me to realms known and unknown, tame and unchartered, sacred and blasphemous. My thoughts are secret, and who doesn’t enjoy a secret? I cherish my secret, nurturing it until I long to share it with others. And that’s the difficult part because to share I have to write. And writing is hard work. Thoughts replenish me, but the act of writing temporarily empties me. Still, I need to write because it’s also a release. My thoughts squirt in all directions like steam from the nozzle of a pressure cooker; controlled yet random. Taming them, forming and shaping them, I realize writing gives me no less pleasure than thinking about what I will write but then, I am a lot older than nine-year-old Hyacinth. Thoughts do not need craft to bloom but writing does. Thoughts are a girl among the mountains, dancing gleefully in tattered clothing, but the written piece is a beautiful woman lovingly, and painstakingly decked out in bridal finery. Or, in my case, at times, an ugly hag decked out in rags.Language then is perhaps the clothing of my thoughts. Much as I enjoy thinking about what I write, there is also a great thrill in stilling the cacophony in my mind and picking the jewels that will not only give my stories body and bones but also best adorn the work. Writers, how do you rejuvenate the wardrobe for your thoughts? No matter how, I hope you find the most suitable garb to dress your unique reflections that make your writing so especially yours.Thanks for reading. We're glad you're here.Ronita SinhaFiction Reader

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THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

FICTIONLANDMINEby Julie Beals"I lie to myself in this mental locket image. For something of this nature to actually happen, Travis, too, would need to be handicapped by an explosion."READ ON

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CREATIVE NONFICTIONMOUNTAIN QUARTETby Diane LeBlanc"Night is the first to arrive. She pulls from her wool coat a loaf of rosemary bread wrapped in a linen towel. Still warm. Window frost and fever bring curried pumpkin soup."READ ON

MIXED MEDIADEATH IN WINTERby Mary Kathryn Jablonski and Laura FrareFor their video, Laura and Mary wanted to use one image from nature with no editing where the camera was motionless for this piece in order to echo and honor this Zen feeling, challenging one another with such constraints. Laura then intuitively fit her original composition to the piece, punctuating it with chime sounds, suggested by the poem form as well.READ ON

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