Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
Robert Hayden
Lesson 1: write what you know
- You must write!
- Use automatic writing to unblock or "create the kernel"
- Whilst writing what you know is a good thing, you cannot assume that just because it happened the reader will believe it happened. The writing needs authenticating detail - specificity
- Learn to observe - observe in words the way a photographer might observe visually
- Use things that stand out
- Use your imagination to augment authentic details
- Look beyond the obvious
- Use documents and diaries for authentic source material
- Look up words you don't know
- Use a notebook to record experiences or observations
Back to writing course
