Kevin

While the Mundane Takes Place – Write, Write, Write!

Unless you’re some all-powerful deity, you have a little mundane in your life. It’s true. Even the movers and shakers of Hollywood and the Tower of Song get to partake from the Table of Mundanity. Nobody is exempt. It’s kind of like dying–nobody gets out alive. You don’t have to be a poet to know that simple truth. Life is dying. And dying is living.

It’s the middle road between birth and death that matters. And not just the glitzy stuff. There’s more to life than podiums and celebrations. So much of our living time is filled with simple moments of non-fabulousness. As a writer, I try to pay particularly close attention to these moments. I always found that it is in the simple less spectacular events where story hides. Like a crouching lion, the details lurk under the surface of our mundane downtime. It is when I’m bored or idle or daydreaming that I ask myself, “What can be found in this time?” “What universal truth, wisdom, parallel, insight, emotion can be found within this moment?”

When a writer connects with that part of us that is universal–that humanness that we all share–that is when the fireworks go off. You don’t necessarily reread a passage in a story where the most exciting seat-of-your-pants action happens. But if you find that one special sentence that crawls down inside you…that sentence you recognize and know could have come from your very heart…that’s the sentence you’re going to read and reread. You’re gonna fully relate. You’re gonna say an emphatic, “YEAH!” or “YES!” It could be a mundane part in the story where the main character slices into an apple with a paring knife. It could be the way light comes into a room and rallies dust motes to dance. These mundane moments captured for one great big universal AHHHH! That’s what I love about writing. About reading. We share the simple moments that go into a life…the moments that connect EVENT to EVENT. Just those mundane moments that are filled with the hidden knowledge and wonder of universal commonality.

Don’t overlook a thing when you’re putting a story together. To capture the heart of the reader, you will need to capture the essence of humanity. It’s not found in the glamorous and intriguing fabulousness of the EVENTS. It’s found in the things we do every day. The minutiae. That will capture your reader and allow them to step inside your story bus…just to see where it is you’re going to take them!

Crash and Burn – Not Feeling Very Writer-y

Sometimes I masquerade as a writer. The costume is cheap…jeans and a t-shirt. Rips optional.

Other times, I almost feel like a writer.

And then there are the times like today. I know I have written. But what does it all mean? If you write every day, are you a writer? And surely you’re an author if you have books published, no?

I’ve been reading over my words and wondering what it is I’m doing. I think it’s time to attempt an outline again. I feel like I have run out of things to write about. I struggled a bit at the Muskoka Novel Marathon a couple of weeks back. I went from speed writing early on to trying to dig up stuff to write about. I ended up writing AND THEN THIS HAPPENED AND THEN THIS HAPPENED AND THEN THIS HAPPENED. It no longer felt smooth. The flow got cut off somewhere during the weekend. I don’t like struggling with words and ideas. It’s not something I usually do. I am going to attempt to outline a novel. I have failed miserably at this in the past. I eventually said that it wasn’t for me…but now I’m pretty sure it just wasn’t for me then. Let the experiment begin!

In the meantime, I’m kind of feeling more like a grandfather than a writer. So…here’s a picture of my grandson, Edward. I took it while we were at the park yesterday.

Even Writers Take a Holiday – No They Don’t!

I’ll be a farmer, or a pickler of pickles, or a toastmaster, or a bicyclist, or a telephone operator, or a lighthouse keeper, or a brakeman for the train company, or a watcher, or a maniacal laugh-track laugher, or a cowboy, or a grocery cart getter, or a lumberjack, or a ventriloquist, or a floor polisher, or a wax-on-wax-offer, or a door-to-door magazine seller, or a cellar dweller. Just don’t make me be a writer right now! Ack!

Ever get those days? You would do anything but the thing you have to (want to) do? I even considered macramé plant holder maker today. What’s a word? They look so weird to the eye today. And I have to put them one after the other together in a row until they make some form of discernible sense? What now!? Say it isn’t so!

These are the days…

Today, I shall sail a ship to a far-off port where there are no pens, no paper, no computers, no notebooks, no words, no letters, no readers, no books. I’m allowed you know. Yes I am. Don’t look at me like that. Writers can forswear writing if they want to. Yes we can! (I may appear to be arguing with you, the reader, but trust me…it is ME that I argue with). What is it about writers that makes them think they are not allowed to take a break, step back from words for a day? It is okay to do so.

If you’ve had enough of words for now, grab a stinking paintbrush. Paint the world with brushstrokes, not with letters forming words forming sentences forming stories. Give yourself a break. It’s the best way to re-energize yourself!

It’s a SNOW DAY! Have fun! Enjoy your day off, SLACKER!

REMEMBER THIS: Writers NEVER take a holiday. Even when we’re not writing, we’re thinking about what we’re going to be writing. SO…if the words aren’t coming, give yourself a day off. Enjoy something else. The writing can wait. It will percolate in the background while you’re playing hooky!