Ode to the Storyteller within

Stories tell us
where we’ve been
Who we are
And sometimes where we are going

Your life is a story, always evolving and changing
How are you going to tell it?

How are you going to sell it
And still have value for yourself
[sgchris/2005]

Questions, questions, questions

As a writer it seems I always have questions, and always want to really ask most of them. Hopefully not being too annoying about it, but I have boundless curiosity and really want to know, well, a lot of things. But as I saw recently it’s not just about questions, it’s about asking the right questions. Not just to get answers for my own benefit but to get people to answer questions for themselves. Most people don’t want to be told anything, not really. Even just trying to caution or warn can get very tricky, since from what I’ve seen it seems most people really have their minds made up anyway. But if you can ask them questions, the right questions, they can figure things out for themselves. Which is as it should be, since they probably aren’t really listening to you anyway, they are only hearing what they want to hear. But from a young age we are taught to answer questions, whether aloud or just to ourselves. So if we ask the right questions hopefully they’ll be answered. If only for ourselves.

So, what questions should I be asking you?

Are writers normally socially inept?

I’m a writer, doesn’t that give me a license to be socially challenged? Okay, so not a card-carrying-member excuse, but at least an excuse?

As a writer, I spend inordinate amounts of time locked up in my own head struggling with characters over what they will and will not say, not to mention will/will not do. Makes me wary with real people that I have absolutely no control over. Not that I have control over my characters, come to think of it. Not sure that even killing them off is a real threat to some of them, since think they would come back to haunt me. Oh, not in my own plotting perhaps, but why do I get the feeling they’d find a way to show up in my writing group’s fantasy driven stories? And why am I not surprised much by this. Hmmm, maybe I should go investigate my storehouse of characters and do a line-up now.

Oh, and if you see me out and about please say ‘Hi’ and smile first. Yeah, I know most of you won’t know who I am at all. That’s okay, ‘cause I’m sure most of the people you come across today could use a smile and a ‘Hi’ to brighten their day, even a little. After all, you don’t know what kind of line-ups they’ve been involved with.

Writers as Readers

I have heard, and I tend to agree, that to be a successful writer you must be an avid reader. Most all the writers I know are readers, especially the accomplished writers.

It’s interesting that writers are such readers. It wouldn’t seem to be just because they are reading to see what their competition is putting out, is it?

Do we read to find others in worse shape than we are, or to find answers to the conflicts we have ourselves? Do we read to find ourselves another world, one richer and more vibrant than our humdrum everyday sameness life? I, for one, would rather read about the excitement of the hero/heroine than be one myself. But perhaps we all are heroes and heroines in our own lives, in some small way, and perhaps to only one or two. But isn’t that what really matters when we come back to our own small little world? The grace and vibrancy that we breathe into everyday life. Isn’t that what defines who we truly are?

Who are you today? What are you reading? Why do you read?

Ode to allergy sufferers everywhere

Been out about, too tired to think let alone write. But to not leave this space so blank I put out this little tribute, silly as it is, for allergy sufferers everywhere.

Spring has sprung,
It’s begun to run.
Should be thankful it’s not the pipes.
It’s just the nose, please pass the wipes.

Bemused at writing

I am a bemused writer.

Often just bemused because I am a writer.

And now a bemused blogger too [thanks, or no thanks, to my writing group].

How has this all come about? And from a person that really doesn’t like to write! That has been known to declare emphatically that I hate it!

I’ve come around, at least somewhat, and no longer use that word to describe my feelings about writing. I still will probably never use the word love to describe it, as I’ve heard from other writers. But I’ve come to realize that hate really is too strong a statement, or so complex an issue I’ve not really written even to myself. Since I’ve always written in some form, usually little poems or thoughts I call snippets [which I might include some day]. It’s always just been a part of what I do, scribbling on whatever surface is handy at the time to get the thought down, having learned from Hard experience if I don’t get the brilliance down right when it comes it often never shines so brightly again. I’ve discovered just as those that haunt the physical finds of yesteryear that most times all the polishing in the world will never restore it to what it was originally.

Perhaps I have come to more of an acceptance of the pain and frustration that is a part of writing. A part of the pain and frustration of writing that is the racking of brains, and sometimes the dictionaries and whoever/whatever is handy, for the perfect words to perfectly convey what those yammering characters are trying to get me to write down for them. Or just adequately get out, depending on the ever growing skills I hope I am accumulating as a writer. And trying to master the skill of the imagination truce with all the varied and loud, insistent characters always roaming and clopping through my imagination at all times. Or maybe they have just all worn me down enough to do their bidding, at least on the page. And caused me to begin to accept my fate in life as a writer.

Oh I know people have wondered about my reluctance as a writer. Bemused people for a bemused writer. Perhaps things will all become clear for all of us someday. Or at least clearer.

[So, what are you bemused by? And what are you waiting to see clearer? Are they one and the same?

Peer pressure an insidious thing.

Peer pressure is an insidious thing, which according to my dictionary, insidious can mean treacherous or seductive. So peer pressure can possibly be a good thing inspiring us to be more, do more, or it can be a bad thing, taking us out of and away from who we really are for reasons that have nothing to do with the real us.
You’d even think peer pressure would peter out at some age in life. That it’s only for the unsure gawky teenager trying to find themselves and where they fit.
But apparently not, given that’s how this blog got started in the first place. Oh, I’d thought about a ‘web presence’ and needing one and all that, at least according to people advising writers about the ‘new’ age of writing and publishing.
I just figured I’d think about all that stuff later. When I had time to really think about it and really witty things to say of course.

Well, I can’t say I have any witty things to say yet but with all my writing group putting such witty things on their blogs and with all the laughing and talking about them, I was feeling decidedly left out. Which is obviously where the seductive insidiousness came in. And why I am sitting here and trying to figure something amusing or ingeniously clever in conception or execution to write. [I had to foray over to the dictionary again to avoid the overuse of ‘witty.’ Too much?]

So since witty words, or even amusing or ingeniously clever ones, aren’t rolling off my fingers right now I figure I should give it up. For now anyway, and wait for the peer pressure to wind its treacherous and seductive way from their blogs. Or brilliant enlightenment. Whichever comes first.

[So what has peer pressure caused you do? Buy something you didn't really need, or maybe even like? Do something others would disapprove of? Or just do things - like start blogs.... come-on' it'll be our secret... ;-)

Yes, I actually have a Blog

At least it looks like I do. Sortta.

Although it doesn't look anything like the funny, attractive, interesting blogs of my Writing Group. From Bill's, The Wildcat's Lair with his very funny and irreverent 'cat' Frank, and Bill's wife Sheri, with her own Dragon Queen Chronicles, to Katharine with-an-A 's Eat Cookies Be Quiet.

This quiet rendition of a blog has no-where-no-way near the pizzazz of theirs. But as we have all discovered in our time together as a writing group, we all have our own unique style, talent, and writing voice.

Maybe like the books I'm trying to pull into final shape with my writing. Perhaps I can pull this into shape along with my books.

Or maybe I'll just go over to theirs and bug them for awhile. ;-D

Bemused Writer

How I've come to find myself sitting here writing this is a journey still going on....

Want to come along?