A Winter Moon and Rocky Ford Cantaloupe: Setting as Character in the Work of William Goyen

The fairy fields of William Goyen

On a recent visit to a cubbyhole of a bookstore, a bring and buy kind of place where books of every vintage are crammed into every space like odd bits in a junk drawer, I found a gem: Selected Writings of William Goyen.

Never heard of William Goyen? I hadn't either. That's the fun of old bookstores and finds like this. if you're looking to learn how to write setting, here's a writer who truly made it a character, as he did in his first novel, The House of Breath, published in 1950 and an elegy to growing up in Texas that begins thus:

"O Charity! Every frozen morning for awhile in early winter you had a thin little winter moon slung like a slice of silver Rocky Ford cantaloupe over the sawmill; and then I would go out to the well in the yard and snap off the silver thorns of ice from the pump muzzle and jack up the morning water and stand and look over across the fairy fields at you where you lay like a storybook town …"

There is everything right about this sliver of Goyen's work. Charity, akin to Goyen's hometown of Trinity, is personified in writing that's alive, vivid, evocative and detailed — you can feel Charity like a presence in the room, as Goyen must have felt it. How many details in this portrait of a place can you find?  

A Time to Cast Away: The Best Time to Edit

I'm a morning person, but that doesn't mean morning is the best time of day for me to edit. Mornings are generally split into two types of time: writing on the train as I commute to work, and doing as much as possible as fast as possible on days I work from home. For me, the best time to edit is late afternoon. The mental pump is primed and running smoother than in the a.m. and not as intermittent as the p.m.

To do my best editing, it's important to go with my natural rhythm. In the afternoon, I'm less likely to put up with prose that isn't working, but not as likely to cut text that is working and just needs editing. It  also helps the process to go from one environment to another. This can be as simple as going from my office to the family room, but changing my headspace recharges my mental batteries so that I can work more efficiently and see mistakes I would otherwise miss.

I'm blessed to have a fairly fixed schedule, which suites me because I work better with structure. Most people do, even if that structure varies. For editing purposes, it helps to find a rhythm that allows for these key aspects of creativity: a time to create, a time to pluck up what has been created and a time to rest from creating.

Everything is beautiful in its time. And, timing, as they say, is everything.

For a great prescriptive on finding your rhythm, see Turn, Turn, Turn this by the Byrds.