So... currently I'm waist-deep in gathering needed tools with which to properly write the stories banging around in my head. Well, that's the goal anyway. Something like walking a tightrope lately, keeping my balance with every day life while all I want to do is write. It's become a bit of a tricky thing.
Being a bit of an all-or-nothing type of girl to begin with, the passion to write is taking on a life of its own. We haven't lost anyone yet, but the benefits of having a spouse capable of and willing to feed himself, and occasionally push a sandwich in front of me, has proven a life saver, literally. And after a few near misses, getting one of those large cat food self-feeders and a super big water bowl has made life less stressful for the four-legged among my tribe. So far, the plants have shown themselves to be extraordinarily hardy. The occasional long stretches between waterings has stunted their growth a little, I think, but they're hanging in there. Go plants!
Frustration is a more and more constant companion to the whole process at this stage. Sometimes, I feel like I know just how an infant must feel, seeing what they want within reach but without the motor skills to reach out and grab it. Aurrgh!!! Just makes you want to scream, toss papers and pens, cuss like a sailor (or maybe, make up dirty words to say if you don't really know how to cuss all that well) and generally throw a fit. -- Yeah, okay I'm not proud of that, but there you go.
Ideas, plots, characters come, I see them right in front of me, but what to do with them? How to organize them so that they make any sense or even resemble how I see it in my head? There's no subtitles in there!!
I sketch and paint with pencil, charcoal and pastel. Creating or recreating what I see in my mind is usually cathartic for me. When I paint or sketch for a length of time something happens. Usual ways of seeing, understanding drop away and new possibilities materialize. When I'm in that place words begin to take on color and shapes start to sing, reality shifts. Time slows down. It feels like flying, but more. Ideas assume shape and move about like puzzle pieces. Stories develop. Sometimes I'm a part of the story and sometimes I just watch, like a movie. So many bits and pieces gathered from those times spent in the space between. Far more 'starts' than 'endings' but maybe its a beginning, if I could just get my baby arms and legs to work, I could get some of them down.
I believe there are many tunnels and passages to levels and degrees of reality inside these creating spaces that will make for wonderful stories. Those spaces where we go when we create, those spaces between what we know and what we don't realize we know, that's where the really great stories live.
I'm making a new commitment. While reading and digesting as much as I can from the library of books on the art of writing and the care-and-feeding of the writer's muse, I plan to write something daily. Getting something down onto paper, even if not the stories pushing to take shape, something. It's becoming more of a have-to than a want-to, so not really like I have a choice.
With the limited tools and ability I currently have, what I write isn't always a pretty picture or a pleasant thing to experience. But, most things have that gangly, ugly phase, I'll just hope it's not a permanent condition. And, who knows, the exercise itself might improve the result, eventually.
This is the most current log entry on my quest toward writing a read-worthy novel... Touch base again soon. If you're on your own journey as a writer of stories, I'd love to hear what's happening on your end.
