'Prune dear, prune'

Peter Skrzynecki visited the Fellowship of Australian Writers' Southern Highlands Chapter today and gave a multitude of good advice and encouragement. He also shared some of his life story and some of the inspiration for his writing. Of the advice Skryznecki gave the one piece that will stick with me, which resonates with the advice that David Brooks gave in the workshop I did with him, is "prune dear, prune". This was something that Judith Wright told Skrzynecki after she read his first book. What I take from this advice is that a good piece of writing must be well edited. Skryznecki told us how Raymond Carver's first editor used to get Carver to cut a twenty word sentence in half to ten words, while still holding the same meaning. Once Carver had done this the editor would say, 'good, now cut it to five words'. This is an important technique for all forms of writing, to avoid waffling, but I believe it is especially important in poetry. A poem is so short that every word must be essential to the meaning and architecture of the poem.

Here is a little writing exercise, not a poem, but still a fun task. I had to write 100 words on the theme of 'whisper'. I really enjoyed writing this, which I haven't enjoyed writing fiction in a while. Could be the start of a short story.

Whisper

“What do you want? Well come on it’s not hard. What do you want?” 

He points at the menu, resting his finger underneath ‘steak sandwich $18’. He can taste it already, the rare, finely slithered flesh with just enough hot mustard to create a tickling sensation in his noise, the firm crust of the sourdough, the subtle crispness of the rocket leaves and the smooth oiliness of the avocado.

“You don’t want that. Look at the price, that’s an indicator of how big the meal is. You won’t want dinner…”

He glances over his shoulder, if only she would whisper.