July 13, 2014 Check-in

Weds-
I fiction read for 30 minutes in Year of Wonders.

Thurs-
I fiction read for 40 min read in Year of Wonders and 10 minutes in KidLit411.

Friday-
I wrote for 30 minutes in the morning. Morning time works for me! I fiction read for 30 minutes in Year of Wonders in the evening.

Sat-
I went to the wonderful Smithfield Historic Plantation in Blacksburg, Virginia, for some creative inspiration. It was a great trip---I learned all sorts of things. I love meeting people who are passionate about what they love and want to share it with a guilelessness that shows how innately they've been drawn to the subject. I learned that tea used to be shipped in bricks and the binder was pig blood and later pig manure. I learned that the origin of the phrase, "Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite." Any guesses?

I fiction read for about 40 minutes in Hammer of God. I need to shake a tail feather on reading this! My book group is meeting this Friday.

Sunday-
I fiction read for about two hours in Hammer of God. It's three novellas in one book. I think each one takes place in Sweden in the 1800s--I'm only through most of the first novella. I do jump around a lot when reading. I tend to like to get a feel for how a book hangs so I'll dip into the middle then read the end and try to understand the structure of the book from a birds eye view. Then I'll read the beginning again. This book is all about pastors who learn about God's grace during their work. I find the characters do a lot of preaching of the author's thoughts. So it's theology through dialogue more so than theology as revealed through events. Though I'm a bit wrong about this in a way, because the end of the story of the first novella is really about a character's transformation after a decision by the church has been made about him. The author writes a lot about light in his physical descriptions. I have more respect for any author now that I have started trying my hand at creative writing myself. It is just tough sometimes to eek out the words.  I wrote for about a half an hour in the sun at  a local coffee shop for quiet to write because I was free of distraction there. Do you know how horses have blinders when they ride through city streets so things don't distract them from the sides (other lanes)? I kind of feel like when I write I need to put on blinders too, just so I can zero in and focus. I heard that metaphor once sometime a while ago, about needing to be like horses and put blinders on sometimes in life. Not sure where I heard and from whom, but it's stuck with me.

I tried something different after the stint at the coffee shop writing. I sat on my couch for an hour and just closed my eyes and took myself to the scene I was trying to write about, without pressure to get anywhere. I just let things float in and then float out with no anxiety to get it on paper or any anxiety of the blank page staring me in the face. I tried to smell the room I was writing about, tried to walk through it and notice the wallpaper, the floor, the skin on my character's hands and face. I started to ask myself questions about the characters I was meeting. Why did they do this? What did they want from life? What did they do all day? I started to think of writing as a receptive act --- trying to listen for the story to come  and reveal itself---rather than a purely creative act. I did naturally fall asleep as I was daydreaming about my story. It was lovely to just rest --- to just be.

I'm not sure how your creative mind works but when I tap into mine it works best when it's unencumbered and making free form associations and sort of unspooling itself naturally. This is the land of right brain thinking and at this point in my writing life I am quite aware when I am flipping the switch and allowing myself to enter that territory. It's the space of circles and intuition, not lines. It is a creative space and truly I need to carve out time for it because my engines run on linear thinking much of the time. And getting quiet and stopping and shutting my eyes is one way I can flip that switch and visit my story, let the ribbons of creativity unspool, and listen more to what my story is telling me, rather than force the story, like heavy, plodding, thick legs and feet, out.

I wrote for an additional hour and forty minutes in the evening on a chapter about memories, what gives our lives meaning, the Civil War, aging, and slaying dragons. Very grateful for this time. I feel like I'm getting to know my characters more and walking with them finally.