I spent a couple hours last night at the Harvard Center for the Humanities listening to three amazing writers discuss ‘Nature and the Written Word’. The roundtable conversation was sponsored by the Harvard Museum of Natural History and PEN New England and I, for one, could have listened to it all night.
John Elder talked gently and eloquently about natural history writing and the art of personal observation grounded in science. I was struck by how much emphasis he placed on the ‘personal’ part of that equation, and I was inspired by his dedication to journaling and field drawing as a part of his own process. This morning I am eyeing my (mostly unused) journal with a feeling akin to wonder.
Katy Payne—who, by they way, I first met in the pages of Aril Pulley Sayre’s SECRETS OF SOUND—was asked how she got be such a good writer. Do you know what she said? She said. “Oh, we read a lot. Our family read out loud all the time … WIND IN THE WILLOWS, The Laura Ingalls Wilder books, JUST-SO STORIES …” She suggested that story and cadence and all sorts of unconscious knowledge of her craft simply slipped into her bones while she was read to and, later, when she read to her own kids. I wanted to stop the program for a standing ovation.
Sy Montgomery pulled me up short with a simple assessment of the task at hand: inspire readers to love and appreciate ‘our good, green earth.’ I have admired Sy from afar since I first laid eyes on THE SNAKE SCIENTIST and it was a thrill to hear her talk about her adventures and her process and her good, good pig. In a fit of boldness, I introduced myself to Sy after the program and told her that I, too, wrote ‘Scientists in the Field’ books.
“Oh! Which ones?” she asked.
“TRACKING TRASH,” I told her.
She proceeded to take my hand and say kind and lovely things. So kind and so lovely, in fact, that I will remember them for all of my days. (I was a bit overwhelmed, and I am hoping against hope that I remembered to tell her she is an inspiration to me.)
And, so, as I settle in this morning with a cup of tea and my bee book (yes, it is back on my desk already), it is with an entirely new feeling. I am not merely making final edits. I am not simply trying to meet the next deadline. I am reaching out into the world and hoping to inspire people—young people—with a story about our natural world. This is a powerful perspective to have at this stage of the process, when I have read and re-read my own words hundreds of times, when I have tweaked and smoothed and tweaked ad nauseum. I’m excited to begin all over again … and I have John, Katy and Sy to thank.
I ♥ field trips!
