Random Musings

A quote in Julia Cameron's Walking in This World hit me as so appropriate for writers and readers.

This is from Shakti Gawain, "We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or to other people's models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open." This applies to readers as well as writers. Rather then be lemmings we are better being ourselves because -- who will be us if we aren't and for writers who will write our story if we don't. No one can interpret it better then we can.

There is another quote I can't remember who said, I paraphrase here - Other people's opinions are none of our business. A bad review, a bad critique, a Top Ten Book List - these are someone else's opinions. We should write the book we want to not because it's popular. We should read the book we want to--not because some one else said we should, but because we want to.

So When we as writers interview one of our characters to make them come alive to our readers - we are in that skin. We are that person at that moment. In Small Town Secrets, due out next month, Chaneeta Morgan is the owner and operator of a cafe as well as the town chairperson of this small town. She is a composite of many people I know or have known, but then aren't we all? We are the experiences we have lived, we are the people whose lives have brushed against ours. So in allowing Chaneeta to just come to life, I hope readers will find bits of themselves in her, or at least bits of people they know.

I live in a small town, I work at a small town cafe - the town chair person here happens to be a man, but it could have been Chaneeta. I'm sure this small town of Amberg, Wisconsin has affected this story in ways I'm not even aware of myself.

I say look for the author and her life whenever you read her books. Whenever you encounter a hero looking evil in the face you'll know what kind of hero you are by your own reaction. If something makes us uncomfortable our escape is a good read or a good writing session. That makes us all connected.

Snow Fall and Writing

As I was shoveling the 7 to 10 inches of snow from my walkways this morning, I thought how like writing that was. One shovelful, one small chunk at a time. I could see where I needed to shovel to - the road, the driveway, the house--just as with a story goal {which you should always have before you start to write} you know where you need to go, all you have to do is get there. One small shovelful, one small word, sentence, paragraph, page, chapter at a time.

If there is one thing I learned from NaNoWriMo it's that when its large its hard [your goal 50,000 words] - when its small its easy - [1,667 words a day]. Like the snow, one shovelful at a time, one walkway at a time, one job done in fine style in no time at all.

So even if it's drifted, there's away through that drift. Even if you are feeling blocked, there is a way through that block. One tiny step at a time.

"Art is made from talent and character. Adverstiy strengthens character and can strengthen our art as well," says noted writer, artist, screen writer, musician Julia Cameron. She used a phrase to describe one of her acquaintences that absolutely makes him visible. "With a face like a ravaged cathedral and a shock of snow-white hair to top his alpine height..." Do you need to see a picture - or does her magic with a pen, give you a sense of the man...can you see from the tiny shovelful of snow how she is building the snowbank while she cleans the walk? Her person becomes a living, breathing human being before your eyes, one word, one phrase, one sentence at a time.

Don't believe me how completely one step at a time does the job... look at a blizzard. How does it start? One tiny, beautiful snowflake at a time falling in just one place. As it perseveres adding one snow flake after another it grows - soon you have 2, 4, 6, maybe 10 inches of snow. It still is only falling one tiny snowflake at a time in that one spot. Build your writing the same way. Put one word after another until you have a clause, add more until you have a sentence. Make another one and add it to the first and soon you will have a paragraph. String some paragraphs together and you'll have a page, then another page until you have a chapter. If you keep going one word at a time, you'll have a novel in no time.

Somewhere it was said that you can't see where you are going at night, well not any farther than your headlights can illuminate. But you can make the whole journey by following as far as those headlights can reach - and just keep doing that all the way to your destination whether it's a mile or a couple hundred miles. Same with snow flakes and shoveling snow or books and writing them it gets done one bite - or byte at a time.

So get the pen to the page - write the first word--that's all it takes. Happy shoveling!