Day 147: Behind the Scenes

I have missed two days. I know. I am very (very) aware of that sidebar that says that my goal is to write something here "every day". It's staring at me. Even if I'm ignoring it.

But I haven't really been ignoring it. I've been "storyboarding" or sketching out where I want this story to go--figuring out the Point A and the Point B. It's a good thing to do, I'm thinking. Because if I don't know where I want to go, how will I ever get there? But it's not something I can really share here... not really...

So, meanwhile, for the next DAY, I'm going to post one of my favorite stories I've ever written. I have never posted it here. Because I like it too much. ;) Let me know what YOU think!

***


It is always dark on Christmas day in the North.
There is no sun at all, but only stars that blink sleepily
and ribbons of light that dance across the sky:
red, green, yellow, and blue.

The clean white snow is sparkling,
and the whole earth is quiet,
as if it's taken a deep breath in,
followed by a sigh.

From above, a sleigh made of rich, polished wood glides down,
landing softly on the snow.
The reindeer that pull it toss their heads lazily about;
they are hungry from their long night's work.

Father Christmas climbs from the sleigh,
now light without it's Christmas load.
He steps to one of the reindeer and runs his hand over it's fur,
offering a small handful of oats from his pocket.

His eyes are tired, but sparkling.
His mind is filled with visions of Christmas trees,
with their branches wrapped around the secrets of the coming day.

Reaching into his heavy fur cloak, Father Christmas pulls out a small package,
wrapped in shining paper and tied with a red bow:
the last gift of Christmas.

Father Christmas guides his reindeer into the stable,
where they are groomed and fed,
and then he steps into his small and cozy home.

He places the gift on the heavy wooden table.
After hanging his cloak on the hook behind the door,
he fills his mug with steaming cider, and sits down at the table.

Taking the gift in his large, rough hands
he sings in a deep, strong voice

"We three kings of Orient are,
bearing gifts we traverse afar,
field and fountain, moor and mountain
following yonder star...
Star of wonder, star of light
star with royal beauty bright.
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us to thy perfect light. "

Smiling, he pictures children around the world,
discovering the gifts he'd left for each of them.
He had many friends that helped him to make the gifts,
but each year there was one he made himself.

Father Christmas was very old.
Many, many years before a new star had appeared,
and his three friends from the East, the West, and the South
had gone to seek the star.

Each had carried with them a gift: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
But Father Christmas, of the North, had stayed behind, for he was busy,
and had not prepared a gift for his king.

So now, each year, working slowly and carefully,
he carved one gift out of the finest wood.
A gift worthy of an infant king, if ever he were to find him.

And each year, when he wasn't busy
carving and smoothing and polishing,
he spent every waking hour, making gifts for children everywhere.
This was his gift for his king.

Now, holding the last gift of Christmas,
that he was still waiting to give,
he gazed at the flickering fire and the snow fell softly against his window.

He thought of the children, waking now, and finding the gifts that he'd left for them.
Smiling contentedly, his heavy eyes began to close, and he hoped his gift for his king would be enough.

Day 140: Lavinia, Processing

Tonight, I am debating what to do next. I think I'm ready to move Lavinia off my blog, and keep working on it away from here. It has taught me really good things. Like how terrible I am at dialogue, which is something I want to work on. I think one of the most important things I learned was realizing, one day, that each day's entry needed to have as much work and detail put into it as I would put into a short piece that was only one chapter long. I realized that I wasn't taking the time to savor or build the story's pieces, because I was in such a hurry to outline the plot, so it became more fun to write, after that. Like I said: good things.

But, where to from here? I have a couple things I would like to try, but have a hunch I would be miserable at. Like writing things from a man's perspective. Or writing an "action" or "mystery" type of story. I'm mulling it over, and will see where I go next!!

For those who have read, and left comments, thank you. :)

Day 134: Lavinia, clarifying

Just--really quick, and since all of my creative energy was completely tapped into and drained by my children many hours ago, a quick clarification on the current story for those who are confused:

There are two Lavinias.

One Lavinia lives in central England circa 1835.
One Lavinia lives in Los Angeles circa 2009.

Does that help??? (I know, I need to make it more clear in the writing, but I felt like if I just put that out there, while I continue to slaughter this rough draft, it might at least make it bearable.)

Thanks!

I'm ba-aaack...

Hellooooo, everyone. I'm back. You know I had a good trip because a) my back is sunburned and peeling and b) I don't dare step on the scale. A very good trip indeed.

Now. Back to this story...

Which, by the way, I feel like pontificating about for a second. "Lavinia" has created some interesting breakthroughs for me. For one thing, it's the first time that I've been able to see where I wanted the story to go, from the very beginning. I have an end in mind. It's good. I'm excited about it. The tricky part, now, is to figure out how to GET there. I have these two characters that have the same name, in two very different time periods and settings half a world apart. Their stories will move closer and closer together, but for now there's a lot of jumping. I have to remind myself, as I write, that this is a rough draft. One of the chapters I wrote the other day made the modern Lavinia introverted, and I thought "But what if I decide I don't want her to be introverted?" and I had to remind myself that I can always go back and change what I don't like or what doesn't work. There is a lot of detail missing, and things that need to be fleshed out. I guess, what this version is, is a skeleton of the full story. I need to be able to see ahead, clearly, and know the whole pattern before I weave the story together completely.

Your feedback has been so helpful--I can't emphasize that enough. I need to know what's working, and what's not. Know that I'm keep suggestions and comments in mind, even when I don't get to them right away. You all are my sounding board and, on the days when I just.don't.feel.like.writing--my reason to write. Thank you!!!

Now back to the story...

Day 84: My Inner Reader

My friend, Lovely, was telling me the other day, via a Facebook instant message conversation that I shouldn't worry about what other people think of my writing. She says that I need to listen to my "inner reader". (She lives in New Zealand. It's late summer in New Zealand. When we were younger, she went to college in Hawaii while I went to college in fun-filled Idaho. But I'm not bitter of her adventurous and tan life.) Anyway, back to my inner reader. I think she got that tidbit from the author, Shannon Hale's, blog. (Is that right, Lovely?) I am supposed to write the kind of stuff that I would want to read.

Ummmm... hmmmm... the kind of stuff I would want to read.

Well, there would be this girl and she would be ordinary. Then she would fall in love with this guy, who would turn out to be a vampire, only a good vampire. And he would sparkle. Oh wait.

Okay. It would be the early 1800s, in England, and there would be this girl and she would be ordinary. Then she would fall in love with this older guy, who we would call by his last name. Maybe it would be "Rochester," only Rochester would have a deep, dark secret. Oh wait.

And that is the thing! Every time I try to really think of a new story, I can only think of the stories I've already read. There are many books that have become so deeply ingrained in my psyche that I don't know how to filter them out in my own writing. I don't think I could ever write a hero to equal Edward Cullen, or a heroine to equal Jane Eyre. Everything in my head just seems so plain in comparison with the incredible people I've met on the page: Anne with an E, Josephine March, John Adams, David Copperfield, and on and on and on. When I sit down to write, my Inner Reader thinks "Hm. You go ahead. I'll be over here with Eclipse."

In an attempt to follow Lovely's advice, though...

She will never forget, sitting on that beach. Looking out over the water and realizing, as she took in the curve of the shore and the palm trees, that she was sitting in a place that could be called exotic and adventurous. She didn't even know how she'd gotten there, really. She had a new, unused passport. There was a cheap flight. Really, she hadn't even thought about it.

The flight had connected to San Francisco, where she met up with a friend, and they proceeded from there to Seoul, Korea. Eight hours watching incoherent Korean television, drinking something from a vending machine called "SWEAT", and shopping duty free stalls in the airport. On another plane to Jakarta, Indonesia. Here, they had been met with men carrying AK-47s and humidity that licked at your face as you stepped out the door.

As they made their way to their gate in Jakarta, and to the restroom, something in her was delighted to have a choice between a toilet and a hole in the ground. There was a hole in the ground in the bathroom! Later, waiting to board the flight, a woman came up. She stood very closely, invading any sense of personal space. Reaching up with her small, brown hands she had taken her pale, American face and said in lilting English "You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen." Her friend was annoyed. She had never been happier.

One last leg of the trip from Jakarta and its guns to Denpasar, Bali. The last flight in for the night, the lights in the airport being shut off, and no one to meet them. They grabbed one of the last taxis out of the airport and said simply, "Hotel?" Two white American girls, zigzagging their way into Kuta Beach.

He brought them to a hotel--a very nice one. $23.00 a night. They agreed to the price, and paid him his fare. The room, clean and spacious, smelled of sandalwood and spices. The carved wooden headboards were intricate and lovely. On the toilet in the bathroom, a sticker with a little man standing on the toilet to squat, with a big "NO" across it. Poor native, who would be wondering where his hole is.

Curling down into the covers that night, she wondered what adventures she was about to have. What the next 4 days would bring.

Day 70: Follow the Yellow Brick Road...

After talking to the Spouse, thinking it over, and getting a few little comments, I think I've decided how to proceed. I am going to work on two things, the first will be a memoir. That's what I've decided to call those little, random "me" posts that come up. I was feeling all guilty and torn about posting more of that because, you see, I didn't start this whole thing as a mommy blog and I don't want it to become a mommy blog. At the same time, I do have things that happen every day that make me laugh or give me pause that I would like to share sometimes. Then I came across the genre "memoir" and, for some reason, having a title for it (other than mommy blog) made me feel much better. So--project 1 will be memoir entries, and there will probably be more of them than the other. Project 2 will be a work of fiction that I'll be working on daily, offline. I will post chapters, and parts of chapters, here as I work on them and feel ready to launch them into the world.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Day 69: Project.

For the past couple weeks, I feel like I've been floundering a wee bit. Can't seem to come up with new ideas. What struck me, as I was laying in my bed at 3:00 this morning trying to go back to sleep, is that what I really want to do is expound on some of the things I've already written and turn them into more serious projects. I'm interested in working harder on Clementine, as well as the Father Christmas story, and possibly more historical fiction in the vein of Chiddingly. If any of you have something you'd like to see me work on, shoot me a quick comment and let me know! Otherwise, start looking for entries that are chapters or installments in a story. (Woohoo!)

Day 55: Fire Bird

I'm afraid that my entries the past few days have been... well... "pretty bad" might be even too nice a term for them. It's a funny thing, this writing. Some nights, I have such great ideas. Other nights, I feel like there just isn't anything there. So, I write--either way. And some mornings, I wake up and think "Oy. Last night's entry was awful. I should erase it." Almost without fail, it's the stories that I think were awful that get a good response, and some that I really like--get none. So I erase none of them. Good, bad, unedited as they are. They stay. But, please, accept my apologies for the ones that are "pretty bad."

Tonight, I was trying to make up a story for my son as I was trying to wrestle him into his pajamas. Something about a bird of every single color who could fly so high that he could see the whole world. I was feeling pleased with it. My son, on the other hand, couldn't have been any *less* interested. So I thought I'd write my simple story here. Maybe someone *else* will like it...

****

There once was a bird.
It had draping feathers of blue, red, purple, yellow, green, white, black, orange, and aqua--every color of the rainbow. But it didn't always.

Once, that bird was very small, and very weak, with simple brown feathers. But, one day, he decided to fly as far as he could--to see what he could see.

Setting off, he could see some squirrels in the trees, gathering nuts. He could see small fish in the streams. But, before long he grew very tired, and went back to his tree.
When he reached there, he realized that he had grown some silvery blue feather--the color of the stream, and some green feathers--the color of the trees.

The next day, and the day after and after, he flew a little further and a little higher.
He saw sheep in the meadows and cows in the fields dotted with purple clover.

Higher still, he could see goats clambering on the rocks in the mountains,
their peaks covered in glistening white snow.

Ever higher and higher he flew, and soon he was never tired. And for everything he saw, he grew feathers of different colors. The yellow of the sunrise and the orange of the sunset.

Higher and higher it would fly, until it could see the boats bobbing on the deep blue ocean. Soon, it reached the moon, with it's smiling face, and grew silver white feathers.

Higher still, the bird--strong and beautiful--flew and flew,
until it's tail feathers brushed the stars and it turned all the colors of the sun.

Day 29: Stuff I Know

We should write what we know. Right? Our best writing--our most authentic voice--is about the things we've experienced and learned for ourselves. So. Here's a list of some stuff I know at least something, if not everything, about:

The 100 years war
miscarriage
expressive/receptive speech delay
natural childbirth
medicated childbirth
Switzerland
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Islam
The Arab-Israeli Conflict
Why modern art really is good stuff
Post-Colonialism
how to set up a tent
carbon monoxide poisoning
food poisoning from ranch dressing
bedrest
Places: Idaho, Utah, Montana. San Francisco and Los Angeles, California, Charlotte, North Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina.
all inclusive resort vacations vs. cruise vacations
German
genetic diseases
white trash
wealth
education
government and politics (two different things)
child development
Pre-Raphaelite painters and Victorian England

See--writing that down, I don't feel like it's a very interesting list. Of course, there are more things I could list. All of us could list for pages and pages if we sat down to think about our own life experience. What I want to figure out is how some of the pieces of that puzzle could fit together, and which of them would help me to create a good story.

All of this also makes me wonder how people like JR Tolkien and JK Rowling create these entire magical worlds, of which they have no first-hand experience. The introduce characters and settings that are so vibrant and alive that they become, in a way, real. I admire that a great deal. I'd love to exercise my imagination enough to do something like it.

Day 14: Jingle.

Tonight is an incomplete entry. I had an idea for another children's book, and although I have the idea in my head, I just really can't seem to make it take form. I'm posting the little bit that I have below. I like what I have, but worry that it's prosiac. I've had various endings and plots for it in my mind the entire day today, but none of them have flowed or fit quite like I was hoping. So I may never finish this one, but I felt like it was a good, valid exercise just the same because it helped me to focus in on one of my greatest stumbling blocks on the road to becoming an honest-to-goodness writer. That stumbling block is this: I worry that I don't have any good stories to tell.

There, I said it. Let's face it, we have enough mediocre stories. I walk through the aisles of Barnes and Noble and think "Good grief! Someone poured their hearts and souls into all these books--who in the world is going to read them? Are they even worth the time?" I worry that my imagination is too rusty, or my style of writing inflated and annoying. And I very deeply, passionately DON'T want to write a forgettable, unimaginative story. If I only write one book in my lifetime, I want it to be a book that I am proud I wrote. Even if no one in the world ever reads it. Even if it ends up on the Clearance Clearance table. I want it to be a mirror of my true, best self.

That's what I'm thinking about tonight.

Jingle

This is the story of a little bell. A very small, unimportant bell. But being very small and unimportant did not stop the bell from doing one very big, very important thing.

On the day that bell first opened his eyes and looked about at the great world around him, he saw many wonderful things. He saw sunshine sparkling on new fallen snow, a red bird high in the branch of a gray tree, and shiny green leaves on a holly bush. These things were magnificent and made him feel very big inside--as big as the whole world.

Looking down at himself, he thought "I am a very little bell compared to this great big world." Suddenly, he felt very small inside.

Day 8: A few thoughts on writing...

First off, I just wanted to thank everyone (every single one of you) for your comments and e-mails. They have been like getting A grades on papers (okay, with that one C from my mom... *grin*) and helped me to want to write more. Thanks!!!

When I first started painting several years ago, I was surprised at how I looked at the world differently. I started looking at trees, and rather than seeing green leaves, I saw green with a hint of yellow and silver. I started seeing things the way I would need to see them in order to paint them. After one week of writing, I'm beginning to see the world this way. Little things will trigger a "How would I write about that?" response. I am loving it. I've also (and you may have noticed this) stopped using a prompt every day and just started writing what's in my head. I know I'll probably run out of things and turn back to these books to get me going, but for now, I'm happy to find out what I can do on my own. :)