It’s 3 am. And I’m awake…again. The darkness sits heavy on my chest as the sound of the air flicking on echoes hard.
It’s 3:30 am. And I’m too exhausted to function. My kids will be up in a few short hours. Ready for the day when I’m anything but.
It’s 4 am. And I’m brittle, fragile, pieces chipping off as each minute ticks away. Continue reading “When You’re Desperate and Afraid”
For Five Minute Friday, I usually write a short story. The character “magically” appear in my mind along with how they feel and what’s happening. Normally, I can see a scene—a rise in the action and the fall. (It’s a lovely byproduct of telling stories for YEARS…until someone catches you actually talking to yourself.)
But this week, the prompt speak has left me scrambling. It has, ironically, stripped me of words. Bits and pieces of thoughts & characters tumbled through my mind—images of my daughter speaking up for a fellow student, a gentle word from a friend, the struggle to tell the truth—but they’re void of the rise and fall.
And I wonder if there might be a reason for that. Continue reading “Words and a Life Lived”
I am, at my core, a storyteller. So it shouldn’t be surprising that I think we all have a story. We all have a family of origin. We all have some blend of disappointments and accomplishments, loves and hates, comforts and discomforts.
It explains why I still sometimes cringe away from someone moving a quick hand and love the smell of orange-spiced tea. It might explain why the sound of moving water comforts or frightens you. Why the smell of cherry pipe smoke makes you smile or spikes your heart rate.
But that mishmash of singularities is only a sliver of who we are right now. Our stories certainly influence, mold, and shape, but we also all have a choice. Continue reading “Backstory, Life, and the Not-So-Bitter End”
For anyone new here or doesn’t follow me on Facebook, my daughter had surgery 2 weeks ago to rebuild the ACL in her knee. We went into surgery expecting her to be able to start walking without crutches 10 days post-surgery.
That all went sideways and she came out with the additional diagnosis of 2 meniscus tears, a brace that made it difficult for her to get out of a chair unassisted, and the news she wouldn’t be able to start therapy until after the 2-week mark.
Well, my girl had her 2-week check-up…and more not-fun news. Because of the tears in her meniscus, she can’t start physical therapy next week or the week after…for another 4 weeks. Which means crutches more time on crutches.
To recap, she injured her knee 2 months ago and we have 4 more weeks before we can start working on getting back to normal. Six weeks. Including the time she spent waiting for surgery, that’s a total of 12 weeks on crutches. Twelve weeks.
I haven’t been writing much lately. My main goal really is to be more available to my kids, but I’ve also taken time to let my reading range wide and far. One of the things I’ve been studying up on is line edits. In case you didn’t know, I’m a developmental editor by trade and I rarely deal with details.
But that won’t do for my own books. So I’m searching and rewriting words like smile and hand and look.
It’s humbling to realize how much I missed because I’m too close to my project. And it made me realize how often I miss things in my daily life because I’m all up in it.
When I started this whole business of stepping back on my writing, I have to admit that I was not happy (and that might be an understatement). But with a little distance behind me, I’m starting to see good things.
I can’t eliminate the weakness…they happen to be my strengths, too. But that doesn’t mean I get to leave the equivalent of a million references to “hand” in my life’s manuscript.
So I’m digging in, studying, and learning my habitual mistakes. And it’s humbling to admit that I’ve lived with them for so long. That like the book that’s been finished for a year, I’m still rife with elementary errors.
But the good news is I’ve discovered them and that’s the first step. If you need me, I’ll be over here making a few good edits.
Worry is a way to pretend that you have knowledge or control over what you don’t.” ~ Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost
A few weeks ago I told you about the conversation jar my son brought home from school, and told you I’d be asking and answering some of those questions here. So, without further ado:
This week I pulled a rather “easy” question from the conversation jar: Would you rather dive off a high cliff into the ocean or do a book report in front of 500 kids?
In my current, adult, know-it-all state, I would choose the book report without thinking twice. I’m a bookworm, and always have been. But as a kid?
This little curl of colored wood broke off my front door wreath when I took it down. I set it on the windowsill intending to throw it away. But I couldn’t help noticing how the deep red captured and focused light.
The frayed edges nearly glowing under the sun. This everyday bit of junk, under the light, became something sacred.
And so it is with life. It isn’t a question of how much time I spend doing sacred, special things, but how I practice the mundane, boring, daily grind—the “secular” if you will. Do I focus the light?
Part of an artist’s job is to see the things other people miss and introduce the two. As a novelist, I walk through life almost constantly distracted, curious about the frost creeping up the garage window, the lichen on a tree, the distinctive way someone walks or speaks.
I have files of disjointed impressions, thoughts, people, and scenes that just might eventually find their way into my writing. It’s me introducing something I saw or heard to my reader. You’d be amazed how much emotion can be infused into your writing by using vivid scene description from my files of memories.
Example
For example, I wrote this quick scene after walking my son to the bus stop. It was cold and my breath puffed in front of me as we walked by the forest path. And I suddenly pictured a frightened girl walking the path. She was a runner for an underground group of some kind and she just catches something out of the corner of her eye…
I blinked and he was gone. The vapor from his breath still rising in the air. Unconnected. Alone. I turned slow circles. Searching again.
The shadows shifted amongst the trees and I knew they’d sent him.
The colors bled around me watercolors dripping through space. Collecting at my feet.
Most of the time I don’t have full flashes of a scene like this one. But who knows where that scene might crop up.
Usually I note everyday sights and how they strike me or, even more, how they might strike a particular character.
Maybe it’s the sluggish movement of the creek all gummed up with seaweed. If I’m writing a book with a teen who loves to be outside, that little sight becomes a metaphor for how my character views the last 15 minutes of school.
Or maybe it’s the birds on a telephone wire—beaks pulled in and all puffed up against the cold. I don’t know about you, but I can identify, and I bet you might have a character who can too.
Or maybe it’s the moon caught behind a haze of clouds—the light ineffectual against the darkness. I have a character who sees God that way—a weak light hovering above us, but he doesn’t seem strong enough to make any difference at all.
Or maybe you have a timid character and icicles on the roof of her antagonist’s house look like jagged teeth. Can you just see a character walking up to that? You wouldn’t have to say she’s intimidated if the house has a gaping maw. But you could just as easily have the character see the sunshine bend through the icicles, sending dancing sparks of light across the ground. It’s the same sight but seen from two different points of view.
Writing Prompt
So, this week, I challenge you to take an everyday sight from your life and turn it into a useable snippet for your book or blog. Maybe take one image (like the icicles) and give it both a happy and chilling twist.
Then hop back here and share on of your mini scenes. We’d love to hear it and learn from how you see the world.
Want More Help?
To get more help on the art of description without going overboard, check out this workshop: https://www.editinginsiders.com/downloads/the-art-of-description-without-going-overboard/
Winter, at least in Michigan, has a reputation for being one color all the time. In case you’re unaware of the percentage of sunshine we had in January (somewhere below 0%), that color is grey.
The winter world does tend to be monotone—reflecting the color of the sky. But I noticed something recently. As the world wakes with even the slightest hint of light, the sky turns a royal blue. Continue reading “When Your World Seems Cold and Dreary…”
A few weeks ago I told you all about the conversation jar my son brought home from school and told you I’d be asking and maybe answering some of those questions here. So, here’s the first of the bunch:
Frankly, in the current political climate, that questions scares me. I thought about telling everyone to love one another or seek REAL truth no matter the cost. They’re good answers. But my 8-year-old gave the best advice. In his serious little man’s voice he said, “Never eat soggy waffles.”
At the risk of blowing off a serious question, it’s good advice. Soggy waffles stink. And sometimes we need to take ourselves a little less seriously, and give each other a little more grace.
I’d love to hear what your non-political answer to the question would be. And in the meantime, I’m wishing you a week where you give love and seek truth no matter the cost.