Watching a Coltrane documentary. Wow, him and Davis and Dizzy and Charlie Bird. That whole event that happened on the planet at that time. It was an event. I suppose there are those kinds of events in all endeavors - art, literature, science, technology - but somehow this event with these guys seems to have the most magic of them all.
From what I can gather it was about moving forward without a plan and discovering that which can be great. I think it's why Ondaatje chose Buddy Bolden as a subject for Coming Through Slaughter. Ondaatje is a guy who, as he says, "casts his line out into the dark." I love that. He moves ahead with no plan or plotting, only discover. I've always done the same thing with my stories. Sometimes it pays off other times it doesn't. But when it does (and those are the only ones we keep, right?) it really really does. I couldn't imagine sitting down and plotting out a story and then getting a laptop out and typing it all out like I was taking diction or something like that. A writer might as well give up storytelling and become a court stenographer.
If you're out there and jumping ahead with great abandon and courage, telling a story you're not sure will come together by the time you get to the next page, I praise you as a high and mighty true practitioner of the craft.
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