Synchronicity... oui!

Some may call it coincidence but I say it's synchronicity all the way... I've mentioned it a few times here - 5 February On Rivers comes to mind. So sit back and enjoy this tale of synchronicity and serendipity...

On the 10th of June 2010 I came across a photographic exhibition that was on in Washington DC - Allan Ginsberg's personal snapshots of his beat poet friends. Wow, I would have loved to have seen that.

On the 27th of June, planning a then-imminent trip to France, I blogged about a second hand bookstore Comptoir de l'image that was on my 'non-negotiable drop-ins' list for Paris.

On the 17th of July I walked into said bookstore and the first, the first, book I saw sitting on top of a pile waist high blocking my tracks was:..... the book from the Ginsberg exhibition! Aah... It had my name written all over it. 

So here it is. And what a find. The photos are a fascinating - somewhat voyeuristic - insight into the lives of the beat poets. (Yes that is Lou Reed, second photo from top, left.) Love the handwritten captions beneath each image too. And of course, there's Jack.

On rivers #4... synchronicity

I'm big on synchronicity. Swimming with the current on my river theme, this week has been sprinkled with synchronistic moments.
First, as I finished reading Bird by Bird, I came across this passage the author found in a prayer book: "The Gulf Stream will flow through a straw provided the straw is aligned to the Gulf Stream, and not at cross purposes to it."

Anne Lamott goes on to say: "I always tell my students about the Gulf Stream: that what it means for us, as writers, is that we need to align ourselves with the river of the story, the river of the unconscious, of memory and sensibility, of our characters' lives, which can then pour through us, the straw."
Second, I'd forgotten how those grand old dudes, the Impressionists, were right into rivers. Drinking in the breathtaking Masterpieces from Paris exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia brought back memories of smocks and raggy paint brushes and the smell of turpentine in high school art class. Garish teenage attempts at reproducing Monet's waterlillies and Gaugin's portly Tahitian women on canvas adorned many a doting parent's hallway after our prolific painterly phase in Year Eight. 
On loan from the Musee d'Orsay, one painting that I literally could not tear my eyes away from was Monet's In the Norweigan (c1807). "Monet's stepdaughters often appear in his paintings, and here Germaine, Suzanne and Blanche Hoschede are fishing and dreaming in a 'Norweigan', a type of wooden rowing boat. The painter omits sky and earth from his composition, as well as any other reference to the world beyond the river."
In this image, and in all the artworks that referenced rivers, the river infused the scene with life and energy. I swear I would have heard the gentle, poignant lap of oar against tide...had the overzealous clucks and aaahs of a tide of tour groupies, looking all Bug's Life in those crazy oversized headsets, not drowned it out.
Third, I was reminded of how quickly famine turns to flood when the road I was driving home along in the dark of night, without warning turned into a river. Out of nowhere a cloud burst flung lashing torrents across my windscreen. The tar turned slick and angry, the roar of the deluge stereophonic as the line of traffic skeetered towards Sydney. It was scary. I nearly cried me a river.

Art. Science. Craft.

Two issues I'm having today (yes, only two. It's a good day!) :
1. Sometimes my story seems so vast I have trouble steering though the excess to find the core. The true grit. The bits that move the plot forward.
2. Can you learn how to write a novel from a book about how to write a novel? Or should you relegate thoughts of how-to books to the desperado rubbish heap and just go with your gut?
I'd never bought a book on how to write a novel. Until...um, today. But it had a lovely cover and the blurb spoke to me*. Not in an epiphanous [ethereal breathy voice] "if you build it, they will come" kind of way. More like a gentle nudge from a old friend saying "glad you found me, let's sit down and have a cuppa".
In her book Bird by Bird, some instructions on writing and life, Anne Lamott remembers being 10 years old and watching her brother struggle to write a school report on birds. He'd had three months to do it, had written nothing, it was due the next day. Their father, seeing the boy frozen by the enormity of the task ahead, sat down beside him, put his arm around his shoulder and said 'bird by bird, buddy. Take it bird by bird'.
I like it. 
To break down my vast ideas into bite size pieces, I'm trying an exercise Lamott calls writing what you can see through a one inch picture frame. Choose one single piece of your story and write about all that you can see of it through a one inch frame. 
"One small scene, one memory, one exchange... This is all we're going to do for now. Just take it bird by bird."
At the same time I'm navigating my course via my gut instinct. 
What's the best writing advice you've come across?


*The bird theme first piqued my interest. The synchronicity of discovering the author and I share a birthday (albeit a few decades apart) came later.