Eight months, and I am back. The pandemic wreaked on my writing group and usurped my free time with added work. However, once January rolled around, it was the catalyst to get me writing anything new again. Work was ever consuming, and I didn’t have the headspace to get anything out onto paper. I also just took the time yesterday to figure out why my site wouldn’t load. I did a little snooping around and re-stimulating of my brain from my coding days and, voila. Fixed! So here we are again…
I’m over twenty thousand words in and have a thousand words here, ten thousand there, lying about ready to be connected to the story. So it’s about halfway written. I started with a titled prologue and now feel like I have pigeonholed myself. I think the title is something I struggle with the most. Sometimes it’ll just come to me naturally and a few have been fun to name but although my last chapter has a title that suits it I’m not that fond of it… I don’t even know where my chapter will take me this week but I think I am about two chapters away from the main climax of the story so I am looking forward to the big meet between my characters. I also read an article that had me flipping back to each previous chapter to discover a pattern as I had never given much thought to the ending of a chapter rather more than just sensed where a good place to take a breath might be for my reader. That said, the only ending I thought of was the end of my novel, which was one of the first things I wrote…Lives of the wild to wild lives; what can we learn from the beings that surround us?
Wednesday 17 March 2021
Monday 4 May 2020
Moving Forward
It was a slow month, and I fell off the wagon a few times with some sluggish days. My thoughts have been like ants scurrying from a flooded anthill. But I still had one of my strongest days, thanks to my competitive perseverance and my buddy’s taunts. Although I may not have progressed as far as I would have wanted; amidst all the turmoil, I still clocked 384.12kms, which is like running from my seaside home to the crystal aquamarine waters of the Rockies. I have gained a little more clarity in the last two days, and so I will continue forward rebuilding to maintain my head above water.
Wednesday 1 April 2020
Heart of Stone
The Big Bad Wolf has nothing on Rolf Lovett, the antihero in my story. It’s been a challenge to write amidst the uncertainty of my world. I forced myself to put my hands to the keyboard to complete my short story for a contest closing tonight. And so, I thought I’d take this fleeting inspiration to add a few words here since I have somewhat fallen off the blog earth since February. Disillusionment and rose-coloured glasses were to blame for my abscondment. I am proud to maintain a perhaps naïve vision of the kindness I see in others. The problem is, that with that, the reality of malevolence in someone often knocks the wind out of my sails.
But, as the old saying goes, bad luck happens in threes. So, what started with hopeful poor judgement and subsequent twofold hardships are perhaps a signal that my misfortune has come full circle. If my story is any kind of hopeful beacon, threes have a way of overcoming the wolf.
Saturday 29 February 2020
Zebrafish
“His voice was distinctively him, my Zebrafish. The absence of the alveolar trill of the dropped Rs in my name, and his soft sweet drawl pulled the corners of my mouth into a smile.”
“… delighting my tympanic membrane like a gentle caress that would linger along its journey deep within me… his words would bounce around inside me until they’d find their final resting place in the warming of my heart.”
Thursday 30 January 2020
Kindness of Strangers
My mom posted an image this past week of one of those rare people that cross your path through life if you are lucky. Sadly, we’d only just found out that he’d passed away. I first wrote to him on this day four years ago. In 2016, I was lucky enough to reconnect with a fellow from years ago that worked in the same real estate office as my mother. I remember him from the office when I would stop in to see my mom, from pictures of them together and from the time my mother hosted a work party at our house. But in actuality, I did not know him beyond those brief interactions.
I was in a tough time in my life in 2016, a lot of indecision, insecurity and uncertainty surrounded me. A few friends had mentioned that they loved Greece, and it looked beautiful. It was also a warm and a welcome sunny destination from the remaining grey that lingered above me.
I remember writing to my mom to ask about her friend George. He had returned to live in Greece years ago, and I thought he may be the perfect person to contact for info about his home country. My mom gave me his address and told me to send him an email, and so I did. Little did I know that that first email would lead me on a journey that would renew my spirit in so many ways...
My letter to George was a simple introduction to who I was as a reminder and some requests for places to visit, affordable places to stay, if he knew any, and his recommendations for what I should see of his country. I only had about ten days so there was a lot I couldn’t do, but before I knew it he responded with such enthusiasm and had planned my entire stay. He coordinated with one of his good friends and his cousin on one of the Greek Islands. I remember receiving his response and thinking, “Well, I guess I’m going to Greece!”
The gesture overwhelmed me and it was a relief of sorts to have someone take over. The only thing I had to do was to buy my plane ticket. In the weeks approaching my trip, George sent me all kinds of fascinating history lessons about the country. We wrote back and forth for about two months before I arrived. He had a genuine love for Greece, and his passion enticed me to learn more about the place. His enthusiasm was contagious.
He’d connected me with a friend of his in Athens that would show me around and his cousin in Santorini who would be my island guide. I was so excited about the adventure but a little apprehensive as I was sure it would be all too good to be true. But it was true... Even with my early morning flights, when I mentioned I would find an airport hotel, George insisted I stay at his apartment and had made sure that his friend in Athens would take me to meet my flights. So here I was, ticket in hand, his pad in Athens and a taste of the Greek Islands on the horizon.
My trip to Greece is the best trip I have ever taken. And I owe it all to a lovely human who’s pure kindness and generous soul made it possible. His friend and cousin went above and beyond anything I could imagine. They’d pick me up in the morning and drive me to countless sights throughout the day.
I remember how I mentioned how I loved urban art and whilst in Athens, his friend spent the evening hunting for art until we found some beautiful murals. I was ready to throw in the towel, but he was insistent about satisfying my original request. We ended up in fabulously colourful back alleys; places I wouldn’t have been wise to explore alone. I remember how we serendipitously finished the evening in a little gallery out of the way that had one of the most splendid exhibitions of mural art.There are so many glorious memories I have of my time in Greece and, would have loved to visit George’s town but it was too far to reach in the little time I had so he had suggested Santorini. I had planned to return to Greece again, but by that time George had fallen ill. I never heard back from him, but I hope he knew what a cherished set of memories he’d given me. There aren’t many altruistic people that you come across in life, and when you do, they’re a treasure…
Tuesday 31 December 2019
Welcome Hindsight
Sunday 10 November 2019
Thirteen Knives
One of my readers commented on how my story took them to another place; somewhere unfamiliar, which intrigued them. I love the research of writing; immersing myself in a new life, or revisiting one that I have lived. The last piece I wrote was difficult, as I was a tourist in all the experiences myself. I had no former memory to draw on, and nothing of the story or the involvements which my characters went through were familiar to me. This is where the research part gets tricky. Several readers have mentioned how my descriptions are so well-written; so it was a genuine challenge this past month as I travelled into a world I have never been in. My academic background has helped me in this respect. The discipline to be thorough adds to the reality created when constructing a story; from creating the foundation of the immersing plots to resolving all the loose ends, all take patience and careful attention to detail.
With all of my other stories, there is an element from my life that comes to life through the story. It gives the opportunity for me to appreciate those excursions in more detail, to examine perspective from a new point of view. And even better to re-examine the reality through the lens of perspective that the distance of time offers. I wrote a story a few months back where one reader remarked on how “the conflict in their relationship seemed so natural (and sad). I loved your characters, they were so real.” This is because there is a piece of myself in everything I write, from a shy little girl in an old-fashioned elevator to the painter in the story I am writing.
I watched as the colour ran down the ferrule to collect in the bristles of the head. As I unbuttoned my shirt and let it fall to the ground...
It is perhaps why I unwittingly test the boundaries of my explorations; my subconscious takes notes for a future purpose which will be revealed when I least expect. And why, when a reader says “this is a really good portrait --- it feels realistic and heartbreaking” that although they may not be familiar with the dynamic I write about, they can commiserate.
Sunday 3 November 2019
Epistolary Relationship
There is something comforting in the distance, maintained and intimacy cultivated through words. As a teenager, I loved the Griffin and Sabine series. At a dinner party a few years ago, I learned the author lived on my little island, and I fault him for nurturing this romantic nature in me. The thoughtfully curated sentences that caress a reader’s psyche to conjure a fantasy beyond the reach of reality.
I only just learned of the term the other day. Although I am well versed in the epistolary relationship; I did not have a term to define the romantic excursions that have led me into worlds I may have never experienced were it not for my love of writing letters.
When I think of the people I have met in person because of such relationships, I can’t help but fall back into the romantic images created in my mind from their words. The interchange of our communication, and the shared yearnful tension that such a relationship nurtures. There is both a safety and vulnerability that is only attainable in the “epistolyrical” world. And, while one can remember the feeling it creates in our hearts and minds, it is forever lost when we meet face to face...
Saturday 26 October 2019
Vulnerability
I didn’t think I’d be able to, but I made it through reading a piece of mine without my voice cracking. I wrote it just over a year ago, and it was the first piece I had submitted for a creative nonfiction contest. It’s a personal piece and also written in the first person. It was the first time that I have been able to read the piece aloud without my eyes welling or stumbling to voice the words I’d written about a traumatic experience that changed my life forever. When I wrote the piece, I thought it may be the end of my novel but through my online writing group’s reactions to it; the story seemed to fit well as my opening. It sets the tone, and I was so nervous about reading aloud in front of people today for my IRL writing group. I had read them my prompt submission for the month and they wanted to hear more.
So, I mustered you the courage and said: “I’ll read you my opening.”
I wondered about revealing the reality of the story, but then felt I’d made a great first step in reading it publicly for the first time. And it’s not a topic I want to talk about, so sometimes it’s better to keep the origins of stories to myself…
Monday 14 October 2019
Lingering long weekend
“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
— Albert Camus
Monday 7 October 2019
Muse
I was in charge of this month’s prompt and chose the image to the right combined with an individualized mathematical treasure hunt to find the sentence that would start or end the story we would each write (we each have different favourite books).
My sentence came from Kafka’s La Métamorphose. “Nous avons fait tout ce qui était humainement possible pour le soigner est le supporter; je crois que personne ne pourra nous adresser le moindre reproche.”
I had two competing ideas, and I’ve been trying my best to weave together the strands I followed. It’s not my regular writing genre, but I like to challenge myself with going out of my comfort zones. It used to scare me to write “people” stories, then “dialogue” and now I’m trying my hand at a suspense thriller.
When an IRL character from one of my stories dear to me asked to read some of my work yesterday, I thought this may be the story for them. If for no other reason than that some snippets I’ve written are in their native tongue.
I’ve been so enthralled with the research for this story, I think it may end up being a little more of an involved project. But, I will try to get a short story draft ready by the end of the week. So back to my story, while Mino tears apart bull kelp on the beach, I’ll let my thumbs take me back to my typing.
Sunday 29 September 2019
Boarding Pass
I’ve made it over the worst, but the cough and pain in my lungs still linger. Now I will spend the week scrambling to catch up on my classes and my writing.
Yet, upon my return to work on Friday, someone told me I looked majestic and ten years my junior. So, I guess I at least look less ragged than I feel.
Now, as winter creeps in, I can look forward to spending the next solstice surrounded by snow in real winter! And, with the key criteria for travel dealt with, I can at least enjoy a little of my Sunday morning dreaming of all the lesser-known spots I’d like to visit...
Saturday 21 September 2019
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