A local concrete company recently invited members of the chamber
of commerce for a visit. Not having any idea what to expect, I
decided to accept the invitation.
At the beginning of their tour, all I saw were massive piles of raw
materials. The guide admitted that the mounds were a real hodge-podge
of stuff and that they needed to be sorted in order to discover
what was valuable. He demonstrated how the material was sifted
to separate the larger chunks from the silt and he explained how
both sizes were necessary, in varying degrees. Water,
I learned, provides the glue that turns those raw materials into
useful concrete, but the amount of liquid needed depends upon
the job that the concrete is expected to perform. Does a new homeowner
need a driveway? Is the city putting in a new street? Building
a bridge? Samples
of the concrete are tested periodically, the guide explained,
using both pressure and humidity. If no cracks appear within the
first seven days, then the company is about 70% sure of success.
By the 28th uneventful day, high quality is almost certain. By
this point of the tour, I wanted to leave to write down all of
the incredible parallels that exist between making concrete and
writing an article. Here are just four of them: 1)
Raw materials: Writers are presented with an overwhelming
amount of information and at first glance, it often looks like
a huge conglomerate of junk. Our chunks and rocks range from facts
found on the Internet to fascinating details discovered through
conducting personal interviews. Besides that, we often collect
floating dust, those bits of life that we find randomly intriguing.
Here are my three most recent motes: ·
While strolling around the neighborhood with my children, I noticed
that somebody had stuck a magenta flower into the iron door handle
of a downtown church. While most of the stem was missing, there
was now no way to open that door without either removing or bruising
the blossom. ·
On another recent walk, I saw ragged pieces of a white substance
blowing around in the wind. I chased a few down and discovered
them to be ripped up pieces of graduation photos, circa. 1960.
I put the scraps into my purse, where they still remain.
·
At a busy intersection, two people, who looked like grandmother
and granddaughter, were selling pillows from a truck - two for
$5.96 as long as they were standard size. Queen and King cost
extra. Who
left the flower at the church and for what reason? Why was it
important to rip up those photos, decades after the snapshots
were taken? What would it be like to be a traveling pillow salesperson?
Where does one apply for the job? Well,
at this point, the best answer I can give is that I don't know.
That's what makes those images raw material! The core substance
of anything, whether ideas or concrete, generally needs to be
transformed into something else before it's useful - and we need
to exercise patience while uncovering the best purpose.
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Kelly Boyer Sagert has sold over 1,000 pieces of her writing to
magazines, newspapers, encyclopedias, literary journals and online
venues. She has also published two small press books and contributed
material to twelve other books. Sagert served as the managing
editor of an award-nominated magazine publishing company for nearly
four years and she currently teaches the following classes for
Writer's Digest online: Creativity & Expression, Focus on the
Nonfiction Magazine Article and Fundamentals of Nonfiction Writing.
Sign up for one or all three at: http://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/viewinstructor.asp?instructorid=1028
Sagert is also available to speak at writer's conferences and
she can be contacted at kbsagert@aol.com
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