TEA TIME: FEATHER FINGERS

Today I drank an entire pot of tea, and somehow wrote this odd little piece of writing. I enjoyed it, in it's strange, unedited state, and I thought maybe you guys would too. 

After a long day of winnowing, the man had discovered that his fingers had grown feathers. They were odd little, flexible things that bent and bowed with a fair deal of pressure – but they refused to break of fray. The kind of feathers a wintering goose might wear to prepare them for the long journey – always pursuing the eternal summer. They felt strange – yet familiar, truly – like an old thing humans had long forgotten about, until suddenly it appeared again, and you knew what to do about it.

And yet he rather didn't care that there were feathers there. They felt strange in the water – an odd resistance that pulled at his palms. It changed how they felt out of the water – as if he was constantly streaming his fingers through water. Suddenly the space around him no longer felt empty. It felt full of potential and weight.

In his dreams he had dreamt of flying many times. He had dreamt of flying away many more. Somewhere the constant droll of fingers and hands weaving through water meant something other than toil from dusk to dawn. Somewhere – and it was never here. Somewhere – the word stretched out before him, filling the air with a golden taste that drew him away from his house. It drew him to the field, it pulled him. He knew he had to go.

With a sigh and a set face of determination, he stood, holding his feathered fingers in front of him. As he raised his hands to the sky, he felt the first bits of regrets slip off him like a false skin. Regrets of coming here, regrets of being forced in to this job he didn't love. Regrets of watching himself age here – the dark thought of dying here. They all fell off of him and on to the ground in front of him. He felt empty. Empty enough for the air around him to begin filling him – warm and golden and wild.

For the first time in a long time – he felt free. He glanced at his feathered fingers – their speckled colour turning translucent in the late afternoon light. Then he raised his second hand aloft, sunlight streaming through the dark feathers. With it he felt a new found confidence. A pull, a feeling, a need – something deep and primal he knew he had deep within him already – but ignored. Or perhaps it was the bird in him, he would never know. He took a deep breath and flapped.

He felt every muscle straining in his arms as the air again became a solid fixture around him. A mass, a place of buoyancy and weightlessness similar to what he felt when he was submerged in the river. The wind at his back was like a current pulling him onward. The feathered ached to feel the sky again, and suddenly he felt it deep within him, too. He ached to fly – he would fly...

Nothing. No great flight. No leap of grace or ascention to another level. No transformation or shout of joy or pain or...anything. Not a thing.

So the feathered man kicked off his shoes and started running.

FIND YOUR MAGNA CARTA

There is power in what you love.

Everything that interests you has meaning. Every topic, theme, design, colour, material, TV show, genre - everything you find yourself returning to again and again holds a very special, very specific place in your life. All of these things, these ideas that we can’t seem to tear ourselves away from, or things that we love desperately, are what make up our own unique creative DNA. And if you can uncover these things, if you can find the strings connecting all of them, there comes a deeper understanding of who we are, what makes us tick, and where to focus our energy.

I’ve heard this referred to as our ‘vein of gold’, our ‘magna carta’ or manifesto, our creative DNA - whatever you call it, it’s the fabric that makes up how we create, however we create. It’s the reason we find ourselves drawn to books about religious icons in the pre-1400s, or constantly reading news stories about world politics. It’s the reason we love expressionist art, and can’t seem to ‘get’ sci-fi. It’s the reason we’re drawn to the colour yellow, and can’t stop staring at the night sky. And when we look closely at all these seemingly seperate things, we can see the underlying currents that draw our attention. Perhaps the interest in early religious icons and global politics hints at a deep-rooted interest in times of change in civilizations. Or perhaps your love of the stars and expressionist art hints at your love for the infinite.

When we begin to draw these connections, we can guide our energy, we can adjust our focus, we can align our lives with the things that we love.

-BRAINSTORM-

First thing to do is sit down with a big piece of paper, or a new word document open, and just start writing. Start listing everything that you love. Try and dig deep, be specific, and try to cover every aspect of your life; That one chord that always gives you shivers. The colour gold, especially with pink. Anything with a cute face on it. Every studio ghibli movie ever. The smell after it rains. 

Also another resource: TV Tropes. Enter any specific book, show, movie, and browse through the different tropes in it. Sometimes the basic underlying structures in what we love are the real things we love. Give it a try.  

If you find yourself stuck, go through your senses, and the things you love with each of them:

Touch: fabrics you love, feelings you love, weather/seasons

Sight: Colours you love, artists you like, photographs and art styles you love

Sound: Bands you love, instruments you like, specific sounds

Smell: since smell is the strongest sense tied to memory, think of specific memories and what you love about them.

Taste: think savory food you love, desserts you’ve had, etc

And then you can go through each type of media. Start big, then narrow it down:

Book genres you love (fantasy, biographies, picture books)

Types of TV shows (crime shows, dramas, romance)

Movies you love (comedies, animated, tragedies)

News/ Blog stories you enjoy (world news, DIYs, self-help posts)

Music you listen to (rock, indie / piano-based, vocals)

-NARROW-

Got a nice, long list? Great. Now look through the list and pay special attention to your body and your heart. Read each thing you’ve written, and notice when your heart seems to flutter out of your chest. The things that send your mind whirling in to deeper thoughts. The things that make your salivate, make your hunger, the things that light a fire within you. Highlight these things (or start a new document). Start to parse the list for repeats. 

Take only the things that make you glow inside.

As you look, you’ll probably realize that you’ve got a bunch of repeats along it, too. If you find yourself repeating a lot of things that don’t make your heart swell, try and figure out why they’re on your list so much. Is it something the people around you love? (Maybe you need to include that person, if there is a specific person’s interests that keep popping up). Is it a part of something bigger, or something smaller? Maybe you’ve written a lot of modern sci-fi titles on your list, but what you really love are books that examine human nature, or feature really cool ray guns. Try to flip and turn each thing so it catches the light differently.

Try to combine and refine all the mess in to the purest forms of what you love. 
We’re not looking for lists that say things like ‘anime, heavy metal, plants’. Dig deep, as deep as you can, to get to the real things you love. Anime might turn in to ‘animated Japanese myth’.

By the time you’re done this, you should have a list of hopefully at least 20 fire-starting things from your huge brainstorm. You should have a list that makes you feel like you’re flying, bring tears to your eyes, make you feel mega-inspired.

CELEBRATE

Take this list. Decorate it. Display it. Be inspired by it. Learn from it. 

Make a big ass image of it and put it somewhere you see it every day. Have it set on your phone. Carry it with you.

Be proud that you can understand yourself a bit more, and treasure the things you love. When we are guided by what we love, when we follow the trails our hearts send us out on, we are living our lives right (I mean, as long as your loves are legal and all that. Hurting people or things, in any way, isn’t gonna work out real well. But you know that).

I would love to see what you come up with - let me know if you make one.

MAKE A MOOD BOARD

It's that time of year again - time to start planning a new novel for National Novel Writing Month.

Which means it's time to start gathering as much information and tools I can to survive the month and write another brand-new draft. Which means plotting, planning, thinking, getting inspired, getting blocked, getting inspired again, getting blocked again...ah, the beautiful cycle of a writer. 

One of my favourite tools for preparing myself (but not getting overburdened with preparation) for the mad dash that is the month of November, is to make a big, beautiful, inspiring mood board.

A place where all my ideas, feelings, thoughts and information is in one place. My characters, my setting details, and even images that  I just found inspiring - all I have to do is look up and be inspired, ready to write. 

Make your own mood board - just head over to pinterest and start pinning. I usually search through the boards tagged 'nanowrimo' and various 'character inspiration' boards - and follow the trail back to other boards. I usually set a time limit, between 30 minutes and an hour, and just let myself explore.

Some things you can gather for your mood board:
- Try to narrow your novel down in to a few words, emotions or themes. For example, my novel this year is based on "Old Customs vs. Modern Girls" Put these words somewhere you can see them, whether you're printing your mood board out or not.
-  A basic draft of your plot
- A 'magna carta' for your novel - a collection of names, feelings, stories and themes that you love and want to write about.
- Character profiles
- Images of your characters and settings
- Images capturing various moods in your story
- Quotes
- Images inspiring action in your writing (ie; kisses, fight scenes and interaction)
- Pictures that set the time of your story ( Medieval clothing, vs tranquilizer guns - or a merry mix of both)
- Items / people / things important to your characters; things that develop them more
- A few wildcards that you just like.

 Now, here's where you can do one of two things - you can either choose to keep your board in the electronic realm - in which case, I would suggest captioning all your images, and sorting them until you feel happy. I'd also reccomend you pick the best images and make a collage out of them - save it as your background, have it on your phone, keep it somewhere you can see it constantly.

Or you can choose to print it out. If you choose this route, be prepared to parse through the images and pick your best ones. Whether electronic or printed, I suggest doing a speed-pick, giving yourself no more than 10 minutes to choose your favourite images. Impulse is a great tool, and you'll almost always pick the best and most helpful images under a clock.

I'm really enjoying attaching technical information to my mood board this year - things that I'll need to reference when I'm writing. There are plenty of resources avaliable on the Nanowrimo website, if you want to do some technical planning, and add those to the board.

Do you guys do any fancy planning for nanowrimo? I'd love to see yours, especially if you do mood boards (they don't need to be nanowrimo-themed!!) Please, share in the comments!!

TEA TIME: THE LAND OF VU

 Drinking: Ginseng Oolong

Thinking:

I pick up a stone from across the way of my Buppa and Bamma's house. The house has always been such a magical place for me, full of undiscovered mystery, and even more undiscovered territory waiting for me any time I wasn't content with the house, the front yard, the back yard. I'd grab my Buppa off of the couch, his nicotine-stained mustache that hasn't changed in at least a decade quirking in to a smile, and we'd make the journey across the road to Pinewood school. His hand was hardened velvet in my own tiny palm, I always loved to feel the creases that age had carved in to it.

I have dreams of his hands, now. Even though he’s not around anymore, I have dreams of his soft, big hands. I hold them, I trace their lines absently as I always did when I was a child. If ever someone asks me what love feels like, I will always answer, Buppa’s palms.

The school was full of mysteries I didn't quite understand - “what was that extra building for?” the special needs kids, “what is this building for?” it's a greenhouse, “where is that music coming from?” let's go see “what is he playing” bagpipes, aren't they wonderful? And then we'd stand, just outside of the doors to the cavernous gym, and listen to the bagpipes. I was transfixed by it, as music often does to me. I'm trying to recall if they wore their outfits when playing it. I don't think so – but I remember the man in full Scottish regalia, kilt, swinging tassels and all. It was beautiful as he marched up and down the gymnasium.

I scrawl some jibberish on to that stone, and pass it in to my Buppa's waiting palm. “What's it say?” I ask, feigning knowledge, as curious as can be inside. “Vu.” he says, handing the stone back to me. Suddenly it holds so much more than just igneous matter. It is a key. It is magic. A world of wonder rushes in to my head. “Vu.” I say, holding the suddenly-heavy stone in my palm. “This is the key to Vu.”

Every single thing that mattered to me, which, at that time, heavily revolved around those goofy kid-cars that you can buy, an easy bake oven, and tons of magical books, filled up this new world. I nodded, once again feigning knowledge, and turned to him, serious now, “Vu is a world for kids only. But I'd let you come visit, if you wanted.” Because I loved him, and I loved Bamma, too, and my mom, and I knew that they could all come visit me when I went there. I’d use it as a bribe in the schoolyard, my little heavy stone, the gatekeeper to a world all of my own

“If you give me your fruit snacks, I’ll let you come visit me in Vu.”

“I’d let you go to Vu with me. Because I like you.”

“I like you too.”

But try as hard as I could, I could never get to Vu. I got close, a couple of times, but it never happened. To this day, Vu is still a part of my mind – a separate world that, I realize, I can only belong to, that I just can’t quite reach. But I don’t have to. Perhaps it is some of my untapped psychic potential leaking through, or maybe it's simply me holding on to something from my childhood I hold dearly. It has shifted, and oftentimes I don't call it by that same name, but I still hold, within a large part of my mind, a world all my own. It is magical.

“It's a key to Vu.” I say to mom, handing it to her, all puffed up and proud. I can be like that with mom. She's a goof, and she knows I am too. There’s a party happening – I can't remember why. Maybe Christmas, maybe not. We used to have celebrations in our old house. The whole family would come. It was wonderful. I loved the attention, the conversation, helping mom. “Only kids are allowed there.” I add, looking around at all the adults smiling at me.

Of course, mom pipes up. “Oh.” she says, matching my false pride of her own. “Well...” she runs in to the kitchen and picks up a spatula “This is a key to Cockadoodle.” she finishes, brandishing the red spoon eagerly. “And kids aren't allowed. We go by the lake and sing to seagulls.” I immediately picture mom, standing dutily in the middle of the lake that we pass by to get to our house, a conductor's podium before her, baton in her hand, directing a symphony with the seagulls, golden sunlight drenching the area. It captivated me, and I thought of Cockadoodle every time we drove by that place for a long time, and my mom’s proud form conducting the seagulls like a master.

JOIN ME!!

You’re going to start seeing a lot of posts about something called ‘nanowrimo’ very shortly on my blog.

Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and happens for the duration of November, every year. It is an event that encourages anyone and everyone to dedicate the month of November to writing a full novel (at least 50 000 words) in a month. Nano places a value on “enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline” and helps thousands of people ‘win’ the challenge every year.

I’m sure that a lot of people have always wanted to write a novel. Which, to a lot of people, seems like an incredibly daunting task.

Now, Nanowrimo is not about writing the perfect, publishable novel in 30 days. It’s simply about writing the novel - your first draft. Afterwards, you’re given a lot of support and resources to editing and completing your novel, but for November, it is simply about WRITING YOUR HEART OUT.

The community is incredible - every few days there are pep-talks from famous authors such as Neil Gaiman, Rainbow Rowell, Tamora Pierce, the list goes on! So many people cite Nanowrimo as a huge inspiration to them, including published authors themselves. In fact, Rainbow Rowell’s book Fangirl was based off of a novel she wrote for Nanowrimo.

For me, I learned about National Novel Writing Month after probably the hardest summer of my life. Diagnosed with a thyroid disorder, and having to move back home from University, I was a mess of depression, confusion and self-depreciation. There wasn't anything positive in my life, no victories had been won for quite a while, but when I learned about the premise of Nanowrimo, I decided that was something I could do, and I would WIN nanowrimo.

I had no real clue what the heck I was writing, but it involved an epic, crazy cast of around 16 main characters (whaaaaa…) based off of tarot cards. You can still see the mood boards I made for them on my pinterest, if you want (I’m totally not proud of them…nope. Not at all…) And I wrote. I wrote and wrote. When I got bored of writing about one character I would write about another, and these sixteen confused, strange characters propelled me through a month of feeling completely connected to my creativity. A month of developing a writing practice and habit, and discipline.

A month of crazy, caffeine fuelled craziness. There were days where I couldn’t write. Where I cried. Where everything I tried couldn’t produce more than 50 words. There were also days where I wrote almost 8,000 words in one day. Those days…THOSE DAYS WERE AH-MAZING. I don’t think I have ever felt so creatively-high than those days. I felt like a CHAMPION. I felt INSANE…LY GREAT.

And on November 30th, at around 8pm, I entered my final word count in the website (they have the sweetest word counter for you - honestly half the reason I do nanowrimo now is because of that killer counter. You’ll understand when you sign up. It’s great). I entered the word count, and I won my first nanowrimo.

It was the first victory under my belt. And it was proof that I was capable of dedicating myself and my creativity in to something bigger, something tangible, something awesome. I had completed and done something that so many people never do. And, I had a fully-fledged (albeit rambling, gramatically incorrect and confused) novel! I had written a novel!!

So this year is going to be my third time participating in Nanowrimo. I’ve already announced my novel (it even has a cover this year!!) and I’m really, really excited. This year’s going to be the best one yet! And I want YOU to join me. If you’ve never heard of nanowrimo, sign up and give it a try. If you’re on the fence about it, sign up and give it a try!! Let’s be friends, and let’s write and encourage each other!

I’ve got some really cool, helpful posts lined up this year for it, to! So stay tuned, and let’s get this Nanowrimo party started!!

TEA TIME : LAUGHTER

Drinking: Queen of Tarts (my favourite tea of all time) 

Thinking:

I’m a loud laugher. 

 

I’m the kind of girl who throws her head back when she laughs. Stops what she’s doing to let out a great big crow of a laugh, followed by a staccato of smaller laughs that go on for a long, long time. If it’s something really funny, the wheezes turn in to whines, titters - I have a different laugh for different kinds of funny, but it all follows that same pattern, like a thunderclap followed by rain. The first part turns peoples heads. The second makes them roll their eyes. 
 

I think everyone’s laugh is like a fingerprint. 

 

I know people who laugh like volcanoes - an explosion that shocks it’s way through the room. I know people who whinny like horses. Scream like banshees. I know people who titter like little kids - quiet and bubbly like a brook. I also know people who don’t laugh out loud - it’s a quiet expression meant only for themselves. I know people who elbow others when they laugh - drawing them in to their laughter.

I think laughter is one of the most beautiful things - it’s such an expression of joy. I remember reading that rats and elephants both are capable of laughing. Are there things we find funny that they do, too?

I don’t understand how people have problems with laughter. 

And yet, in my life, I’ve encountered so many people who have a problem with it. I can’t begin to count the times people have shushed me when I’m laughing. The times I’ve been told to be quiet, to calm down, to relax. Is it because we don’t like seeing people laugh? We don’t like seeing people enjoying themselves? I’ve seen so many boys hooting and laughing their way down streets, through stores. Their voices booming over crowds, not drawing more than a few irritated looks.

But the moment girls laugh, we see it as a shrill lapse in control. We see it as negative. Annoying. Pointless. We give it it’s own name - giggling. Somehow a giggle is far more condescending than a laugh. At once more ladylike and less ladylike in one swoop. It’s less serious. It’s less powerful. It’s less important. It’s not as good as a laugh. 
 

Men laugh. Girls giggle. 

 

Funny, how once again, the word applied to females is again less-than. Surprising? Not at all.

Lately I’ve started watching a lot more media directed and created by women. I’ve been watching Amy Poehler, Chelsea Handler, Broad City. They’re funny. They’re smart. They’re masters of the ‘art’ of comedy just as much as any of the ‘big (male) names’ of comedy (which I find, ironically, funny. Comedy is always, when compared to other performance art forms, less-than. Before all these big dudes became comedy ‘heroes’, comedy was restricted to basements and the backs of newspapers - but that’s another thing for another time). And whenever I try to discuss these hilarious women with people, I’m met with straight faces. “I don’t find women as funny. They just aren’t.”

Sorry, ladies. Get your bitchface ready for permanent application and get ready for the newsflash of the century. We are not funny. Funny things aren’t in our vocabulary, and even if we do find something funny, it’s not real funny. How the hell can our small baby-brains grasp such an advanced concept as humor? Silly females.No, wait, not silly females. Right? Because we’re not funny. Right. Let’s go back to making sandwiches and babies, silently. 
 

Can you taste the sarcasm? Oh shit. That’s kind of funny, isn’t it?! 

 

I have nothing to say to this. Because, I just laugh. I throw my head back and let out my laugh in a golden forte (that’s loud, for all you non-musicians). I’ll be over here, watching smart ladies make smart jokes, and smart ladies make fart jokes, and smart ladies just being funny. Laughing my ass off.

And somehow, still, making a feminist statement. 

Laughter is the best medicine, right? 
Right?