{"id":1502,"date":"2016-11-01T12:16:21","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T12:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.overbrookpublishing.com\/BackStory\/?p=1502"},"modified":"2016-11-01T12:16:21","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T12:16:21","slug":"hemingway-on-country-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/hemingway-on-country-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Hemingway on Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another big take-away from\u00a0Hemingway on Writing<\/em>, edited by Larry W. Phillips — along with\u00a0making characters real — is knowing Country. Living and writing in Africa and Spain allowed Hemingway to write compelling novels in those settings. Hemingway advocates that you should experience the sounds, smell the air and the earth, and know the place completely. Only then\u00a0can you get to very essence of what’s most important at that moment. Intuitively, I took this into account while writing House Key, and\u00a0have taken his advice one step further in its sequel.<\/p>\n

This season, every time I put my foot in the stirrup when\u00a0the meet gathers and we wait for the huntsman to sound his\u00a0horn, I am ready. Not just anticipating\u00a0the adventure\u00a0the day’s sport may spring on its riders, but prepared to take notes. Country is at its\u00a0core the ground we stand on. And to me it’s about the woods and the fields and the reverberation\u00a0of hoofbeats against the ground and through my\u00a0body. That’s what makes this place\u00a0—\u00a0the place I want to share with my readers —\u00a0like no other. Not just visually, but definitively. I need to\u00a0take it all in so I can share it all out: the sounds, the smells, the topography, the effect of the terrain on my horse, on how he responds, and how I feel.\u00a0Hemingway makes clear the distinction beyond mere description of\u00a0what makes a story come alive: sharing the emotion of the moment and getting the reader to feel it, too.<\/p>\n

One\u00a0reader suggested I take photos of the action, but the problem is that when you’re in the action, you’re too busy living the moment to pause for\u00a0a photo. You’d have to be a spectator in the shrubbery with clairvoyance to predict\u00a0exactly where the fox might pop out and give chase. You can then maybe record\u00a0the action, but even so, it’s still no substitute for being part of it.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, I thought I would be clever working around the problem by\u00a0taking pictures with my phone as I rode. I discovered this is only possible\u00a0when the field is paused while the hounds search for a viable scent or the huntsmen stops at a creek to give his hounds a break. The resulting images are useful notes for a\u00a0bucolic\u00a0nineteenth century scene, but not exactly what I am after. I also realized that capturing action was\u00a0tricky on horseback after\u00a0I tried\u00a0to snap a pic and\u00a0realized my phone had frozen. I was fussing with it when the field took off again, and my horse — who knows way more than I do — took off at a gallop not wishing for us to be left behind and miss any sport. Reins in one hand, I couldn’t stuff the\u00a0phone in my pocket fast enough without dropping it never to be found again.<\/p>\n

So, I’ve concluded that I must do it the old-fashioned way; memorize all the sights and sounds and smells and the feeling that goes with them so I can write about it as soon as I get back to my desk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another big take-away from\u00a0Hemingway on Writing, edited by Larry W. Phillips — along with\u00a0making characters real — is knowing Country. Living and writing in Africa and Spain allowed Hemingway to write compelling novels in those settings. Hemingway advocates that you … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[126,128,32,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-writing","category-ernest-hemingway","category-virginia","category-writers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_7974.jpg?fit=3214%2C2410&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1503,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions\/1503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}