The Garden School Tattler

Last night I had dinner with an old friend I don't see much. Her friendship is important to me because she is also a writer and we can talk for hours about writing. Sounds dull to most people, but when you write seriously, it's a craft looking to be elevated to an art form. As an art form, writing becomes very exciting. It's beautiful, interesting, and says something true. Being able to convey something real and true to a reader is what writing is about. There are few enough people who can really read, and a fraction of them can write. Only the most advanced cultures write. Put that together and the company is very limited.

We know that most people are bored to stupefaction by the kind of conversations we have, so getting together to talk about what we are writing is a treat. No one ever says to a writer, "What are you writing?" But when a fellow writer asks another, "What's new?" That opens a door to an evening of defining fictional people doing fictional things and describing how and why they are doing what they are doing and that sends most people running for their lives.

Now tack onto that serious Catholic writing complete with philosophy, psychology, theology, and dogma and you're more or less standing all by yourself. But that's what MG and I do.

So how does that influence our work with very young children? I think it's the interest in finding the truth about why people - and little kids are people - do what they do. There is an absolute interest in development, growth as an intelligent and whole person, and interest in how influences in a child's life make him strong and independent.

A serious writer rarely looks to pat responses, ordinary ideas, common beliefs or trends. Most common trends are simply wrong. They are shallow, badly formed, have little if any depth and are very destructive. I just finished a series for WFIE on hyperactivity. It's not anything like other people write - it's untrendy - but it's true. How do I know? I experienced the hyperactive inside and out, and I thought long and hard about what it really means to be hyperactive and how that changes the world he is in and how he is changed by it. That's what writers do with characters and if they apply that to real life, it makes them a little more curious about the world and the people in it.

Each person is an individual, and writing about people teaches you that. The heart of hearts is a treasure, and when you work with children, you often see this heart of hearts. It's through "work" that something called trust is established and trust is the window through which we really see one another.

So, some thoughts for a Wednesday morning!