The Turtle and the Writer

Photo by Chris Brown, courtesy of the Western Ecological Research Center, San Diego Field Station website

"Behold the turtle: He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out."
―James B. Conant, American educator and scientist, 1893–1978

I discovered the above quote yesterday morning. I joined a Yahoo Group for turtle owners, and this quote is what the list owner uses as a footer on all her messages. In a literal sense, it’s accurate. My two red-eared sliders, Nick and Nora, get things done only when they stick their necks out and extend their heads. When they “hide,” they’re just two big green lumps in the tank.

When people keep their heads pulled in, so to speak, we don’t make any progress either. How can we? Like turtles, we’re hiding from life in that pose. We’re protecting ourselves. We’re cowering. It’s only when we extend our necks and expose our faces that we can move forward. Our eyes, instead of seeing just the inside of our collars, can see everything that’s around us. Our noses can smell the air. Our senses can register not only the dangers that might be lurking, but also the possibilities. Moving forward takes bravery, experimentation. It takes testing of different options, possibly failing and regrouping, learning from our failures as well as our successes, and moving forward to a new batch of options.

As writers, we stick our necks out every time we slap words down on paper. If they’re not the right words, we delete them and start over with new words. Once we’ve slapped down enough words to get to the end of our story, we go back to the beginning and fine-tune our word choices to create just the right images. If we don’t stick our necks out, we never get those words down. Some people don’t even get the first word down. They’re the ones who aren’t brave enough to take even one little peek out over their collars.

Nick and Nora joined my family about seven years ago, when my older son was 17 and his friend, the turtles’ original human, was leaving for Air Force boot camp. I wasn’t a turtle fan back then, but Nick and Nora have grown on me. Yesterday, I began looking at them with new eyes.

I also moved my son’s little plastic bobble-headed turtle from the kitchen windowsill to my office, where it’s now sitting on top of my printer’s paper tray. Funny, but every time I slapped words into my WIP and printed them out yesterday, that little turtle’s head bobbled up and down. I think he was cheering me on. I guess I’ll brave my fears and slap down some more words today.