What I Saw

I hear you already (knowing you’ve peeked below at the rock photo). Ugh! Boring! Rock licker! Mother Earth! Science geek! All fair shout-outs, I suppose.

But before you click far, far away from my post, stay with me, please. This post isn’t all about rocks or the fascinating things I’m learning in my geology class. It’s about noticing and appreciating the things around you – and not seeing a dirty rock as “just a rock,” but understanding the incredible processes that formed the rocks under your feet. Seeing things differently. All things, really.

This is a piece of quartz, found atop one of the hills on our property. Click to enlarge.

So what is so exciting about looking at the ground and the terrain around you? For starters, it tells a story – of climate change, erosion, weather conditions, and even life – as fossils are often contained within. I learned, personally, that the black and white Oracle granite chunks I find strewn across my property are 1.4 billion years old. And that granite is actually magma that formed in chambers deep underground and slowly cooled, only revealed over time by erosion and the uplift of plates. I find all of that supremely incredible to consider.

When you look around, think about the natural processes that occurred to make your surroundings they way they are today: deposition, weathering, erosion. And aren’t we, as human beings, shaped in the same way? Don’t life experiences deposit upon us, forming our character and making us who we are? Don’t we weather from difficult experiences, from the passing of time, from illness and tribulations? Can’t parts of us erode – the bad and the good? Aren’t we continually in development, changing, just like the environment around us?

For Writers: As I was sitting in class, I realized how geology parallels character development. You may recall, from your early Earth science classes, that there are three types of rocks:

• Igneous –formed by fire
• Sedimentary – formed from sediments
• Metamorphic – from the Greek, meaning ‘changed’

What kind of character is your protagonist? Is she igneous? A firey, tell-it-like-it-is gal? Or is she more sedimentary? More even-keeled and well-rounded, formed from years of experiences, delicately stacked, layer upon layer?

She might even be a combination of the two: metamorphic in nature – firey as a youth, but accumulating sediments – positive experiences in her adult years – only to be exposed and changed by something difficult later in life, something that metamorphoses her personality yet again?

Perhaps all of our characters are a bit of each? Aren’t they all formed by the experiences around them, and changed daily by newer experiences and events?

Have you ever thought about the role that “chance” plays in your life?

I thought about it this morning during my jog along the railroad tracks. I just happened to stop at a particular section of the track to catch my breath, only to look up and see a beautiful, bushy-tailed coyote eyeing me from the crest of a nearby bluff.

Coyotes are frequent visitors to our Southern Arizona ranch. Wiley they are – just as the cartoon character’s name suggests. This coyote was photographed on the trail camera we set out to photograph wildlife. Click to enlarge.

A healthy-looking fella (fat from the hares in the area, made fat, in turn, by the abundant summer vegetation), the coyote slinked away when I approached. The encounter made me wonder how many other times I’d missed other coyotes stealthily watching me, because my eyes were trained on the ground in front of me. My guess: plenty of times!

For Writers: What role does “chance” play in your writing? Did you just happen to stumble upon a story idea when you weren’t looking for one? Did a phrase just pop into your head when you least expected it? I often think about the shape-shifting nature of writing. I mean, what are the chances that what you write on Monday are going to be the same words you put down on paper on Friday? Slim.

I find it fascinating to wonder how differently your writing might be if … If a certain experience hadn’t occurred the day you’re writing (an experience so profound that it shaped your character’s thoughts) … If you hadn’t seen something that sparked your imagination that day … If you were having a bad day that soured your mood, or a good day that brightened your spirits … If you were reading something entirely different (I think we all know that our writing is subconsciously influenced by who and what we’re reading).

So it seems to me that our finished manuscripts are a product of chance, aren’t they? And isn’t our writing, as a whole, a product of chance – words flowing onto the page today that might differ dramatically tomorrow?

To me, that is part of the wonder and magic of writing. And probably why I can’t get enough of it!