What have we lost?

I've been reading over the past couple of days - beginning with The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. Jansson is better known internationally for her children's books chronicling the surprising adventures of the Moomin Family. The Summer Book, however, is regarded as a Scandavian classic - and with good cause. I'm not going to review it because I already have on my personal blog. But what stays with me after reading this book is the way Jansson makes what is unsaid as important as the actual conversations between the two central characters, Sophia and the Grandmother. Their interaction is subtly nuanced, the tensions and tendernesses resonate with their shared loss, but also with the reluctant knowledge that while Sophia is entering her life, the Grandmother is leaving hers.

I've also been re-reading Gerald Durrell's The Bafut Beagles. And while there may not be any immediate similarity between Jansson's quiet exploration of a shared summer and Durrell's far rowdier, crowded and eventful chronicles of animal collecting in West Africa, there actually is. It's a respect for language, a slower pace of writing and detailed observations of the surrounding world that gives both these books their authority.

It makes me wonder whether the contemporary emphasis on minimalism is really working for me as a writer. I'm going to spend some time over the next few months honing my own observation skills, extending my vocabulary and revising to strengthen images.

I suggest you join me in a holiday activity. Spend some time closely observing something you'd normally regard as ordinary - it could be new tulip leaves pushing their way out of the earth, or puppy antics or the way a member of your family concentrates. You might want to go further afield - take yourself on an observing excursion. Make notes. Then write a beautiful, measured page bringing your reader into the event or scene you've described. Revise it until each word is exactly the word you need. Consult your thesaurus. Consult your dictionary. Use at least one word you'd not normally use. Luxuriate in the slower pace.

Ask yourself afterwards whether or not you feel richer for the experience. Don't tell me it was 'awesome' or 'cool' or any other shorthand word!