Dear ones!
Today you will write. 500 words, thirty minutes, an hour, a scene: whatever it takes to get you to the page.
Thank you for being here and reading! My Big Gulp cup has been full, in both nourishing and depleting ways. I’m sure you can relate. But, I’m nearing the end of figuring out my mother’s probate(d?) estate, have solved some problems with the novel I’m writing, and the kids’ daily lives have gotten into their routines. No one has even been sick for ten whole days.
Early Solo Travel
When my child awoke very early this morning, asserting her body was tired but her mind was awake, I pulled out the vocab flashcard box we have lying around, and the first word was: Cavalier. It means “showing arrogant disregard” but it was, more prompting for me, the model of my first car. A 1993 Chevy Cavalier. I started thinking about the story of my first car as a potential objective correlative in a more significant way.
Today, I’m thinking about our earliest solo modes of travel. What was your first way of traveling solo in your late teens? For many of us, it was our first car. But it also might have been a coveted bike or a specific Subway journey or walking path.
The Objective Correlative
T. S. Eliot defines the OJ as (I’m paraphrasing) carrying the emotional weight of the piece. I often think of an OJ as a vehicle for much more than emotion—it is a centering object, like the sun, that heats the story, essay, or poem and is also a thing the story can rotate around. My favorite objective correlatives are multi-dimensional, as seen in Louise Erdrich’s “Red Convertible” " In the story, two brothers share a car until one brother goes off to war, and is deeply altered by that experience. The car was impeccably cared for in his absence, but now he can’t bring himself to look at it. The car transforms into a way to try to help the struggling brother, as one brother smashes it, trying to get his brother to have a project to work on and regain something to care about. More happens, that I won’t give away, but it has an intense and moving effect on this reader. Another good story for the objective correlative is Sterling HolyWhiteMountain’s “False Star” which has the objective correlative of a car and a claim check, exploring what the car and the claim check mean to the main character—the promise of freedom (both), girls (the car), autonomy (possibly both)—and how that promise plays out. (Hint: the title.)
Writing Invitation: Your First Car
A first car carries a history and context. Who bought it and how—in cash or on credit? Where did it come from? What did it mean for the new driver? How many miles did it have? What else was happening in your life at the time of the car? My writing invitation to you is to write about your earliest mode of solo transportation, the time when you felt like you were accessing a new milestone. Often, that is a first car, but it might be another way if you live in a city. A coveted bike. Early days on the Subway or train to visit friends traveling solo.
My first car was a black 1993 Chevy Cavalier. I did the above writing exercise for fifteen minutes and noticed it was easy to write about how it felt getting that car and driving it, but those feelings, as I began writing into them, were not surprising. The writing felt like dictation rather than discovery. When I’m writing, it’s like I have a headlamp on in the dark and I’m looking for a path that will take me somewhere I don’t yet know. I’m looking to get lost. Is this similar for you?
If, when you start writing your first car, you feel excited and in discovery, keep going! But if you find a stalling spot, you might head further back about the car’s story, and linger on the people around the car. The conversations that car has overheard! How clean or messy you kept it, as a way of exploring character. Speeding or super safe?
I didn’t have a threshold moment with that first car. The most interesting aspect of my cavalier story was further back in time before the car became mine. It was the story of my dad getting that car from his dad, and how I came along with them, from dealership to dealership, and the ways I observed those two interacting with one another—knowing what I know now—and what I observed about how they interacted with the salesmen. I haven’t fully written it all yet, but I can start to see how so many other stories, feelings, and ideas can be held within the velour grey interior of that car story.
What was your first car? What was its story before it was yours? And when did that car’s story with you come to an end? One cool thing about the car as an objective correlative is that you have multiple potential stopping places. You could end after the first day with the new car, as HolyWhiteMountain does in “False Star”. You could end with the car’s final day in your life, a kind of full-circle moment, or possibly a devastating moment, as seen in Erdrich’s “Red Convertible”. Whatever you choose, feel free to leave a note in the comments. I read every note with joy and gratefulness.
Sending you all the good writing vibes until next time,
love love love
TS
P.S. If you’d like to read more about the objective correlative, I describe three other stories that use them and give other writing prompts in this letter: