Tolkien, Trees, and other Thoughts

I got distracted by the light dancing across my book as I was reading The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien this afternoon.

I love the tree outside my bedroom window, almost as much as I love reading in the afternoon. I love sleeping with the window open so I can listen to the hush of the leaves in the night. I greatly enjoy all the little critters that visit me outside my window, from the birds that come to sing in the morning, to the family of squirrels that sometimes come to gawk at my cat. It is also my favorite place to take a nap, there in the tree filtered afternoon-sun.

Tolkien was himself a great lover of trees. Thus, it is no small wonder that The Lord of the Rings pays such special attention to them. Indeed, the trees are the personality of most every landscape in Middle Earth, be they of the hostile or illustrious variety. They are the constant dwellers, watching over passersby and temporary inhabitants that come and go throughout the years, such a short while in the long life of a tree.

Tolkien himself had a tree outside his window once which he claimed helped inspire his story Leaf by Niggle, an odd and wonderful tale that feels altogether dreamlike. He wrote about this tree in the books original introductory note, saying

"One of (the tale's) sources was a great-limbed popular tree that I could see even lying in bed. It was suddenly lopped and mutilated by its owner. I do not know why. It is cut down now, a less barbarous punishment for any crimes it may have been accused of, such as being large or alive. I do not think that it had any friends, or any mourners, except myself and a pair of owls."

Altogether, leafing through these letters written by a mentor that I will never get to meet has been wonderful, even more so than I expected.

Reading through his rambles –regarding such themes as the struggles of procrastination in the face of productivity, his constant anguish at the regrettable busyness of his schedule, and the woe brought on by a book that doesn't want to get done, have all made me realize that maybe I know what I'm doing after all. Self-doubt is no stranger to even the greats.

I sometimes feel small in comparison, so un-heightened by time, so stuck in the scope of the present with a book that is only as old as the files containing it on my computer; a book that is still so unlived in. But knowing that someone I so admire has struggled with the same things as I am toiling with now brings me an unexpected sort of comfort. All this is mostly normal, after all; as normal as the life of anyone who takes up writing can ever be.

Tolkien barely dared dream that so many would share in his delight for his Middle Earth.

Books are wrought only with great pain and frustration, for the imagination rarely complies well with the limits of our vocabulary and the hampered frame of the page.

But once the wrestling is through, and the writer sits back and cries in wonder and fear at what they have created, the book becomes severed from them. As Tolkien wrote:

"(The) goal was reached at last. It is finished... (but) now I look at it, the magnitude of my disaster is apparent to me. My work has escaped my control, and I have produced a monster."

Sometimes the book fades away after that, collecting dust on a back shelf, thought about from time to time only by they that sired it, sometimes with fondness, sometimes with regret. But every so often, if chance allows, a book will fly away to other horizons, where it finds other shelves, from that of a publisher, to possibly that of a reader.

Who can ever know for certain how many shelves a book can make a home in, nestled in comfortably, as if it's already forgotten they that toiled for it before it could stand up on its own. But, the writer won't know: not where it goes, nor how shelves it comes home to; much less how many readers might find a semblance of home in reading it.

Indeed, no one can ever truly guess what might happen when you release a wild book onto the vast world.

For now though, it is much nicer to simply read under the shadow of a tree, and dream of the day when my own book will forget about me and find a home on the shelf of another.

Writing When You're in a Hurry

How to Write When You're a Whirlwind

A Whirlwind: A chaotic rush, fast approaching, swiftly passing, never lasting.

How can you write in the midst of a drought when writing for you feels like a whirlwind? How can you write when you climb your hill in expectation, let lose your hair, but find no breeze to lift you?

And still the wind is on your mind. You're too aware of your own breath when its calm; too aware of the limitations of your own existence.

Writing is like a turbulence of words that overcomes you; but you, with your butterfly net, you who puts out buckets and basins to collect it when it falls, catch so little of it. You find that the wind cannot be caught in nets; find that still water is too tranquil, too unlike rain, far too tamed by your small vessel to offer much inspiration.

  

You may wander the fields afterwards, once the storm has spent itself. You look for lost treasures in the tillage, things you missed that the earth didn't already take from you. But if there are seeds in the earth, maybe the storm will make way for things to grow.

They grow in the calm, even when you're not looking, even less when you do (you cannot watch a sapling sprout in your slow-human-seconds). But did you plant the right seeds?

Let us dig and find out if your seeds have what it takes.

You planted white things; planted paper; planted sleeplessness; planted an alphabet by the keys of an old typewriter. You planted the books you once read, now decomposed and rotted in half-remembered, dirt-stained passages. You planted half formed visions, hoping that they'd grow. You planted feelings, also half-forgotten because you never wrote them down. You planted patience, such small simple seeds, the whirlwind could take them, and you'd decide you do not need them (you'd rather watch for storms). You planted watering cans with rusted spouts with which to do the watering (how counterproductive writers are). You planted faulty scales with which to measure the greatness of your rain-water because you wondered once how much rain it takes to make a pond, a lake, an ocean. (How many words it takes to write a book, I've always wondered. But who has ever counted?)

You may regret ever taking up gardening as you sit there, with dirt on your knees and in your finger nails, with leaves in your hair still damp from the last rain.

But then you find one pretty seed in the earth, already sprouting roots, and you know: this one craves, this one desires, this one hopes. Seeds turn into trees sometimes, and you can feel it by the determination of its little roots that this one wants to grow; wants to know what it will be when it grows.

Trees take a long time to grow, so much longer than flowers. Trees turn into books sometimes; not just one, but hundreds, even thousands. How many words can trees hold on their pages, I wonder? More leaves than they've ever sprouted, surely.

You forget sometimes how much time it takes for trees to grow, that what you plant today won't grow until a great many tomorrows.

But how counterproductive writers can be when they doubt themselves; when they plant seeds just to dig them up again, forgetting that it takes so much more for things to grow than a planter, a gardener, a caretaker. Leave it in the dirt next time.

Next time, let the storm do the watering, but get up in the morning and water it some more. Seeds grow slower when you watch them, but people say that they like to be talked to.

You, you who writes in whirlwinds, you will talk to it sometimes, late at night when you can't stop thinking; when you put words to your own mind instead of paper, writing imaginary books in the space between waking and dreaming, because writing is so much harder when you're distracted by your wakefulness.

Books get written sometimes; out of paper, words, and things-once-read. Books get written, with patience, with doubt, and an untraceable craving, deeper than the pen can delve. The desire for books to exist, to write, to pass on stories, is as ancient as the once young sapling's wish to grow up to be a tree.

Books get written sometimes. But only if you give it time to grow.

So next time when you plant your garden, plant a little time.

Willy Wonka's Whammy

How Wonka's Wonka-Vite Exposed Granny's Greed

"Mr. Wonka shook his head sadly and passed a hand over his eyes. Had you been standing very close to him you would have heard him murmuring softly under his breath, 'Oh, deary deary me, here we go again...'" ~Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

It is no great secret that Charlie Bucket was the most well behaved of the group of otherwise snotty children that visited Willy Wonka's marvelous Chocolate Factory. Compared to the gluttonous Augustus Gloop, the pretentious Violet Beauregarde, conceited Veruca Salt, and finally, Mike Teavee the television fiend, Charlie Bucket is an angel. The second the children and their chaperones step into the factory and the great doors close behind them, the reader is already certain that Charlie will come out on top.

But, as the other four children fall one by one into the horrid temptation of their greed, we realize that not all of them will come out entirely as they were. Whether the fate of these children horrifies, perplexes, or disturbs you, I very much doubt that their behavior did not, at the very least, exhaust you. For what exhausting children they are; how ill-behaved, how spoiled, and how awfully greedy.

Augustus Gloop, for example, is compared to a pig. When we are first introduced to him he is described to have

"great flabby folds of fat bulg(ing) out from every part of his body"

and a face like

"a monstrous ball of dough with two small greedy curranty eyes peering out upon the world" 

One might say that these horrid children got what they had coming for them, that their punishment serves them right. But they are only children, after all. Yet the book assures us that the alarming experiences they undergo while in the factory do not change them for the better. 

The Oompa Loompa's claim that

"however long (the) pig (aka Augustus Gloop) might live,

we're positive he'd never give

even the smallest bit of fun or happiness to anyone". 

A truly horrifying thing to say about a child. But even so, one is inclined to believe them. For Augustus Gloop, like the others, is, to put it shortly, an obnoxious child with little to redeem him beyond his youngness. If anything can, his inexperience may excuse his behavior.

One cannot say the same for the adults.

Upon reading the second tale of Charlie Bucket's adventures with the extraordinary Willy Wonka, I was surprised to be confronted with similar behavior, though this time its perpetrators were not four foolish children, but four foolish adults.

While Roald Dahl's stories feature many charming children much like Charlie, his adult characters are not nearly so pleasant. In fact, many are horrid, evil, and nefarious.

None of these things can be said about the kindhearted parents of Charlie Bucket, and indeed, there hardly ever was a sweeter set of grandparents than Charlie's. Till Grandma Georgina became the worst of the lot, that is.

If you don't believe me, simply read the chapter entitled "Good-Bye Georgina" in Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator in which Grandma Georgina undergoes the most drastic transformation brought upon by greed. In this chapter, Willy Wonka reveals that his candy is capable of anything. It is, in fact, so marvelous that his Wonka-Vite, a candy which he claims is basically the "most valuable bottle of pills in the world", can actually make somebody younger. Each pill, Wonka explains, shaves exactly 20 years off your age.

The pills immediately bring out the worst in the four elderly folk. And despite Wonka's precautions, too many pills are swallowed. The cries of wonder quickly turn to screams as the grandparents won't stop aging backwards. Their age falls off them so far and so fast that they are reduced to helpless, quibbling babies. And she with the worst behavior, she who swallowed the pills most greedily, is reduced to nothing at all. Grandma Georgina swallowed a few pills too many, and aged backwards, right out of existence. 

In a way, it is not so much the shock of these harsh and drastic punishments that alarms us. Adults meet far more violent ends in other tales by Roald Dahl. When James' aunts get crushed by his giant peach, for example, it is not just the gruesome end that disturbs us, but that this end was actually deserved. Indeed, no children's story has ever dealt in catharsis, debasing human characters into caricatures of greed, cruelty, and depravity to the point that they actually deserve be indefinitely punished, even to die.

Dahl's un-corrupted children (usually the protagonist) are contrasted with these cruel adults and snotty youngsters, who are often comparable to animals, or worse, to monsters. Indeed, anyone who has had the misfortune of running from the tyrannical beast of a woman Miss Trunchbull or been stuck in a room full of bald children-eating witches cannot doubt that Dahl's stories are much more sinister than the average children's story. Yet these characters nonetheless resemble real adult and childish foolishry, exaggerated both by the perspective of a child and the scope of fiction.

Whatever else can be said about the adventures of Charlie Bucket, it becomes clear when Grandma Georgina disappears in the pit of her own greed that Willy Wonka has a harmatia of his own, a fatal mistake, a whammy, if you will, that corrupts those around him and curses his otherwise extraordinary existence. 

The golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that invites the five children to Wonka's factory promises them

"mystic and marvellous surprises that will entrance, delight, intrigue, astonish, and perplex beyond measure".

But it is no coincidence that four out of five children that visit the factory fall into the inevitable down fall brought on by their greed. Two out of four adults offered the chance to age backwards are reduced back to blubbering children, while another is eaten up completely. And, if Wonka's marvelous invention can bring out the worst in even the sweet grandparents of Charlie Bucket, well, it becomes all to clear why Willy Wonka shut himself up in his factory in the first place.

Missing Kathie

Dear Kathie,

I wrote in my last dedication to you something about your "childish bliss" and "balloons and sparkles" and all that kind of jazz. But this time, as I sit down to write about you the day before your birthday, it no longer seems right.

I don't necessarily mean that these are no longer Kathie things. (If they aren't, please tell me.)

They just seem too simplified.

I told you to never grow up. I said that Peter Pan would sooner grow up than Kathie lose her sparkle. And while this may still be true, today, you are more of a Wendy than a Peter Pan.

All of this is a long and roundabout way of saying what an amazing and beautiful woman you've become.

(Isn't it strange when people start referring to you as a woman?)

I've always seen you as a little sister, but somehow you've become more than that.

You've become someone I deeply admire. Someone I can look up to.

Today it is not only your sparkle that is un-vanquish-able, but your strength, your humor, your strong sense of style, your loyalty, and so much more. Your Jack-Sparrow run is incomparable. Your intimidating stare has only grown better since elementary school. And the joy you find in life in all its simplicity is inspiring.

You are somebody's Wendy now. But you'll always be my Peter Pan.

(I hope you know what I mean by that, or it'll just be weird.)

I miss you, my dear beloved Cousin. 

And I look forward to pirating with you again someday soon.

Love,

your best mate ;)

P.S. Here's a picture of us that, as you so wonderfully put it, "preferctly sums up our relationship".

A Stormy Night with Charles Dickens

It was a dark and stormy night in which I read Charles Dickens.

I read till late, till Book the Second made way to Book the Third, fittingly entitled "The Track of a Storm".

I stopped then and listened to the thunder shake my little house, and wondered at how awful and awe-inspiring it must be to see the sea rise in a storm like this one.

"But, there were other echoes, from a distance, that rumbled menacingly in the corner all through this (little) space and time. And it was now... that they began to have an awful sound, as of a great storm in France with a dreadful sea rising." ~A Tale of Two Cities

The Hundred Acre Wood

I did this painting as a gift to my little brother.

The style is largely inspired by the beautiful forest illustrations featured in the background of The Tigger Movie.

Running Away with Fictional People: Writing Advice to Take you Off the Beaten Path

What to do When your Characters Don't Want What you Want

I read a quote once that stuck with me. I cannot for the life of me trace it, but this is the line as best as I remember it.

"I can't stop reading. The characters might do something without me."

This little line never fails to make me smile, for it perfectly captures the excitement of reading a good character driven story; of running off with fictional friends; of having grand adventures with a band of fanciful troublemakers, painting fences, or seeking treasures; sleeping in hay-stacks with wandering orphans; chasing characters who chase rabbits down holes, or crawling after them through little doors. In these situations, I don't mind feeling like the quiet friend in the bunch. In fact, there is never a better time to be the quiet friend, because everyone knows that the reader is the protagonist's closest and most reliable friend, usually being the one that follows the protagonist most closely, (till the pages end, that is).

But there's more to this simple line, where ever it comes from. It doesn't just capture the thrill of being a reader. It also encapsulates something I believe firmly about writing. In short, it suggests that characters can all too easily get away from us, go on without us, and undergo adventures or shenanigans long after the book is closed, the lights out, and the reader sleeping. 

 

Yet, while this idea is a thrill to the reader, it can keep a writer up at night. Indeed, the writer is in much closer association with the character than the reader that will later come to know them. For the writer, it can feel a bit as if the character is asking them if they can come out to play, or rather, pestering them with questions in the hope that the writer can explain their existence. Why did I have to do that? Why are we going there? What's the point of all this? Where is this story going? –These are the types of questions I imagine the character might be asking. But, of course, it isn't the character that is asking these things at all, but I, myself, the writer, the one spinning the character into their paper existence. Furthermore, the reason I am asking myself these questions is likely because I doubt the character's existence; doubt that they are in fact believable; that their actions make sense; or that they will feel real enough to the reader. It is a constant worry for any writer that their characters don't feel convincing enough, and frankly, it would be a great insult to hear that they were not.

I am fond of my characters, as any writer is. And I have come to be rather fond of these late night conversations with my characters, even if they often result in sleepless nights, in many ons and offs of the nightlight, and many quick scribbled notes, brief lines of dialog or descriptions of body language I do not want to forget in my sleep. I have come to enjoy these nights for the simple fact that I rarely get such one on one time with my characters; times in which I remove myself from the voice my narrator speaks in and start thinking in my own; start looking at my creation from the perspective of me, the life that created it. And, ironically, it is these late nights in which my characters keep me awake with the doubt that they are not real enough that my characters seem most alive to me.

I can honestly say that my wrestling with my characters does not go beyond these nights, and when the words and the rain comes, my characters take over the page. It is then that I feel a thrill like no venture as a reader as ever given me, for nothing will ever be quite as risky and as wonderful as setting a character free on the page and letting them do just what they want.

I have often heard the writely advice that a writer should control their characters, and while I understand the reasoning behind this, I cannot say that I agree.

In writing about fictional people (if that is something you have ever done, you will know what I mean), you will often find that your characters will try to get away from you. "My characters don't want to do what I want them to do," goes the complaint.

To this the sensible writer will say something like "What do you mean, they don't want? You created them, didn't you? Your characters will want what you want them to want." This is fine advice, over all.

It is, in fact, a logical argument. But the argumentative side of whether you should wrestle with your characters by editing out the parts of them that defy you and your vision for the plot is beside the point. What you should really ask yourself is this: What kind of story are you really writing? Are you writing about people, or about situations; about personality, or plot? If your characters aren't enacting the plot the way you imagined they would, maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe you should go with it. It is the character driven plot, with all its curious children and never-yielding tricksters that makes readers feel like they're adventuring with a friend, as the quote above suggested. Readers, after all, love to read about people, about fictional personalities, both grand and wonderfully simple (think of any Hobbit you ever met). When a character makes decisions which have been forced onto them by the writer, the reader can always tell because the reader is themselves a person; and when a heart tugs at you or a curiosity probes your mind we can rarely ignore it.

Ultimately, there is a very simple reason for this. We humans, while still capable of intense logic, are at the core of our being creatures of wants, of dreams, of desires. That's why history, both real and mythological, is full of people falling prone to the illogical sides of themselves; making mistakes because of it; wheeling in mysteriously gifted horses through our gates; ringing bells to awake long-sleeping witches; eating forbidden fruits; kissing sorceresses; crawling over walls to break into locked-up keeps. Characters, like people, make irrational decisions. And while I am not arguing that you should allow irrationality to rule the plot, I believe nonetheless, and very firmly, that a wonderful and wild story is created when we allow our characters to make these decisions, even if they are irrational or inconvenient to the narrator.

Consider, for example, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. This is undoubtedly one of the most famous fictional epics of all time, and it was written because a man (namely, Tolkien) followed a Hobbit out of the Shire totally unknowing what he would find outside its borders. I myself am convinced that if Tolkien hadn't set his protagonist free from his outline and the plot's expectations Frodo would still be named Bingo and the world would have lost one of its biggest fictional adventures ever put to the page.

Maybe my advice to you is simply to write like Tolkien. Because, although the edits later on might be extensive, I believe the most unpredictable and unexpected stories occur when not even the writer can foresee exactly what lies ahead. Yes, this may be risky, maybe it's even dangerous. But you can't have adventure without a little danger. And, if you're one of those writers who writes because they first loved to read, then write like you love to read. Don't just take a reader on a journey. Go on a journey yourself. Even if you know the destination, or plan to make a few stops along the way, at least be daring enough to be curious, to run off from the charted course, to explore un-plotted territory.

What it comes down to is this: If your characters are trying to run away from you, maybe you should let them. You never know where they might take you. After all, what more could a writer want than to write about characters that actually have wants of their own.