Writing Spaces

Armed with an iPad and wireless keyboard, I have the ability to write just about anywhere. On a late September day, I drove north in the hope of seeing the first sign of fall displayed in the color of the trees. With the tools of my trade in tow, I stopped to do a little creative work in the library of a small town, Bad Axe, located smack dab in the middle of the thumb of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. About two and a half hours and 125 miles from home, I stood in the foyer and read through local advertisements, tourist pamphlets, and notices of community events that were tucked along a wall. Intrigued by the pioneer log cabins just across the street, I picked up literature about them in the pamphlet, “Museums of Huron County, Michigan.” Appreciating the vast acres of farmland all around, I also grabbed information on the “Huron County Nature Center.” One unexpected but pleasant surprise (please don’t think I’m as geeky as I appear right now) was the last copy of the “Michigan Antiquarian Book Dealers & Book Binders Directory.” I anticipated that a friend’s name, Phil Rosette, would be somewhere within its pages, so I had to take it. As soon as I found his and his wife’s business listing, I realized the distance from home just didn’t seem all that far away.

I looked forward to the inspiration I might find in this new writing venue. A sign in the foyer requested that cell phone discussions only take place here, a space separated from the rest of the library by glass doors, so I silenced my phone as requested, before going into the computer area. Inside, there were eight computers, three of which were being used by patrons checking e-mail, playing games, and searching the Internet.

KellyDeadwood-201410Oct-LibraryRoom

Bad Axe Area District Library

I set up my equipment at a long, unoccupied table and began typing. I made progress on an article until one well-dressed, sport-coat clad gentleman came in. His smile made him look friendly, and I actually thought maybe he was the mayor just stopping by to say hello to friends and neighbors. He sat down at one of the computers and began typing. I didn’t find the clickity-clack of his keyboard to be distracting. Muffled conversations with his constituents were tolerable. But this man’s chomping gum…it was loud, endless, and just as aggravating as fingernails running down a chalkboard. Ugh! I frantically reached for my ear buds, crammed the plug into the jack of my cell phone, and turned up the volume on my music selection. The pop-country music group Rascal Flatts drowned out this professional-looking man’s annoying habit and calmed my nerves. However, I could no longer focus on my writing.

Evidently, I have lost my youthful ability to tune out the world around me in order to concentrate and get my work done. Having grown up in a 900 square-foot home with one sister, two brothers, my parents and a dog, I used to sit at our family’s kitchen table to do my school homework. The TV or radio served as my background noise. Neither kicked out neutral, white noise, but both helped me control the sounds of a busy household environment.

Now a mother to four nearly-independent children, I have the luxury to pursue a lifelong dream: writing my first book. In the past year, I’ve tried writing on airplanes, but I don’t like the thought of anyone peering from behind to read my work-in-progress before it’s been revised and polished. Local coffee shops are out of the question; I might run into someone I know and neglect my work. Libraries would seem to make perfect sense, but here I was failing to appreciate the ambiance.

Immediately, I missed the solitude of my home office, the comfort of my own chair, and a self-indulgent cup of cream-and-sugar-laden coffee. I wondered how other writers could get anything done in public places like airports, coffee shops, and not-so-quiet libraries. I realized that the spaces we choose to write in often reflect our personalities.

My favorite writing space certainly says a lot about me. The office itself is mostly mine. Shelves holding my reference guides, journals, and a voice recorder share space with my husband’s golf and sports memorabilia. Filing cabinets hide my projects, mementos, and ideas squeezed tightly between the kids’ school papers and activity schedules. But it’s the desk that gives away the most telling signs of who I am.

KellyDeadwood-201410Oct-Desk

In the center of the desk is a lamp I purchased because it reminded me of my former pastor, Janet Noble-Richardson. She annually took teenagers who were involved in our church’s youth group from our city of Livonia, Michigan to New Wilmington Mission Conference at Westminster College in Pennsylvania. One year when Janet couldn’t be there, another friend, Linda, and I substituted as chaperones to continue the tradition for the children a little while longer. I spotted the stone lamp during an excursion from the conference to The Silk Road Fair Trade Market.  I was drawn to the piece because it had been made in Pakistan, the place where Janet had spent the first eleven years of her life living with her missionary parents and siblings. I could offer you a hokey explanation that she was like a “light unto the world,” which in fact she was, but that connection never entered my mind until now. Simply, the lamp reminded me of her because it came from the earth where she grew up. I missed her. She died in a car accident in 2006, the year before this trip. Linda still grieved for Janet too. She bought a matching lamp.

As I look at the other items on my desk, I know most of them hold special interest for me. Black and white pictures of my children, dressed in fancy clothes for my brother’s wedding, lie on either side of the lamp. Mr. Bill—yes, the one from Saturday Night Live of long ago—is a gift from my son. An “Angel of Friendship” figurine is from a best friend. My favorite Christmas photo sits out all year long and reminds me of my family’s playful side: that time we were wrapped in ribbons and bows. A bud vase holds pretty, girly, crystal-adorned pencils and pens that contrast with the most recent desktop accessory: one old, ugly, tattered Stieff puppet that I bought at an estate sale. What could have easily ended up in someone else’s trash became a treasure to me when it helped me get to know a friend’s shy five-year-old son. The boy at first thought the monkey was creepy (it is), but after a fun guessing game of I Spy, he affectionately named it “Chocolate.” It now sits over a plastic water bottle and remains one of the best memories I’ve ever bought, and it cost me merely 50 cents.

Besides the personal items, there are almost always piles of papers, the most ominous of which is the stack of “to-dos.” When I get overwhelmed, or take a picture for a blog post, I hide these piles from view and enjoy the multi-faceted illusion of having nothing to do and looking more organized than I am. At ease and surrounded by feelings of love, I leave the TV and radio off, sit down at my computer, and crack open the blinds of my window to the natural beauty outside. Noise can’t compete with my inner thoughts. Aah. This is my favorite writing space.

I’d love to know where your favorite writing space and/or your dream place is.

(One day, I hope to be writing in a beachfront condo overlooking the cool, white, crushed quartz sand that lines the shore in a certain place along the Gulf of Mexico. Maybe it won’t be completely quiet, but it will be peaceful.)

A Picture is worth a Thousand Words

When you read the title, A Picture is worth a Thousand Words, I bet most of you think of an award-winning photo. Maybe you think of the famous photo in Times Square with the sailor kissing the girl on V – J Day. Or, maybe it’s the little girl running naked and burned after the bombing of Hiroshima. Maybe it’s a more romantic image, say of Marilyn Monroe getting her skirt blown up from the air vent. The question I’d like to ask you is, what do all of these images have in common?

They each tell a story.

For this blog, I decided to do a writing exercise with you. I went to my Pinterest account where I have a board called Scene Inspiration and another one called Possible Character Images. I picked the images below and combined them together to tell a story. When I’m brainstorming or have writers block, I find it helpful to pull inspiring images that help me flush out a character, setting, etc. that I’m interested in adding to my many manuscript ideas. It especially helps when I’m just starting a project. In this case, it was because I was having trouble deciding where I wanted to go next in an existing manuscript. Stumped on one thing, it’s helpful to free-write when your creative mojo decides to take a hike, so that’s what I did. I encourage you to do the same thing if you’re having trouble.

As I was writing, something interesting happened. I’ll discuss what it was after the free-write below.

horse and woman

GQ Magazine UK, 15 February 2010, Sienna Miller: Out in the Open, Photo by Simon Emmett

 tree tunnel

Imgur.com, 2012, Gallery, 1000 Year Old Yew Trees in West Wales

 

I call it the Central Park incident. The only thing I remember of my life before then is my name, Anna Maria Bonite, and a majestic white speckled horse that felt like he was a part of who I am, and trees so gnarly, black, bloodied, and twisted, they give me nightmares. My driver’s license, which the police found in my pocket, said I was twenty-four at the time, and that I lived in New York City.

           It isn’t that I don’t try to remember my life before then, it’s that I can’t. Every time I try to open up that part of my memory, it’s as if I’m drowning in a sea of emotional pain so thick, it gives me the cold sweats and shakes bad enough that the symptoms hold me immobilized in bed for days.

It has taken me a long time to control the blank pockets of time locking that part of my consciousness away even though I desperately want to know what happened before stepping into the park. What made all those memories disappear? The one and only time I entered Central Park, there was a flash of memory that brought the insidious image of the trees to life. The memory was evidently so painful my brain decided to fritz out, protecting my psyche. It felt like my head split wide-open as sharp daggers sank into my skin, then only darkness. When I woke up, it was in a bed, a week later, at Mount Sinai Hospital. The doctors told me they could find nothing wrong with me physically, but whoever I was before that day was a dark, blank canvas. I was a functional, healthy person, able to do normal things. I was perfectly educated, but with no personal identity, no memories of going to school, of friends, of where I grew up; nothing.

Lately, things have been slipping pass my hard built walls, the walls in my psyche made of layers of steel and barbed wire. I can no longer keep my fear at bay while working and I have to fight the mounting panic. If it wasn’t for the blaring horns, the racing taxis that zig and zag through traffic, pedestrians at all hours, the sounds of people jabbering on phones, friends talking at the sidewalk cafes, the construction machines moving steel and concrete through the air as I walk the paved streets of my city, I would have gone mad years ago. It’s when I’m near a living landscape surrounded by trees that my memories deliver the sharp pain.

Six years have gone by since the Central Park incident, since all the smaller attacks in between.

Because of my “condition”, I’m not able to hold down a job for very long. Employers don’t take too kindly to me being absent more than a couple days a month. Well, okay, more than a couple days a month. Looking back on that morning getting fired never got any easier.

***

“I’m sorry, Anna Maria. I’m gonna have to let you go,” my latest boss mumbled while looking at his scuffed shoes. He felt bad, she knew. They always did.

I heard his words and I felt the weight of them on my shoulders. Was I surprised? No. That’s why that morning I decided for a change of scenery. The words still hurt though.

That morning, when the sun leaked into my tiny Manhattan apartment, I crawled out from under my favorite white satin sheets and down comforter–my only luxury– and made my first cup of coffee. Wandering over to the map, tacked to the wall, the fifty states stood out in a pastel array of colors. Lifting my mug, I blew out a breath, watched the steam float away, and took a sip, hoping my first delicious swallow of Columbian goodness would help me decipher my troubled thoughts.

“Where should I go?”

***

I didn’t want to leave New York, but I was feeling a pull in my gut toward something, I just didn’t know what. My eyes kept drifting toward the west coast but eventually they moved over the map’s mitten state. I felt it in my stomach, a small flutter getting wilder and wilder every time my eyes landed on Michigan.

A shiver raced up spine and out my fingertips. There were too many trees in Michigan. Why was my brain telling me to go there?

Maybe if I moved to a larger metropolis, I would be okay.

Moving closer to the map, scanning the bigger cities, my eyes landed on Detroit. It was no Manhattan, but I could make it work. I just had to forgo all the great parks that the state touted.

Another sip of coffee and I made my decision. I was moving to Michigan.

Would the change in location give me answers? I didn’t know. Whatever the pull was, I had never felt it before, so my gut was my compass and I was following it.

It wasn’t quite a thousand words but it was a worthwhile exercise. Because my thoughts are on the series I’m working on, the characters are always present in my mind, be it consciously or unconsciously. While writing, the Anna Maria Bonite character popped into my head and it created a new direction for her character. Right now in my story, the reader will presume she is dead. Therefore, even though I am stuck on the manuscript I’m working on now, something good happened trying to get myself unstuck.

Write Something

“You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” Jodi Picoult

Creative writing is not the same as making a pot of homemade chicken noodle soup. Once you put an ingredient in the pot, you can’t remove that item. The flavor changes with each addition of a vegetable, meat, or spice. Soup-making mistakes aren’t easily corrected.

Writing is different. You can put on paper descriptive words that don’t quite capture your thoughts. Continue writing. You can change words that you have written, but you can’t change what you don’t write.

Are you staring at a blank sheet of paper or blank screen? That’s writer’s block. Try quick writing which is timed, continuous writing without self-editing. Pick a subject; don’t agonize about it. Open a dictionary, novel, or newspaper. Pick any word. That becomes your topic for freewriting. This seems silly at first. However, your mind isn’t hampered by spelling errors, punctuation concerns, or difficult plot points. Write for fifteen minutes without stopping to change anything.

My first experience with quick writing came when a creative writing instructor told the class to write the word “chair” at the top of a sheet of paper. We were given ten minutes to write about a chair. At first I struggled. When I began to imagine who might sit in that chair, my writing took off.

Don’t want to try quick writing? Write about something you’ve seen or heard today. After reading a newspaper article, give your opinion of the information or on the writer’s interpretation of the event. Read a book and change one significant detail to give your spin to the tale.

Another way to stop the dreaded writer’s block is to take an idea from a book you’ve read or movie you’ve seen recently. Pick a scenario you would have created differently. Write this scene your way without stopping to correct spelling, change names, or edit in any way.

Try this: Close your eyes and picture a moonlit beach in the Caribbean. If you’re into murder mysteries, picture a couple walking down the beach when suddenly the woman pulls out a gun and shoots the man. If you’re into romance, picture that same couple suddenly dropping to the sand to make out. If you’re into science fiction, picture the couple discovering unidentifiable footprints in the sand. If you’re into memoirs, try to remember the last time you walked a sandy beach.

Do you self-edit as you write? Stop it! Editing while you’re working on your manuscript stops the creative flow. If you think of an alternate word, type it in red, underline it, or put it in the margin without deleting what you’ve already written. Check your thesaurus later to select the best word. You can always edit later by adding thoughts, deleting dialogue, or changing plots. YOU CAN’T CHANGE WHAT YOU DON’T WRITE

Readers World: A Spartan inside Athens

WordPress › Error

There has been a critical error on this website.

Learn more about troubleshooting WordPress.