Indescribable

Yesterday's blog post was on invincibility. Today's? Well, it's indescribable.

There are certain human experiences that we can only attempt to describe--and we can describe them best to those who have had similar experiences. There is nothing worse than being in the hospital on death's door, or burying a loved one, and someone says, "I know EXACTLY how you feel." Worse . . . when they say, "I know how you feel about your lover dying because I once had to bury my cat." Not the same thing. And no one knows EXACTLY how I feel.

If you have never had a child, then it is very difficult for me to describe how deeply and passionately and intensely and all-consuming the love I have for my children is. You can love your mother, father, lover, or dog A LOT, but loving your child is different in its own way. And I actually don't usually even try to describe it to people who do not have children. It's sort of like joining this club, and only by joining do you understand. Last night, my friend Scott showed me pictures of his newborn. His face was rapturous. I realized, "He's in now. He knows." It was a palpable electricty around him.

If you have never had the kind of love affair that makes you ill, then it's difficult for me to describe it. By "ill," I mean the kind of love affair that is so intense you might stay up for three days straight making love, talking, being consumed with each other. That when you are apart, you feel physically ill. I'm talking about obsessive love, or even soul mate love at its most consuming peak . . . or at its nadir. Some people spend their whole lives and NEVER have that kind of love affair.

The difficulty, as writers, is to make describing a love affair or a writing a sex scene both relatable, and yet completely fresh. The trick, the magic--or in the analogy of the movie I watched last night, the "prestige"--is to have the reader become consumed, to get so lost in the writing that they become part of it. In my new work-in-progress, I think Cate's pain is palapable on every page. I don't think anyone else has had her horrific tragedies . . . not EXACTLY, but the trick is to bring the reader in so completely that they are her. Or at least feel her pain.

That's the challenge. So what, for you, is the hardest to describe? What is indescribable? What makes the cursor blink there on the screen taunting you, saying, "Go ahead, TRY to describe this"?