Writing at the Intersection of Past and Present

/ Tracy Abell

I feel guilty sometimes.  Forty-three years old and I’m still writing war stories.  My daughter Kathleen tells me it’s an obsession, that I should write about a little girl who finds a million dollars and spends it all on a Shetland pony.  In a way, I guess she’s right:  I should forget it.  But the thing about remembering is that you don’t forget.  You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present.  The memory-traffic feeds into a rotary up in your head, where it goes in circles for a while, then pretty soon imagination flows in and the traffic merges and shoots off down a thousand different streets.  As a writer, all you can do is pick a street and go for the ride, putting things down as they come at you.  That’s the real obsession.  All those stories.
                                                             
                                                                        – – – from THE THINGS THEY CARRIED by Tim O’Brien

           

12 thoughts on “Writing at the Intersection of Past and Present”

  2. That’s a fantastic book. I read it too long ago. How come those memories don’t stay as strong as they should? I suppose it’s just a good excuse to buy a book–so it’s there when you want to pull it off the shelf again. I know this one’s on my shelf somewhere. Thanks for helping me remember.

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    • If you can’t find your copy, I have an extra. I bought it for a friend who was a Marine in Vietnam but never sent it to him. I love this book, every now and again have to read it again.
      Go find your copy, Linda…

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  3. If you can’t find your copy, I have an extra. I bought it for a friend who was a Marine in Vietnam but never sent it to him. I love this book, every now and again have to read it again.

    Go find your copy, Linda…

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    • It’s a good quote and I like the subject line (although I wish I’d thought up the phrase “the intersection of past and present.”) Tim O’Brien is a wonder.

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  5. I love this book, too. The quote seems particularly apt to me today since I picked up the WIP I put down a year ago and was amazed at the various snippets of my life that had gone into the rotary and come out in an entirely different form….

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    • Serendipity. Or synchronicity? Kismet? Something like that. Glad this quote fit with your day. And does mean DS is with agent? Or out in the world? Should my good vibes kick into overdrive?

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