Write Place, Write Time

Paul Lisicky

Two days ago, I walked the beach in North Carolina, holding a story in my head. The idea wasn’t to write it just yet, but to think into it.  Seven pelicans flew over bright waves. I heard a turn of phrase in my head. I stopped, reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone. I tapped the sentence into my phone, though I could barely see for the glare. 

I walked on and came upon a fiddler crab. I squatted before the crab, watched his claw moving back and forth, the bubbles at his mouth. A second sentence came to me. Then another sentence, then a paragraph. The sun heated up the bridge of my sunglasses, which made me a little queasy, but that didn’t so much matter.  I kept walking, stopping, looking, writing. By the time I reached the curve of the beach, where the land literally runs out, I had roughed out the draft of a page. The page had nothing directly to do with the fiddler crab or the pelicans or the gulls or the broken shells, but I’m sure they all had a hand in it.

Paul Lisicky is the author of LAWNBOY and FAMOUS BUILDER.  His new novel, THE BURNING HOUSE, is just out.  He is the Visiting Writer in the MFA Program at University of North Carolina-Wilmington this month.

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