Month: July 2012

Posted on

Where I write

It’s true, a per­son can write any­where. On the bus, at a park bench or even in the bathtub. I be­lieve each per­son writes best when they’re in a place that is per­fect for them.

Some like the back­ground buzz of a cap­puccino bar while oth­ers thrive on the clat­ter of key­board keys as they pound out story after story in a news­pa­per news­room. Personally, I prefer the quiet am­bi­ance of my home of­fice. And, as the old­est room in our 96-year old house, the room def­in­itely has ambiance.

To be­gin with, its ample size provides plenty of room for two desks, built-in and port­able book­cases, a fil­ing cab­in­et (there are more in the base­ment) and two tables to pile things on. (Despite the best of in­ten­tions, I’m a piler, not a filer.)

But it’s the transom win­dows that I love best. At 1.6 metres tall by one metre wide  (or 5 feet, 3 inches and 3 feet, one inch for the met­ric­ally chal­lenged) the nat­ur­al light provides a wel­come res­pite from the glow of the com­puter screen.

And to tell the truth, they also present ample op­por­tun­it­ies for dis­trac­tion. In the spring my eyes are drawn to a snowstorm of white plum blos­soms, a mini­ature forest of daf­fodils and a two-storey tall mock or­ange. Fall storms bring a rust col­oured car­pet of plate-sized maple leaves.

The view from my win­dow one day this May.

But it’s the wild­life that lures me out of my com­puter chair. Over the years I’ve watched deer, rac­coons, mink and squir­rels, as well as fer­al cats and rab­bits out­side my writ­ing room window.

Then there’s the caw­ing of crows and ravens and the high pitched screech of an eagle. Or the ca­co­phony of sound an army of small birds made the day a Barred owl perched in a Douglas fir. I watched as a hum­ming­bird dar­ted for­ward to stab the en­emy in the chest with a tiny beak. Despite his or her bravery, the owl did­n’t budge.

The most sur­pris­ing dis­turb­ance though, was the day my fin­gers paused on the key­board as I wondered why I thought I heard a tur­key gob­bling. We do live in a rur­al area but there aren’t any do­mest­ic fowl in the neighbourhood.

But when I peered out the win­dow there was a full grown tom, tail feath­ers fanned out in an im­press­ive dis­play, dan­cing around a flock of fe­male tur­keys on the lawn next door. I don’t know where these do­mest­ic birds es­caped from or how they went wild, but they hung around for a month or so, un­til one by one, they all disappeared.

After 22 years of en­joy­ing a great view and hav­ing a ring­side seat to nature’s drama, I’m totally ad­dicted. If we ever move, at the top of my cri­ter­ia list for a new house will be a writ­ing space with big win­dows and a view.

 

Posted on

Where I write

It’s true, a per­son can write any­where. On the bus, at a park bench or even in the bathtub. I be­lieve each per­son writes best when they’re in a place that is per­fect for them.

Some like the back­ground buzz of a cap­puccino bar while oth­ers thrive on the clat­ter of key­board keys as they pound out story after story in a news­pa­per news­room. Personally, I prefer the quiet am­bi­ance of my home of­fice. And, as the old­est room in our 96-year old house, the room def­in­itely has ambiance.

To be­gin with, its ample size provides plenty of room for two desks, built-in and port­able book­cases, a fil­ing cab­in­et (there are more in the base­ment) and two tables to pile things on. (Despite the best of in­ten­tions, I’m a piler, not a filer.)

But it’s the transom win­dows that I love best. At 1.6 metres tall by one metre wide  (or 5 feet, 3 inches and 3 feet, one inch for the met­ric­ally chal­lenged) the nat­ur­al light provides a wel­come res­pite from the glow of the com­puter screen.

And to tell the truth, they also present ample op­por­tun­it­ies for dis­trac­tion. In the spring my eyes are drawn to a snowstorm of white plum blos­soms, a mini­ature forest of daf­fodils and a two-storey tall mock or­ange. Fall storms bring a rust col­oured car­pet of plate-sized maple leaves.

The view from my win­dow one day this May.

But it’s the wild­life that lures me out of my com­puter chair. Over the years I’ve watched deer, rac­coons, mink and squir­rels, as well as fer­al cats and rab­bits out­side my writ­ing room window.

Then there’s the caw­ing of crows and ravens and the high pitched screech of an eagle. Or the ca­co­phony of sound an army of small birds made the day a Barred owl perched in a Douglas fir. I watched as a hum­ming­bird dar­ted for­ward to stab the en­emy in the chest with a tiny beak. Despite his or her bravery, the owl did­n’t budge.

The most sur­pris­ing dis­turb­ance though, was the day my fin­gers paused on the key­board as I wondered why I thought I heard a tur­key gob­bling. We do live in a rur­al area but there aren’t any do­mest­ic fowl in the neighbourhood.

But when I peered out the win­dow there was a full grown tom, tail feath­ers fanned out in an im­press­ive dis­play, dan­cing around a flock of fe­male tur­keys on the lawn next door. I don’t know where these do­mest­ic birds es­caped from or how they went wild, but they hung around for a month or so, un­til one by one, they all disappeared.

After 22 years of en­joy­ing a great view and hav­ing a ring­side seat to nature’s drama, I’m totally ad­dicted. If we ever move, at the top of my cri­ter­ia list for a new house will be a writ­ing space with big win­dows and a view.

 

Posted on

Rebellious Worker-Bee Rides the Back of the Alligator — guest blog by Amanda Hale

The act of writ­ing is a fine bal­ance between hard work and in­spir­a­tion. Personally I lean to­wards the work­er-bee end of this spec­trum and have spent many years slog­ging away, chained to my desk while put­ting in the ne­ces­sary hours with dogged per­sist­ence. There have been spells of re­bel­lion when I’ve sur­rendered to the se­duc­tion of an in­spir­a­tion which has usu­ally taken me over the top, re­quir­ing ruth­less edit­ing on the re­turn to work­er-bee mode.

In re­cent years I have found my bal­ance as a writer by crab-walk­ing away from these two ex­tremes to place my­self some­where ap­par­ently quite dif­fer­ent, but iron­ic­ally in bal­ance. The es­sence of this ex­er­cise is that I catch my­self by sur­prise. I will tell you a story.

Several years ago I trav­elled to Cuba, laptop in hand, for a three-month stay. My in­ten­tion was to write a nov­el I had been re­search­ing for sev­er­al years, a dark ac­cu­mu­la­tion with­in me. The nov­el was set in WW II Europe and it dealt with a fam­ily whose ab­sent fath­er was in­terned dur­ing the war as a fascist.

Baracoa, Cuba

I sat on the patio shuff­ling through pa­pers and note­books, listen­ing to roost­ers crow­ing and pigs snort­ing nearby, frus­tra­tion build­ing in me as I tried to place my­self un­der the dark cloud of Europe while all I wanted to do was jump on my bi­cycle and cruise the streets of Baracoa.

After a week I shoved my re­search pa­pers back into my briefcase and began writ­ing stor­ies about the life go­ing on around me – about my Cuban friends and their daily ad­ven­tures, and about my own struggle to un­der­stand their ex­traordin­ary culture.

Cuba, like much of Latin America and the Caribbean, is a sur­real­ist­ic place where North Americans and Europeans are con­foun­ded by the ab­sence of that fa­mil­i­ar lo­gic which en­ables us to func­tion smoothly. Typically I hit the wall half way through my an­nu­al stay in Cuba, then I can sur­render and fully enter the Cuban reality.

Thus evolved my col­lec­tion of Cuban stor­ies – In the Embrace of the Alligator – Cubans call their is­land ‘el caí­man’ – the al­ligator. I did not in­tend to pub­lish a col­lec­tion of stor­ies about Cuba. I began to write those stor­ies out of des­per­a­tion be­cause I have to write. That is how I make sense of the world. The stor­ies crept up on me, de­mand­ing to be writ­ten and shared.

Intention is a great and ne­ces­sary thing — it gives dir­ec­tion — but en­slave­ment to it is death. Everything must break away from its ori­gins in or­der to achieve full po­ten­tial. What I’m talk­ing about is let­ting go of con­trol in or­der to let the char­ac­ters breathe, to let the story live.

I be­lieve that most char­ac­ters are em­an­a­tions of the writer, and that there is a mys­tery which re­quires us to stand aside and wait to be sur­prised, chal­lenged, and en­lightened by our own cre­ations. Writing at its best is a jour­ney of dis­cov­ery, and while the writer must be in con­trol she must hold the reins very loosely and be pre­pared to let the al­ligator take her deep, to the lim­its of her lung ca­pa­city, with trust that she will sur­face to re­write and edit what she has learned, and to cruise the streets once more for inspiration.

Amanda Hale

Paula’s note: Amanda Hale is the au­thor of three nov­els, a col­lec­tion of stor­ies, and a novella. She is also a poet, screen­writer, and has re­cently writ­ten a lib­retto. Amanda  di­vides her time between Hornby Island, Toronto, and Cuba. To find out more vis­it www​.aman​da​hale​.com.