Blocked creative writing students

For all blocked creative writing students. Both physically and metaphorically.

The text to be studied is an extract from Zora Neale Houston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“It was a spring afternoon in West Florida. Janie had spent most of the day under a blossoming pear tree in the back-yard. She had been spending every minute that she could steal from her chores under that tree for the last three days. That was to say, ever since the first tiny bloom had opened. It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously. How? Why? It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep. It connected itself with other vaguely felt matters that had struck her outside observation and buried themselves in her flesh. Now they emerged and quested about her consciousness.

She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid.”

Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston, (1997 [1937]) pp. 23-24.

And here is a short video, thinking about the importance of description and looking at some note-worthy examples.

For more thoughts and writing exercises around colour check out the previous posts:

A Splash of Colour

Dance the Orange

Purple Prose

And here is a recording to accompany your free write this week.

Thank you to Lou for her thistle