Tag: Paula Wild

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Light on the Serengeti

 

A few people have asked why I have a pic­ture of the Serengeti plains on the bio page of my website.

The an­swer is simple: this is my fa­vour­ite photo from a trip to Tanzania. In fact, I like it so much, I re­cently had it en­larged into an 18 x 36-inch can­vas wrap that now hangs in my house.

It was taken when our two sa­fari jeeps stopped lit­er­ally in the middle of nowhere, away from the kopjes where ex­tens­ive lion prides lolled and the life and death drama of wilde­beest and cro­codiles along the Mara River. I wasn’t the only per­son struck by the raw, open beauty; our little herd of thir­teen hu­mans was mostly si­lent, ex­cept for a few whispers.

Some people ask why I didn’t choose a pho­to­graph with an­im­als. Believe me, I have tons of pho­tos fea­tur­ing ele­phants, leo­pards, mon­keys and more. But, to me, the Serengeti im­age goes deep­er. It’s about the land and sky, the smell and feel of Africa, and the way the sun touches it all. It’s a place, once vis­ited, that is nev­er forgotten.

The im­mens­ity of this land­scape that can stretch be­yond hu­man sight vi­brates with a si­lence that is palp­able. Eyes scan the ho­ri­zon while ears feel wide open, hear­ing only the gentle rust­ing of golden grasses.

There was a sense of won­der and an­ti­cip­a­tion, know­ing that even though the land ap­peared bare of life, there was the pos­sib­il­ity that at any mo­ment, a lion, cheta, zebra or buf­falo could set paw or hoof in our viewscape.

Even though it’s hanging in the hall, I can see the Serengeti im­age from my bed. If I wake up at the right time, the sun shines in through a win­dow, high­light­ing only the sky por­tion of the pic­ture. It looks like the sun is rising in the Serengeti.

While the morn­ing light works its ma­gic, I of­ten con­sider the vast land­scape of my life – some be­hind me, some yet to come — and all the pos­sib­il­it­ies there are to explore.

As a writer, these of­ten re­volve around my cur­rent pro­ject. Will I fin­ish the chapter I’m work­ing on today? The en­tire book by the end of the year? Or will the story sud­denly fol­low a dif­fer­ent tan­gent, tak­ing me on a new journey?

The end­less po­ten­tial for com­bin­ing ideas and words is an as­pect of writ­ing that I’m par­tic­u­larly fond of. And now the Serengeti re­minds me of that every day.

Copyright on all pho­tos Paula Wild

 

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Have You Ever Heard A Whale Exhale?

I have, in fact, many times. And even though I was awed at each oc­cur­rence, none made me smile quite the way this new pic­ture book does.

The rol­lick­ing and lushly il­lus­trated tale leads read­ers on an amus­ing jour­ney into the quirky won­ders of the sea, sky and stars. Sea lions stir up a stink, seagulls shriek and wary sea anemones clench their tentacles tightly.

The clev­er rhymes are the work of Caroline Woodward, au­thor of nu­mer­ous fic­tion and non­fic­tion books for chil­dren, teens and adults. For this story, Woodward draws on her af­fin­ity for nature, es­pe­cially the thir­teen years she spent as a light­house keep­er on the West Coast of Vancouver Island.

Claire Watson’s blend of vi­brant col­or and vivid, fun-filled scenes cre­ate en­chant­ing im­ages. The artist, il­lus­trat­or and graph­ic de­sign­er has spent most of her life on the west coast and her know­ledge and pas­sion for the land, sea, and creatures that in­hab­it these spaces is on full display.

Readers of all ages will chuckle at the antics por­trayed in this light-hearted story. A per­fect read be­fore – or after — a beach or woods out­ing  and even on a rainy day while stuck inside.

For dates and times of read­ings and events vis­it: https://​www​.car​oline​wood​ward​.ca/​n​e​w​s​_​e​v​e​n​t​s​.​htm

Images cour­tesy of Pownal Street Press.

 

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The pros and cons of writing with a view

 

Waves pound­ing on a rocky out­crop­ping, an eagle perched in a fir tree, the sky drenched in pink and or­ange as the sun slips be­yond the ho­ri­zon. Every writer dreams of a view like this. But is it be­ne­fi­cial? Does it beck­on the cre­at­ive muse? Nudge you into writ­ing faster and better?

In my thirty-plus years as a writer, I’ve worked in many spaces. The first was at a desk in the corner of the liv­ing room. My nine-year old step­daugh­ter had a tough time un­der­stand­ing why she wasn’t sup­posed to in­ter­rupt me.

But I’ve also been lucky enough to write where I had views of wa­ter, treed areas and wild­life. I fondly re­call the little sum­mer house I ren­ted as a private writ­ing re­treat from Shannon and Brian on their is­land sanc­tu­ary in the Nuchatlitz archipelago.

I loved my writ­ing re­treat in this little cab­in and spend­ing time with Shannon and Brian at Nuchatlitz.

My fa­vour­ite writ­ing space, how­ever, was in an Arts & Crafts her­it­age house I lived in for dec­ades. Two huge transom win­dows provided ex­pans­ive views of dog­wood trees, large flower­ing shrubs, and maple trees with leaves as big as din­ner plates.

Visual memor­ies in­clude a snow­fall of pink cherry blos­soms, a hum­ming­bird pier­cing a small owl’s breast with its beak, and a deer lick­ing the in­side of a fer­al rabbit’s ear.

This is where I wrote a weekly arts column for the loc­al news­pa­per, hun­dreds of arti­cles for main­stream and al­tern­at­ive magazines and six non-fic­tion books. But this was not my most pro­duct­ive writ­ing space. That was a tiny room upstairs.

An en­gross­ing book to work on, The Cougar de­man­ded my full at­ten­tion. The phone and even the sound of my part­ner walk­ing around in oth­er areas of the house were un­wel­come intrusions.

So I took my laptop to the grey room. The only fur­niture was a bed, a desk and a book­case. To my de­light, I couldn’t hear any­thing in the rest of the house. And I didn’t have ac­cess to the Internet, so an­oth­er dis­trac­tion was eliminated.

There was an un­ex­pec­ted quirk, though. The desk faced the win­dow, and I couldn’t work with the light shin­ing in my eyes. There was no room to move the desk, so I closed the blinds. Then I real­ized that light from the oth­er bed­room shone in the open door­way, cre­at­ing glare on my screen. I shut the door, only to dis­cov­er that the light from the over­head fix­ture also cre­ated screen glare. So, I turned it off.

I didn’t know if I could write solely by the light of my laptop screen. But strangely, it worked. I felt like a cap­tain at the helm of a space­ship ca­reen­ing into out­er space. I couldn’t hear any­thing, see any­thing, or google any­thing. It was just me and The Cougar. And I wrote up a storm.

The up­shot? Having a view to write by is lovely but not ne­ces­sar­ily the most effective.

That said, no mat­ter where you shape your stor­ies, it’s al­ways a good idea to peri­od­ic­ally give your eyes a break from the screen. That’s the per­fect time to find a win­dow with a view. And if you have time, to go out­side into it.

Top im­age is the view from one of the win­dows in my former her­it­age house. 

 

 

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Painter Bev Byerley on creativity

The west coast land­scape is the cre­at­ive in­spir­a­tion for most of Bev Byerley’s paintings. 

As a writer, cre­ativ­ity in­trigues me. Why do we seek it? How do we find it? 

While I con­tin­ue to ex­plore the concept in my per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al life, I’m also curi­ous about how people in oth­er fields of artist­ic en­deavor, find their muse. Painter Bev Byerley was kind enough to share her thoughts below. 

First of all, I take pho­tos of my fa­vor­ite places. Usually it’s just a few in­ter­est­ing lines I see in these pho­tos that sparks my cre­at­ive interest.

Then I sketch the bare bones, em­phas­iz­ing the lines that I find in­triguing, with a paint brush and dark col­oured paint. After the ini­tial sketch I’m full of artist­ic ex­cite­ment and be­gin to block in col­ours and cov­er the canvas.

It’s usu­ally about this time that I real­ize just how much work it’s go­ing to take to pro­duce the im­age I have in my head. My en­ergy level wanes and I have to push my­self to keep going.

But when I do, there comes the point that I can see the fin­ish line and the ini­tial spark re­turns with all the en­ergy and en­thu­si­asm to com­plete the piece.

For me, paint­ing is like walk­ing a long dis­tance; pla­cing one foot in front of an­oth­er, and an­oth­er, and another…

Then sud­denly you’re there.

To view more of Bev’s work, vis­it www​.bevby​er​ley​.com.