Writing Your Way In
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William Carlos Williams’s dictum about things being the life of poetry holds true in creative nonfiction as well. The essay teeming with “stuff” is much more memorable than one which floats in abstraction. A piece about love doesn’t end up in our cells unless it is grounded in the softness of your lover’s neck as it disappears into the collar of his sweatshirt. Or what about that scab you picked while you were crying on the phone to the man you knew would leave you by spring? Just like the strong poem, the strong piece of prose is rife with metaphorical power – from your mother’s out-of-tune piano to the orphan sock that keeps showing up in your tangled underwear drawer. When we turn to things, the truth comes at us through the back door, and we are surprised by ideas and emotions we didn’t know we possessed.
View the entire exercise here: Writing Your Way In