Fields
of Vision: An Example of Dr. Hood's Writing Process
| Some time
ago, I attended a writers' workshop, in which I was prompted to write
about a strong childhood memory. As always, I began by writing quickly (freewriting)
in order to discover what I might want to say. Once I decided on the
memory, I freewrote everything I could remember. Then I tried to figure
out why the memory had stayed with me for forty years. I began in the sea,
in other words, and then went up the mountain to see what I could see. I
did not worry about sentence structure, grammar, spelling, or paragraphing
because I was writing for myself. Here's part of what I wrote as I was
discovering and inventing my ideas.
discovering 1
|
This isn't what I'd call a draft. Some writers call
freewriting like this a "discovery draft" and others call it a
"zero" draft. I just call it messing around with words.
discovering 2
|
| I became frustrated with my inability to figure
out why I was writing, so I returned to the memory itself and tried to
bring it to life. I started drafting an actual essay, in other words, even
though I didn't know where it was going. I had no point, but I knew that
writing would help me find one.
draft 1, page 1
|
As a
writer, I need to compose many words on many pages in order to discover
what I'm thinking and to create a form that suits that thinking. I label
and keep everything because I often change my mind, finding one phrase I
like here and a whole paragraph there. As you'll see, I started calling my
developing piece "Nuns" and started labeling the drafts and
numbering the pages.
draft 1, page 2
|
|
draft 1, page 3
|
In the second draft, I started paragraphing. As you'll
notice I didn't necessarily compose the piece straight through without
revising. I frequently stopped or went back to delete and add and alter
words. As a writer, I know that there is no difference between drafting
and revising in my process. Because I know I'm going to change things, I
always double space, whether I'm writing longhand or word-processing. I'd
suggest you do the same.
draft 2, page 1
|
|
draft 2, page 2
|
By the time I reached the end of the scene, I
realized that by writing about the black folks I had seen so many years
earlier, I was paying them the respect they deserved. I had discovered my
reason for writing. Boy was I relieved!
draft 2, page 3
|
| Rather than subject you to all the drafts ,
I've selected Draft 8 to show you next. By this time, I had word-processed
the essay, making it easier for me to read my writing and giving me some
distance from it. (For me I have to start a new draft when I can't read
the text any more.) As I wrote and revised this version, I was trying to
read it as another reader would -- at some remove.
draft 8, page 1
|
You'll notice that double-spacing leaves plenty
of room for revision, both large scale and small. You'll also notice that
I've expanded the ending by making it specific and that I've jotted
"my field of vision changed" in the margin. Jotting down that
insight really helped me find my way to a title that would be far more
satisfactory than "Re-vision," as this draft is named.
draft 8, page 2
|
Again, I'll spare you the
intervening drafts in favor of letting you read the final version.
Final Version
Fields of
Vision
The
wooden screen door banged behind us as we headed down the sidewalk toward the
paneled station wagon. In the crook of her right arm Mother held a brown bag of
groceries, and in her strong left hand she grasped my sticky right one. My
freckled pink feet burned, slapping like swim fins against pebbled concrete.
Mother dropped my hand to open the car door. I spun around and around, and
stopped.
On
the Merita Bread bench before me sat three nuns. I stood still, silently, and
bowed my head, holding my shoulders straight as I had seen my brothers and other
acolytes do every Sunday. Maybe the nuns weren't the big cross over the altar,
but I knew they were holy. I wanted to pay my respects, so I closed my eyes and
held my pose until I heard my name. On lifting my chin, I was surprised by their
darkening and. downcast expressions. Puzz1ed, I nevertheless kept my eyes on the
holy threesome, turning my head as I climbed up into the hot brown leather seat.
"Mama
?" I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to ask. "Do nuns go grocery
shopping?"
"I
suppose so. Why?"
"'Cause
of them."
"Who?"
Mother's gaze followed mine. "Robley, . . . " she paused, "those
aren't nuns." She quietly stated, "They're Negroes. . . regular people
like us, only with dark skin.
Not
nuns, I thought. Negroes. People like us with dark skin.
Suddenly,
I turned toward her. "Does it wash off?"
"Does
what wash off?"
"The
dark."
And
again Mother paused. This time she looked right at me. "No. The color is in
the skin. It doesn't wash off or scrub out." And perhaps because of what
she saw in my eyes, she added, "Do you understand?"
"I
think so," I said. Negroes, I mouthed slowly without speaking, stretching
my lips wide and rolling my tongue and teeth around the two long syllables,
caressing the exotically musical word, Negroes.
That
day my field of vision changed suddenly and forever; at four I learned to see
what my mother had noticed in passing: two middle-aged women in starched white
shirtwaists, white stockings, and sturdy black lace-up shoes, sitting beside one
balding man in creased black pants, white short-sleeved shirt, black bowtie,
with a shiny-billed black cap held in fingers the color of pecan shells. I had
bowed reverentially before two maids and a chauffeur. In the heavy stillness of
an Alabama August, under the green-striped awning of a suburban grocery store,
they sat, waiting on their lady employers inside.
I
think of them often now and of others like them – the invisible, silent
witnesses dusting the decorated houses, driving the expensive cars, watering the
flower gardens, diapering the white babies, nursing the crotchety grandmothers.
And, all the time, I see them waiting – waiting in hot kitchens for the dining
room bell, waiting in tree-shaded driveways for tow-headed children home from
school, waiting inside back doors for weekly pay in cash folded into crisp white
envelopes, waiting at dusk-lit streetcorners for crowded buses into town,
waiting for time for themselves and their families.
Now
in my deepening memory of Mother's simple words and of their awkward
embarrassment, I imagine bowing again. Only this time, to the Negroes and to
their waiting.
