Creative Cross-Training

Yesterday I was at my friend Jane’s house. Going to Jane’s house is a treat on many levels, it is an old sea captain’s home built in 1845 high on a hill overlooking Gloucester’s outer harbor. From her living room window you can see both Ten Pound Island Light and Eastern Point Light. Jane runs the house as a bed and breakfast and it is spectacular – from its majestic setting to its antique-filled interior, Jane’s Hovey House is a work of art. People come literally from all over the world to stay at Hovey House and Jane’s fabulous cooking is very much among its attractions.

While we were chatting Jane said she has in idea for a blog and she wants me to help her get it started. Great! I have become a solid advocate of blogging done well as a means of both creative expression and business marketing. We are going to get her blog up and running soon.

In sports many athletes practice cross-training to expand their capacities and increase endurance. It is a highly effective way of enhancing abilities. I think the same thing is true with creativity. People like Jane, who are multi-faceted creatives, expand their creativity exponentially by undertaking a new discipline. I am eager to see what she does with her new blog. One thing I know for sure, it will be fabulous.

Leslie Wind is a skilled goldsmith. I’ve gone on and on about her jewelry before – especially her recent line of shawl pins. I wish people could watch Leslie at work. She is a slender woman but when she fires up her blow torch and begins hammering silver and gold on her anvil her strength is impressive. A couple years ago Leslie decided to try acting. She joined Nan Webber’s wonderful Theatre in the Pines and, for her debut performance, played one of the sisters in Nunsense. Since then she has been in other productions and has recently joined a chorus to take up singing. She never ceases to amaze me.

My friend Larry Ingersoll is a Gloucester cop. A few years back he, with fellow GPD policeman Mark Foote, began writing a history of the Gloucester Police Department, Behind the Badge. They have just published the third volume in the series. Now Larry tells me he is thinking about a series of short stories based on cases he has worked on.

For some time now Mark Williams has been saying he wants to try writing fiction. His first book, F/V Black Sheep, is nearing production – he has the first set of gallies – and his second book about his life as a commercial diver, Code Flag Alpha, is under revision. Last night he told me he has started work on a screenplay. As he outlined the concept for me it was clear he has been giving this a lot of thought. His characters are already well-developed and he has done a lot of work on dialogue.

“It’s all about dialogue,” he told me. “No matter how interesting the special effects and all that stuff are, if it’s short on plot and lacking good dialogue you just lose interest.”

Just yesterday morning I had re-read a few of my favorite chapters from his book in galley form. That is always a whole different experience from reading it as a manuscript. And I was impressed, as I was from the beginning with his book, with his natural ability to convey how people talk. His short story in Windchill, Imprisoned in Maine, is a long dialogue that always makes me laugh. But his ability to write about his emotions, such as in his chapter A Garand Afternoon, knock my socks off. He is growing as a writer by continually challenging himself.

And I am trying to do murder again. As a novelist my stories tend to be voluptuous and descriptive with lots of character development and traditional romance but it is time to write another story for the Level Best Book anthology and so I have to think about crime. I have a flare for murder so I concentrate on that. I’m onto something good here -- I think I’ll kill a woman this time. It will make a nice change.

Thanks for reading.