Stuck Editing in an Imaginary Fishbowl

I was reminded of the scene in Big Fish in which Edward Bloom is engulfed by a rain storm. Within seconds of the storms beginning, his entire car is immersed as a lake gushes from the sky, equipped also with fishes and the ethereal woman who we've learned is also a fish. What follows is a scene of tranquility. In the ghostly underwater world, Edward sits in his car like in a fishbowl and watches the strange fish blow bubbles around him. 

I, however, was not in my car, and it took at least the whole night for my house to be engulfed to the brim. The rain had been driven onto my window all night. Eventually though, it sounded less like raindrops and more like a waterfall. I could hear the tree crashing against the side of the house as the tempest thrashed away with it.

I spent most of that night editing, usually forgetting the gloriously nasty weather outside. I had a candle by the window, and from time to time, I pressed my face to the glass. I could see almost nothing outside. It was dark, and my reflection peered at me in the black. I did not see any fishes.

Believe what you will, but moments after this picture was taken, a trickle of water leaked through the frame of the window and put the candle out. 

 

I admit, I am never quite sure where the time goes when I'm writing, and after a night spent imagining things, it is always strange to come back to the real world. By the time I return to my surroundings, it is usually pitch black outside, and there being no street lights where I live, there is nothing out there to see by. 

 

All I had was the sound of the outside world to spur my imagination. I could hear the rainstorm pounding on the rooftop; I could hear it running down my windows; I could hear the waterfall outside our door gushing wildly; water; water; water. It didn't seem to stop nor lessen. 

 

As I tried to fall asleep, I listened to the trickle leaking through the top of the window, and I imagined what might be going on outside. Then sleep came, and with it silence. And still the water trickled. 

I slept there, in that tranquil lake.

 

 

I was saddened when there was no lake around my house in the morning, and so, I had no choice but to go in to work. The ditches and dykes I passed on my way were flooded, but beyond that, I had no proof of my strange night. 

 

I suppose fiction can only be incorporated into one's life to some extent. I'd imagine myself into Edward Bloom's fishbowl any day, if I had the choice. There is less to do there, and so much more time to write.

Stoker's Shadows

 "Though we were in shelter, we could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches crashed together... It grew colder and colder still."

(Dracula, Bram Stoker)

It was a cold, blustery day; the cold was of the wet, bitter kind; the kind that seems to grasp your very bones. Not even the heat indoors could fight it away. You could feel it seeping through the glass of every window. 

 

 

The outside world looked dreary, blurred by the wetness and the damp, and the rain's slim slippery fingers tapped on my window eerily, sometimes almost desperately.

 

By the time the afternoon rolled in the day had changed its mind tenfold, turning itself from rain to snow, and back to rain again. By then the clouds above were as thin as a dying person's skin, and the light it let loose was pale and meagre. 

 

The day was almost spent.

As I read by the window, the shadows crept out from between the pages of my book, out of the core of its very spine. Even as I held it open, transfixed by its horror, still, the shadows lingered. I expanded its leaves, extending its spine and wrenching it wide. Still, the shadows deepened.

 

 

 

 

 Dracula was made to be read on days like this: when all through the afternoon the light weens to grey; when the imminent dark of November is only hours away, and even the crook of a spine is a dark and shadowy place. 

 

Writing in the Rain

Everyone has got their muse. Mine just happens to be the rain. 

 

 

 

I don't know how this really started. I just know that one day I convinced myself that all the best things I'd ever written happened on rainy days. 

Over time, I have come to rely on it for that; that when the rain comes, the scene will get written, the chapter completed, writer's-block beaten. 

 

Occasionally something good will come to me on a sunny day, but it takes a dedicated kind of focus and a calmness of the mind to bring me there. That being said, all my sunny-day-scenes tend to feel more peaceful, sometimes sad. Rarely are they of the same kind of impact or vitality as the things I write when it rains. 

 

Writing in the rain has its upsides and its downsides. It's both erratic, and reliable. 

When it doesn't rain for weeks on end, I feel as desperate for it as the earth around me. I feel parched, dried up in my creativity, like the thirsty plant shrivels. 

And yet, when the clouds come over me, I know that today I may write again. It always rains eventually, and when the drought ends, so does my writer's block. 

 

Over the years, the metaphor has only become more perfect. How sporadic rain can be. Just like inspiration, it sometimes comes when you least expect it, or don't want it at all; when you have prior engagements and you have to chose to either duck-out and feel guilty for missing life, or miss out and feel regret for the words that might have been written. Inspiration waits for no one. And the storms don't plan their schedule around me.

And so, I plan around it, when I can. I look at the weather forecast and make excuses on days when I want to slip away; do nothing but listen to the tap of the rain on my window and the click of my quick fingers typing, nothing but cross empty pages, showering them with curled letters, little dotted words that drizzle and then drench into paragraphs.

Ah, yes: the rain, it comes like a river. 

But then there was a day this summer when it rained so much, buckets filled and spewed over, saplings drowned, every dirty window for miles was washed clean, and all I could do was sit and look, and watch the rain fall. I don't think I wrote more than a page that day. 

 

 

 

 

I don't know what the lesson here is, other than that maybe there's a balance to everything. Just like words don't always come when it rains; just like how, a few weeks after that rainy day on which nothing was written, I wrote the best scene I'd written all summer on a hot humid day; in the same way that long busy winters always give way to rich and rain-full summers in which so much is written, writing comes with ups and downs. 

Rain and sun, inspiration, depression. Sometimes it rains, and words fall like a waterfall. Sometimes there are other things to do, like to sit and simply watch the rain fall. 

 

When it comes down to it, I'm a writer on rainy days and on sunny ones; I'm a writer in winter, and in summer, whether I'm writing or not. 

For all of these things are part of it, you write, and you live, and then sometimes you write some more. And occasionally, all it takes to be a writer is to sit and listen to the rain fall and let your keyboard be still.

 

 

 

Rainy Days at the Cottage

It rained at least once each day while we were at the cottage. On this particular day, however, it rained for most of the afternoon into the early evening. After a brief swim in the rain, I slipped into some dry clothes and curled up in a chair with a book.

 

 

Eventually I got so sleepy that I snuck upstairs to the loft where we were sleeping. I awoke to the sound of the rain still pattering on my window and the sound of the trees quivering.

 

Nothing gives me such a deep and comfortable peace as rainy days like these.

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.

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.

A Day in London Below

I stopped to take this picture while I was reading Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.

It was a cool and cloudy day and I could hear the stream outside my window rushing. I lit my Rainy Day Reads candle and read the day away.

I had my second cup of coffee sitting on my nightstand, and by the time I remembered to drink it, it was already cold. My brother always says I have a habit of leaving my coffee unfinished. But I blame the book for that one. I have always been fascinated by Gaiman's imagination. But this book! My, was it ever beguiling!

Another Rainy Day

I am always growing as a writer. 

Every time I sit down to write, I find I am not the same writer I was before.

The process of growing is a frustrating one mainly because people do not change until the situation forces them to. 
It is usually only when we are forced to face new struggles and challenge new frustrations that we realize: the person we are now is not enough anymore. The person we were yesterday is not strong enough anymore. She is not smart enough, not wise enough or brave enough to face what life brings today, and so, she must become the person she needs to be tomorrow. 

I do not become a better writer by continuing to be the writer I was yesterday. I cannot always speak the same words or write the same scenes. I must always be changing. I must always be searching for something new. 
Yesterday is no longer enough to fill today, but the thrill of tomorrow might be. The thrill of knowing that there are always new words to learn, new things to experience, and new hurts to feel. The thrill of knowing that the future is always one day away and that each day offers a new chance to be better, stronger, wiser, braver. 

And though the person I was yesterday was not strong enough to face this, I know better now. 

And tomorrow will come despite whether or not I am ready.

With every new season, new lessons arise, and this summer I learned to not rely on the rain to give the words.
I love to write when it rains. But, in the draughts and the sunny days, in days spent locked up at jobs and at school as the rain thrums on the rooftops, on late rainy night when the words come like with each drop from the sky, how often did I stop to just listen to the rain? How often did I stop to enjoy them?

So, yesterday, when rain fell and streets flooded, it was time to leave the laptop behind. It was time to stop speaking, and go out and listen to the sound of the rain.

 

Send Me a Storm

This is probably the last thing I should be doing right now, yet, somehow, it needs to be the first. Updating my blog is at the bottom of the to do list, yet here I am. Writing.
This post currently has no title because I don't know what this is about yet, but I'm sure to find out shortly.
Some of you probably don't know this, but I'm in University now. I have my text books sitting next to me, on the desk in my dorm room. My roommate is currently out, and I am alone. And, aside from the ridiculously loud air-conditioning, all is still.

Today was a very busy and a very hot day. I hate hot days. They make me lazy and, quite frankly, they exhaust me. 
I miss the rain. Oh how I miss the rain. I miss dancing in the storm. Somehow admits the turmoil of thunder and rain your soul is just set free. All your worries wash away, and you are just a tiny drop in the eye of the storm. It's the most powerful form of therapy I know. To me there is nothing like a thunder storm to remind me who is really in control.
I think what I'm trying to say is. I feel like I'm losing control, and that scares me. I think, admits the homework and the stress of getting settled into this new stage of my life, I think I have forgotten why I'm here. I have forgotten who sent me and I have lost sight of what I came here to so eagerly pursue. 
So, I am here now, putting off my reading and the two papers I'm supposed to be writing, to remind myself. 
I am here because... well because this is all I want to do. They is all I can do! There is no other way to say it! No other way to do it! I am here because I have this nagging urge in my heart that won't be still. It is the storm inside my soul. I find peace in the storm, and I guess this is my storm. This rage, this passion, this hurricane. This brings me to life. Without it I am dead. Without it I am just a hot sunny day, and I hate hot sunny days. 
And now, I have come up with a title for this nameless post. As you can see I've called it, Send Me a Storm. Or, more precisely, Send Me THE Storm.

I didn't have a picture for this post, so I thought I'd share one of my favorite landscape pictures taken by none other than my Dad. 

Just looking at it makes me feel calm in the most tremendous way.

Check out more breathtaking landscapes of his here.

Rainy Mornings

I know it's going to be a good day when it rains in the morning. 

I love writing when it rains. There's something about the rain that inspires me. 

Today however I had to get away from my laptop and breathe for a moment. So I took my friends for a walk through the yard.

 Raffael didn't want to get his paws wet.

Kiki didn't mind so much:P

"Some people feel the rain, others just get wet."

~Bob Marley