Monday, February 25, 2013

Trolling For Treasure






I can remember when I was younger how I used to love to go fishing.  Growing up so close to the Gulf coast, of course fresh fish and other seafood made its way to our table quite often.  There were canals surrounding my hometown, full of everything from channel catfish to snapping turtles and almost every weekend during the summers would find me either fishing off the banks of a levee or pulling traps to uncover treasures from the deep.

It fascinated me how my parents would set the traps and troll for the extra food to feed a hungry family of six.  They would start with what seemed like useless garbage and ended up with tasty treats to tempt the fussiest taste buds. Searching for treasures in the canals surrounding our house was a necessity and the fastest way to produce the best results.

Writing is a lot like trolling.  Writers throw out the nets, hoping to gather juicy ideas and create a delicious dish for their readers to sink their teeth into.  But writing, like fishing, requires tons of patience and the right tools to make the big catch. You can't reel in a marlin with a cane pole and you can't produce a quality story with just a wish and a prayer. You have to cast your net with just the right balance between character and plot.  Sometimes your ideas are too small and you have to throw them back.  Sometimes they just aren't tasty enough to entice an agent or editor to try your story. 

But sometimes the bait and the line are just right and they are hooked...










8 comments:

  1. As kids we used to supplement the table with a variety of shellfish and wild fruit. Nothing was ever wasted.

    It grieves me to see how wasteful people are today. I think the same applies to writing. Needless repetition was a common fault of mine. When pricing the book I was told (quite logically) the more words there are the more money the book will cost.

    As a result I had to scour the manuscript to reduce the 'wasted words' and was surpised how often I was guilty. Perhaps the best example for wasting words though is Yogi Berra who came up with these two pearls....

    'I made a wrong mistake' and 'It's deja vu all over again' although Samuel Goldwyn's 'I never make predictions, especially about the future' is another classic.

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    1. HI JP! I'll tell you the story someday of what we had to do to eat around our house and survive. I agree there is a lot of waste in the world these days...in the writing ANd in reality...;~(

      Thanks for stopping by and come back any time!

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  2. I caught a fish on my 9th birthday. It took me 30 years to catch another one. I was with Donna both times. I wonder if that was a good sign...or a bad one.

    jp, I never thought that written words could be wasted. Shows how much I know.

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    1. Hi Janet! Does trying to catch crawfish with our toes count? ;~)

      Thanks for stopping by and come back any time!

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  3. You always come up with the BEST analogies!

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    1. Awww, thanks Erik! I've have a lot of life experiences to draw from...lol...

      Thanks for stopping by and come back any time!

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  4. ....and sometimes, you will reel in an old combat boot, anyway. Then it's time to go back to square one.

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    1. Lol, Genevieve...so true!

      Thanks for stopping by and come back any time!

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