Always Always Language
It’s always, always on my computer desktop and the top Note in my IPhone. I keep it handy because my Always, Always Language List is very important to me. The double “always” is to remind me of two things: how often I should listen for great language usage and how often I should WRITE IT DOWN when I hear it. (You think you don’t have to write it down, that you’ll remember. Trust me on this one, people—you won’t.)
Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I always, always jot down cool phrases that I hear or read or dream or make up. Right now, the list is at 30,000 words. The information is geological—oldest on the bottom. I cross out whatever I use in a book but don’t ever remove anything. Never know when you might need a variation of something you’ve used before.
Here are the current top items. They’ll move down if I hear anything really cool today.
The shadow tacked to his heels was long and grotesquely thin. (From a novel I’m reading.)
He had this infectious laugh, a cross between a hyena and a saxophone. (Overheard in a restaurant.)
If what doesn’t destroy you makes you stronger, I should be able to bench press a Buick. (TV comedian.)
The wind hurried wet leaves past her feet that tickled her bare ankles like kittens with milk on their whiskers. (Made it up while running.
Frost polished the night until it sparkled. (I think I dreamed it; I know I jotted it down right after I woke up.)
Ok, I hear it. The Indignation Alarm is going off in your brain, clanging ding, ding, ding! You’re thinking, “I thought every word in your novels came out of your own head. But with this language list thingy—are you saying … they didn’t?”
No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. Of course, every word in my novels comes out of my head. But the words in my head came out of the world! Everything I’ve ever heard or thought, or dreamed or read is churning around between my ears and somehow comes out in a totally unique way on the page that is distinctively Ninie Hammon.
What jotting down great language does is make you aware of it all around you. It primes the pump, gets your creative juices flowing, creates a rhythm of syntax in your head that flows out in your own distinctive way on the page. Then, in your own words, you come up with:
“Trailer houses, alone or in small herds, were affixed to the mountainsides with white stickpins. He’d heard the satellite dish had been declared the official flower of West Virginia and it was clear the seeds had blown across the state line.” Black Sunshine
“Everything Piper knew about coal mining would have fit in a bikini with enough room left over for Mahalia Jackson.” When Butterflies Cry
“Theo would rather face down a serial killer with a sinus infection and poison ivy on his privates than ride up that goat trail in a jeep!” The Last Safe Place
Language is what you’ve got, it’s all you’ve got, the bricks and mortar of your story. You have to be a master at it. One way—one of the BEST ways—is to jot down every cool usage you hear or read, every sentence that makes your heart sing. Then analyze what’s so good about it, why it appeals to you. Read it over and over to get the rhythm into your head. When you’re writing, something similar to what you wrote down may wind up on your page. That’s ok, too. It’s not any more plagiarism than milk is plagiarizing grass. There was a cow in between the grass and the milk. Not to beat a dead analogy, but you’re the cow.
There are other pre-writing activities besides making an Always Always Language list that you need as preparation before your fingers type, “Once upon a time…” We’ll talk about those next week.
But first, I have a question for you. Can you think of even one cool usage of language—in the grocery store, on television, out of your grandson’s mouth—that you’ve heard in the past week? What was it?
