Every Picture Tells a Story

Ah, Stalwart Followers!

            You’ll likely want to flog me, but I veer off course again. Here’s the drift:

            This very mornin’, while readin’ over my latest Captain’s Log, I see I here promised a photo gallery escapade, the Key West sail with the proper English relatives.

What in Hades are you doin’? I say to meself. This isn’t Facebook, you dunce! This is about your writin’ life, you fish fodder.

            Aye, I could argue all is fodder for a writer, even the English relatives. But nay, this weren’t one of those times. I’d let me cutlass down, been caught in the moment of the fun, the partying, the being away from the desk and writin’. Am I daft for wantin’ more play?

            Returnin’ to the ship called home, I was, however, ready to write, thank Neptune! Bein’ self-employed, I had a few awaitin’ and a new one to boot. Late I was in approachin’ the blog, but I had greadily readied myself for the visuals of photos. Now I was going on gobsmacked. How the heck could I switch direction, again? Was I driving my readers crazy? Would they join me as I hopped like a frog from one lily pad to another? And where the bloody hell is that interview with Jessica Maxwell you may be asking? Ah, mateys, scheduling conflicts, and I won’t do an email interview. Live ones give the unexpected and are dammed good interesting. So stay on board!

            Aye, I could beg forgiveness, but you’re a good lot, and I expect I’m not the first to disappoint. Instead of floggin’ myself, I’ll move the bloody photos to FB.  Could it be simpler?

            But where to go, messmates?

            I sit, thump me head, drum fingers, drink tea. Check me last blog again.

            There I find the latest comment and sail over to Kirsten’s blogship.           

            A twinge! My gut’s a flutter. She’s followin’ “A Thousand Hands Clapping.” I do not know this ship, but I take a look. And blimey! Lookee what I find—

 

            E’er was this synchronicity squared? I write to Catherine, captain of the blogship and congratulate her on her first movie/slideshow. Watchin’ it, reminds me of the photos I’ve taken, and a thematic tide surges through me. Like a ship, a floating bit of wood and canvas upon the sea that contains all a buccaneer needs, these photos squeeze much into little, something I call artistry from confinement.

            Oh, me buckos! Visual arts feeds me. In Florida, I watched no movies, so stimulation came from the unexpected and humorous. Whether sailing to Key West with my brother or afterwards trawling South Beach with my sister, I looked for objects that that tell a story. That’s why we take photos—to remember our stories, to create our stories. As a storyteller, I try to find photos that speak to me. Here be a few. Imagine what they say, what stories they tell. What stories you spin from them.

            I know not how these “found objects” will surface in my writing. I’m followin’ this line of thinkin’, fellow seamen and women, ‘cause it has to do with “feeding the creative beast.” Or should I say “chumming the waters?” Perhaps, as in dreams, I am both the beast that I’m feeding and the feeder of said beast. As a writer, I don’t dismiss any of this crazy wandering of the mind. Not all needs to be purposefully followed. Like day dreamin’. If it surfaces, I pay attention or perish. It is, as one of my late compatriots at Hedgebrook Writers Colony said, all grist for the mill.

            And I think I’ll clatter on with this very same subject next week with more about “found objects” as a jumping off place for writers. Nay, this isn’t about catching ideas for a story like so many fish, but more about stimulatin’ the creative glands or filling the creative stomach. We need nourishment, all of us. Writers sometimes find it in the mundane, sometimes in the mysterious. It’s all part of the process.

And if you understand any of this prattle, if any of the photos strikes a story in you, join this blog with a comment. The wilder, the better.

All my duty to you,

Captain Val

"A Thousand Clapping Hands" blog can be found here:

http://athousandclappinghands.blogspot.com/

Coming Up! (I hear ya laughin’, you scallywags!)

“Found Objects: a Launch for Creative Storytelling”

"The Fountain of Creative Ideas, or Why My Resume Wouldn't Land Me a Normal Job"

"Platform, Flatform"

"A View of My Writers Room Wall: What Inspires Me"

... and soon an interview with Jessica Maxwell of Roll Around Heaven

Dangerous Territory: the Mind of a Writer

Ahoy, hearties, y’are about to enter the swampy mind of a writer. I’ll gi’ ye no further warnin’ other than to say this is an experiment and you the guinea pig. Good luck on ya!

June Joint, 11:43 a.m.

No place to plug in. drink my tea, Irish tea. Not very strong. Damn did I bring my notes from yesterday’s LitChix? Yes, oh, crap, forgot to wish Dan a Happy St. Patty’s but he’ll be okay, I’ll call … I wish the guys next to me would be quieter. Loud. Okay, what to do now. Need to write my … who’s that? Someone said hello, but don’t recognize him. What about notes. Again. Go through them, order lunch, call Dan, drink tea, notes that Chris and Patsy made seem to contradict but complement, but doesn’t matter, I know the direction I’m taking with the new chapters and think I gave them clear direction on where I’m heading, funny that yesterday at the kids’ I talked about my characters in this novel, my excitement from the morning critique and nothing but blank looks, I know, don’t have to tell myself that why wouldn’t that happen when … switch gears, back to the chapters from yesterday and my excitement, shoot need to call Randy Sue back, we were having such a great conversation about our novels before the power went out, interesting that we’re both loving the writing at the moment, not very often this happens in the joy department and a reprieve from all the bad news out there and whoops need to take my adrenal pill to get me on track and stop thinking about the tsunami, the nuclear plants melting down, the stock market tanking … monkey mind again, always freakin’ monkey mind throwing me off from the novel, focus, the beginning, the slower pace, the … oh, should have told Patsy that this is a way to engage, almost hypnotize the reader and not the same artificial … no, that’s not what Lois Jean called the last version, the one … did she say contrived? Or did she say … crap, can’t remember, but … oh ya! Forced was her her word, and that’s what stopped me, not her, but reaching a later chapter and … she felt as I did too as I’ve gone back to the way I began writing years ago with the lyrical tone and the capture of the reader through what seems to be normal but is far from it, the

(Had to drink tea and say hi to a friend.)

Where was I? this isn’t—and I’m just now understanding this—this isn’t the way my mind works say for example in the car when I’m working something in my head … the act of typing this doesn’t convey the actual real work of a writer’s mind when fully immersed because when recording the mind, the mind works closer to the surface, the act of typing taking away spontaneity and run on thinking and close scrutiny of a problem and what is the problem? Where to go with suggestions from C&P, where I really need to tweak and I think that is just at the beginning, giving it a good first sentence, some ordering changes, putting some of it up front, fleshing out a few emotional points letting it breathe … no it is breathing, that’s no longer the problem, letting the reader be there in their shoes and giving them an inside look at the day to day laced with the betrayals that have plagued both sisters and kept them locked together and chained to their pact … that’s not a problem now opening the window and instead of … what? Shit, what was I thinking? Okay maybe it’s just as well I don’t think about this too much and just get some lunch and read the notes and forget that this jumble of whatever is going to get posted because I believe in experimenting as a writer and the forgiveness of readers and damn, if we didn’t work in tandem, we’d have nothing, no love of telling a story or creating a world, and … if I could only make you happy, kind of a love affair where if I didn’t have the reader, I’d be doing nothing but … this isn’t exactly where I wanted to go but after escaping the coast and having two days without electricity this seems tranquil and healing to just let go and be … be what is a big question, but oh, hell, this is just what it is and once I read the notes, I’ll be back at it and loving it and then I have to go to Florida and that’s fine because god knows I need a break and new scenery, good weather and being away from the norm will have to rejuvenate … better rejuvenate or at least … oh, never mind. I’m hungry.

So now, maties, we know the writer’s mind is neither lovely nor interesting nor dangerous--except to me--and that’s a fact. But we sailed together, sank this post, and snorted at the attempt. But here’s the truth dating back to Chaucer (c. 1374):

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Next week, I’ll tell ye a tale of my writer’s week at Rockaway Beach, one that began with a spring day full of sun and calm crystal ocean, ending in the middle o’ the night with the fear of dying. A small brave crew “wrote up a storm,” giving meanin’ to that old sayin’.

I may even give you more about the novel-in-progress in a later post.

Here’s to ye Irish out thar! Tip a pint and pray for better weather.

Your gobsmacked captain,

Val

Coming Up! 

"Wild Week at the Coast: my Latest Writer's Retreat"

"Key West Adventures"

"The Fountain of Creative Ideas, or Why My Resume Wouldn't Land Me a Normal Job"

"Platform, Flatform"

... and an interview with Jessica Maxwell of Roll Around Heaven