Write on Wednesday-Branching Out

"Tell me a story!" How often have you heard that from your children, your grandchildren, nieces and nephews, or even your students, if you happen to be an elementary school teacher. I think all children love stories, the more outlandish and unbelievable the better. Story telling has been around since the beginning of time. Those famous cave paintings - weren't they probably the first "graphic novel"? Stories provide us with entertainment, sure, but they also shed meaning into our lives, helping us answer some of those eternal questions about the whys and wherefores of our existence.

I've never outgrown my love of stories, and I always make time for reading them, no matter how crazy my schedule is. Fiction ~the marvelous stories of other people's lives, loves, and adventures~is my passion. A well crafted novel is better to me than the richest chocolate or the finest wine (although I'm certainly not averse to enjoying any combination of all three!)

Until very recently, I've never tried writing any fiction. I've always considered myself a non-fiction writer- I like having a set subject, based on fact, research, or opinion, that I can write about or perhaps shed a new light on.

Lately, though, I've been branching out into the realm of make believe in my writing, trying my hand at some short fiction based on prompts from Sunday Scribblings and other writing sites. I've purchased the Gotham Writers Workshop Practical Guide to Fiction Writing, and I'm working my way through articles and exercises on generating ideas and developing character and plot. I'm learning to observe people and events in different ways, looking for the extra edge or touch of whimsy in characters and events that could develop into a story. Sometimes even a fragment of conversation can set a story idea in motion.

It's a little nerve wracking, this business of making people and events up from thin air. But it's also exciting to try on new writing styles and formats, kind of like playing dress up as a kid. Sometimes, I get going on a roll with an idea, or a character pops into my head from out of nowhere, begging for a story. I start writing things down, and before I know it, I'm out of control, typing crazily almost as if possessed, with my poor unsuspecting character careening down some dark and unknown pathway.

That's one of great things about the practice of writing. With only word play and my imagination, I can create entire worlds, peopled with all sorts of interesting characters working their way through life. In the process of leading them on their journey, I inevitably learn something new about myself as well.

So, how about you? Are you branching out, in your writing life, or elsewhere?

One Deep Breath-Viewpoint

aloft among clouds home remains a distant dream

We fly a lot, commuting to Florida by air like some Michigander's do to their summer cottages "up north." I can't say I like flying...I endure it, because it gets me where I want to go quickly. Tonight's flight home was one of those particularly grueling ones. The plane was packed, the cooling system wasn't working too well, they made us board really early, and a child screamed incessantly for about 45 minutes at the beginning and end of the flight.

From my vantage point, I could see the plane's wing, skimming the tops of fluffy white clouds that floated endlessly across the horizon. On another night, I might have found more beauty in that sight. Tonight, I just wanted to be home, and it seemed terribly far away.

photo from here

more haiku here

Sunday Scribblings-Masks

Yesterday afternoon, I found myself surrounded by people in masks. Heaved unceremoniously from the ambulance stretcher to the hard emergency room gurney, doctors and nurses with little white masks dangling from around their necks quickly went to work to revive me from anaphylactic shock, an allergic reaction initiated by the stinging bite of one, tiny little red ant. Fire ants, they call them here in Florida. And this isn't the first dangerous run in we've had with them. The victim the last time wasn't me, it was Magic, my then 2 year old shih-tzu. We were on our regular evening walk, when, as dogs will do, he stuck his nose into a mound of them. Suddenly, he started writhing around on the ground, rubbing his face on the cement. His face began swelling immediately, and then he started vomiting. We grabbed him up and raced him to the nearest emergecny vet where they dosed him with benadryl and cortisone.

I've been bitten a time or two since then, usually on my toes because when I'm in Florida I'm either barefooted or in sandals. These bites were itchy for a few days, but little more than a mosquito bite. Yesterday was a different story. Within seconds after feeling that sting on my toe, I was itching everywhere, and hives had broken out all over my legs, abdomen, and arms. Then I got nauseous, dizzy, and finally, just as the ambulance arrived, completely blacked out. And that's how I found myself surrounded by a sea of masked faces.

Apparently, there are at least 100 people a year who die from reactions to fire ant bites. I've been armed with an Epi-pen and advised to carry Benedryl at all times. Luckily, I'm fine, other than a little tired and headachy. Thanks to all those people with little white masks dangling from around their necks.

read my other Sunday Scribble here

Write on Wednesday-Finding Your Voice

Writers often talk about "finding their voice," that unique way of expressing themselves that identifies them as an individual. Whether it's the way you construct a sentence, the point of view you favor, a persistent use of imagery, every writer is looking for that special something that makes their writing stand out. In The Right to Write, Julia Cameron tells us to stop looking. "Your voice is already there," she says. "Don't focus on your "writer's voice" to the exclusion of having something to say. If you enter into what you want to express, you will intuitively arrive at ways to express it."

Apparently, the writer's voice is like the singer's voice. Before I started working with singers, I had the mistaken impression that you were either born with a singing voice or you weren't. How wrong I was! Everyone can be taught the craft of singing. Of course, some people are gifted with a more beautiful voice than others, but everyone has a singing voice inside them. By following a tried and true method of instruction, you can learn to make that singing voice work. Yet every voice will carry with it unique qualities that cannot (and should not!) be changed. Timbre, tone quality, and range, are all unique to each person's instrument.

So it is with each writer. Even in the writing I do for my day job, which is completely technical and quite formulaic, my boss tells me she can "immediately" discern which of the three writers in my department have written a particular piece. We each have our distinct way of putting words together that identifies us one from the other.

Yes, I can study the techniques and craft of writing, I can use Stunk and White's Elements of Style as my "bible," I can do writing exercises and revisions galore, and all of this will improve my ability to write. None of it will essentially change the writing voice that I was born with - it's as much a part of me as my hair color (although that's certainly changable!) Even though it's fun to experiment with diffent shades, the "true color" is still there underneath.

"Let the song do the singing," Cameron tells us. Writing is about passing along a message, something that moves us about a person, a place, a circumstance, a feeling. Those things that speak to our hearts are the stories we must concentrate on telling in our own unique voices.

So, how about you? Are you comfortable with your writer's voice?

Postscript: If you haven't read Right to Write, I highly recommend it. For me, it's the best of all Cameron's books, because it includes so many of her ideas in a very succinct format, with great writing exercises as well.

What a Difference A Week Makes

Last week at this time, I was going totally crazy. I felt dangerously stressed out, more so than I can ever remember. Today, I came home from work early, did a little laundry, relaxed with a cup of Zen tea, and watched a marvelous thunderstorm from the safety of my big green living room chair. I read some wonderful haiku (on the subject of nurturing, no less!), wrote my post for tomorrow (Write on Wednesday is back!), and actually made dinner myself (pork tenderloin "Diane" with wild rice and steamed baby carrots -it smells yummy!)

So, what's the big difference?? I have nothing in my musical agenda this week. No concerts, no rehearsals, no performances scheduled (until May 25, that is).

It's clear where the source of my stress seems to lie.

Why is it, though, that the thing I love doing most in the world causes me so much angst???

It all comes down to another four letter word, the word that appears here on the Byline, and in my morning pages, over and over again.

TIME.

Sigh.