A Writer In Search of Material

Last Sunday I had found a book of short stories by Annie Proulx titled ‘Close Range- Wyoming Stories.’ I had already read a short story in it called ‘Job History’ which told about the series of failed ventures or jobs that a character called does. The story is told in a matter-of-fact way without much dialogue. I liked the way the story ends with the son of the main character also repeating the same pattern of jobs his father did. It was full of details about various jobs and professions.

Anyway, I was leafing through my copy of ‘Writers on Writing’, a collection of essays on writing published in ‘The New York Times’. I found an essay by Annie Proulx in it called ‘Inspiration? Head Down the Back Road, and Stop for the Yard Sales’, which is all about second hand book stores, junk sales and the origin of ideas.

In the essay, Annie Proulx defines herself as a digger with metaphoric shovels carrying out research which she says is the most enjoyable part of writing. Since books are the source of many a fascinating details, Proulx says she loves to pick up books, dictionaries and how-to-do manuals details from which she incorporates in her stories. She says she is an inveterate buyer of useful books on all possible subjects scrounging libraries and second hand book shops for them.

Her desire to know the exact details has taken her to coalmines, icebergs museums and other places to find out how something looks and feels like so she can get the exact detail right into her stories. She says she also eavesdrops on conversations going on around her to get her dialogue right.

The grand digging grounds, Proulx says, are the second hand book shops from which she returns with boxes filled with books of all kinds, and she also laments the disappearance of second hand book shops, the card catalogues in libraries which have now been replaced by the impersonal internet. She also picks up bits of information from unlikely sources such as posters, hand bills and learns about new places and things by traveling on obscure lanes and roads in the country side.

It is an essay that tells of the various methods and ways that a successful writer gathers her materials for stories that sound true to life.